Other streaming services may keep raising their prices, but the ad-supported Tubi remains free — and it still boasts a broad selection of movies and TV shows to rival all those other platforms that make you enter your credit card information and pay money. Tubi doesn't require a subscription or even a login to enjoy its huge library of movies and TV shows; it just asks for the patience to sit through some commercials.
The movies we've chosen as the best are all good enough that enduring a few ad blocks seems like a fair trade. We've toured Tubi's endless rows of content for the Oscar winners, high-quality blockbusters, and beloved cult favorites that you'll want to add to your watchlist (though that functionality will require you to log in). Whether you like unsettling thrillers, astonishing action, smart comedies, or the best of the bizarre, we've got picks for your taste.
Here are the best movies on Tubi.
1. Coraline
A stop-motion wonder, Coraline is creepy and off-kilter viewing for the whole family — if your family is a little off-kilter themselves. Adapted and directed by The Nightmare Before Christmas and Wendell and Wild filmmaker Henry Selick, this 2009 animated movie has a similarly spooky vibe that will appeal to children who like things a little darker than Disney. Dakota Fanning voices the eponymous Coraline, a little girl who discovers a door in her family's new (old) home, which leads to a strange, seemingly nicer version of her own world. Her parents are there too, but in this universe, they have buttons for eyes…
Coraline lost the Oscar for Best Animated Feature to Up, but it remains one of the strongest animated films of this century. Based on the bestseller by Neil Gaiman, it's full of wonder and weirdness, and it's difficult to watch without feeling awe at both the artistry and imagination behind its creation. Younger viewers might also be a little freaked out by some of its creepier imagery. However, if you and your kids love the look and feel of Coraline, Tubi also has Missing Link, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls from stop-motion studio Laika, which are almost as good as this all-timer of a children's movie.
How to watch: Coraline is now streaming on Tubi.
2. Ingrid Goes West
This dark comedy is Single White Female for the Instagram era (aka a movie for people who weren't even born for the release of Single White Female way back in 1992). Ingrid Goes West stars Aubrey Plaza as Ingrid, a young woman who becomes so obsessed with influencer Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) that she moves to California to insert herself into her idol's life using clues gleaned from IG. (BRB, setting my profile to "private.") Ingrid's antics begin with dognapping and only escalate, as Ingrid's plot brings her closer to Taylor and closer to exposure. Beyond the perfectly sardonic presence of Plaza and an equally well-cast Olsen, Ingrid Goes West also features Billy Magnussen as Taylor's suspicious dirtbag of a brother and O'Shea Jackson Jr. as Ingrid's love interest and reluctant partner in crime.
Released in 2017, the influencer's aesthetic (and particular use of hashtags) already seems like it was from another age, but the insights and humor remain relevant. Ingrid Goes West raises a lot of questions about social media and how we represent ourselves on it that still work after a million UX changes, but the biggest question it leaves us with is: Why has no one given Jackson the lead in a romantic comedy yet? He is endlessly charming in this movie, and he — and we — deserve better. #manifesting
How to watch: Ingrid Goes West is now streaming on Tubi.
3. Apollo 11
Timed for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, this 2019 documentary leaves you in awe over what humanity can accomplish with science, technology, and cooperation. What sets Apollo 11 apart from other films and TV shows about the momentous event is the never-before-seen footage included here by director and editor Todd Douglas Miller, who incorporates recently discovered 65mm large-format film of the event. This isn't a documentary that relies on talking-head interviews, narration, or graphics to tell its story after the fact; instead, it is composed of contemporaneous film and audio that gives the film a sense of urgency. Even though we know that the NASA mission succeeded, there's still tension throughout this movie due to the precarious and wildly ambitious nature of the endeavor.
In addition to footage of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, as well as of Mission Control, Apollo 11 includes the crowds gathered to watch history being made. They stare up in wonder at what NASA and the U.S. were attempting, and it's impossible to not feel the weight of the effort decades later from your couch. Apollo 11 is top-tier non-fiction filmmaking, as entertaining as it is inspiring.
How to watch: Apollo 11 is now streaming on Tubi.
4. I Saw the Devil
If you're looking for a real feel-bad time, I Saw the Devil is the perfect pick to ruin your day (complimentary). Directed by Kim Jee-woon, this 2010 Korean horror movie is a masterful story of violence and vengeance that pits a government agent (Lee Byung-hun) against the serial killer (Choi Min-sik) who brutally murdered his fiancée. They play a cat-and-mouse game over almost two-and-a-half hours that finds the agent capturing and releasing his prey multiple times, torturing the murderer — and the audience.
Sometimes Tubi's ad blocks can make it difficult to stay engaged throughout a film, but with I Saw the Devil, they offer a welcome respite from all the tension and trauma. Whatever bothers you, this movie has it: dismemberment, cannibalism, sexual assault, and truly extreme violence. I Saw the Devil is bleak as hell in the best of ways, and if you can watch it more than once, you're made of stronger stuff than I am. But even if you can only manage one viewing in your lifetime, its grim story promises to stick with you.
How to watch: I Saw the Devil is now streaming on Tubi.
5. Short Term 12
This tender and funny indie drama from 2013 features a cast of young stars just before they got big, including future Oscar winners Brie Larson and Rami Malek, as well as Kaitlyn Dever, Stephanie Beatriz, and LaKeith Stanfield. Writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton also went on to bigger (though not necessarily better) things with studio movies like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and this early film makes it clear why he caught execs' eyes. Yet even if Short Term 12 didn't boast a cast and filmmaker who went on to fame and acclaim, it would still be a lovely little movie that treats its characters with care and dignity.
Larson stars alongside John Gallagher Jr. as staff members at a group home for troubled teens, a plot description that makes Short Term 12 sound like a real downer. Though it depicts the struggles of the home's residents — and its staff — Short Term 12 is also sweet, funny, and fast-moving, at a brisk 96 minutes. It's full of affection and empathy for everyone on screen, making them feel like real people who are more than just their problems. This film is a gem; every moment here is honest and authentic and leaves the audience better than when they started watching it.
How to watch: Short Term 12 is now streaming on Tubi.
6. Cemetery Man
Bursting with boobs, blood, and brains, Cemetery Man feels like a movie tailor-made for late-night viewing on Tubi, even though it was released in 1994. Frequent Dario Argento collaborator Michele Soavi directed this zombie comedy, and it features the gorgeous gore you'd expect from a veteran of the giallo scene. However, this is far funnier and far more unhinged than your standard Italian horror movie (and it's in English).
Rupert Everett stars as Francesco Dellamorte, whose job is ostensibly to watch over the local cemetery in a small town with the help of his assistant, Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro), but his most important duty is killing the cemetery's residents when they rise from the dead. He falls for the hot young widow (Anna Falchi) of a recent newcomer to the cemetery and carnal delights ensue, but this is not the kind of movie that gives couples happy endings.
Cemetery Man is strange from its opening moments, but it truly descends into madness in its final act, taking deranged twists and turns as the body count mounts. The journey it takes to its wild final shot is an unexpected one; you will absolutely never guess what this stylish movie is going to do next.
How to watch: Cemetery Man is now streaming on Tubi.
7. Colossal
If a kaiju film and a quirky indie comedy had a big ol' mutant baby, it would be this genre-bending oddball from 2016. At first, Colossal looks like your typical small film where its lead character just cannot get her life together and returns to her hometown where she receives a new perspective. It even stars Anne Hathaway, who had mined seemingly similar territory for her Oscar–nominated role a decade earlier in Rachel Getting Married. Here, she plays Gloria, whose hard-partying ways get her dumped by her boyfriend (Dan Stevens) and out of her New York City apartment. When she returns to small-town New England, she rekindles a friendship with childhood pal — and current bar owner — Oscar (Jason Sudeikis). But then Colossal takes a big turn, introducing a giant monster (who is definitely not Godzilla) that Gloria, Oscar, and the rest of the world watch rampage through Seoul, South Korea. Gloria notices some details about the creature that connect it to herself in mysterious ways, despite the thousands of miles between them.
Even once you think you know what Colossal is doing, it takes yet another turn. Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes), this is a smart, subversive film, replete with both laughs and sharp commentary. Hathaway is generally very good, but she's terrific in this role that requires having an edge while earning the audience's empathy. Colossal didn't make waves at the box office, but it at once seems like a movie that should have been much bigger while feeling wonderfully weird enough that it might not appeal to everyone.
How to watch: Colossal is now streaming on Tubi.
8. Memento
This early indie from Christopher Nolan doesn't merely unsettle the audience with the typical feelings of dread associated with the thriller genre. Instead, the writer/director also leaves us unmoored in time, as uncertain of exactly what is going on as his anterograde amnesiac protagonist, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce). Leonard's condition makes it difficult for him to retain new memories, so he reminds himself of pertinent facts with notes, photographs, and tattoos. "JOHN G. RAPED AND MURDERED YOUR WIFE" is written across his chest, and Leonard spends his time trying to find John G. and avenge the death of his love.
From its opening sequence that finds a Polaroid growing more opaque with each shake, Nolan plays with chronology, with two plot tracks: a black-and-white one running forward and the other in color unfolding in reverse. With its elaborate, nonlinear structure, Memento does more than prefigure Nolan's later Oscar–winning work for big studios like Oppenheimer and Dunkirk. It stands on its own as a landmark of both the independent thriller and mindfuck genres. Though Leonard struggles to make new memories, Memento is a movie that lodges in your brain forever, without any need to tattoo its salient points for permanence.
How to watch: Memento is now streaming on Tubi.
9. Train to Busan
This 2016 South Korean horror movie has a lot of things going for it: good gore, solid scares, and characters who feel like human beings, rather than just fodder for inventive deaths. Train to Busan also boasts a premise that tweaks the traditional zombie story by setting the action largely on a fast-moving train, keeping survivors trapped and focusing the action within close quarters. It's among both the best zombie films of this century, as well as a standout among recent horror movies overall.
But what really sets Train to Busan apart is the presence of Don Lee (aka Ma Dong-seok) in his breakout movie role as a devoted husband desperate to protect his wife. His ham-sized fists and equally large charm propelled him to action stardom in Korean movies, as well as in the MCU's Eternals. If you're a fan of Don Lee (which you definitely will be by the end of Train to Busan), Tubi currently has one of the best streaming selections of movies starring the big-fisted big guy, including the first two movies in the Roundup action franchise — The Outlaws and The Roundup — and the comedy Champion, which fittingly has Lee playing a competitive arm wrestler.
How to watch: Train to Busan is now streaming on Tubi.
10. Another Round
At once sobering and exhilarating, this 2020 Danish black comedy explores midlife crises with wry wit. Mads Mikkelsen stars alongside Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, and Lars Ranthe as four friends (and high school teachers) who decide to liven up their existences by being just the right amount of drunk all the time, finding lucidity just before the world starts to blur.
With the original title of Druk in Danish (translated as "binge drinking"), Another Round is the type of movie you want to down in gulps. Though it tackles serious themes, it does so with humor and is teeming with life and energy. Another Round won the Oscar for Best International Feature, and it's such a crowd-pleaser. Mikkelsen is charming as ever, and he and the movie go out on a high note. Another Round features one of the best final sequences of this century, thanks to a vivacious turn from Mikkelsen.
How to watch: Another Round is now streaming on Tubi.
11. I Am Not Your Negro
This powerhouse documentary packs a real gut punch with its insights about race in America. For I Am Not Your Negro, director Raoul Peck turns James Baldwin's notes for an unfinished book into an Oscar–nominated documentary. Baldwin himself appears on screen via vintage TV interviews, and as narrator, Samuel L. Jackson voices Baldwin's words in low, hushed tones. The typically animated actor sounds different as the writer, at once restrained and filled with righteous anger over how Black people are treated.
Decades after their deaths, Baldwin began writing about the assassinations of three of his friends — Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers — and what they meant both in the past and in his present for racism in the United States. Meanwhile, Peck brings a contemporary lens, interspersing historical footage with recent videos. He demonstrates that the problems discussed by Baldwin aren't just historical; they're still plaguing America, making I Am Not Your Negro relevant as relevant today as it was when it was first released in 2016.
How to watch: I Am Not Your Negro is now streaming on Tubi.
12. The Beach Bum
You can smell the stink of pot smoke and unwashed hair wafting off the psychedelic cover art for this trippy, dippy comedy, so at least you know what you're in for. Matthew McConaughey stars in the role he was always meant to play: not the rom-com heartthrob of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the philosophizing cop of True Detective, or even the HIV-positive hero that won him an Oscar in Dallas Buyers Club. Nope, he was born to star as… Moondog, the titular stoner of Harmony Korine's The Beach Bum.
This movie is as directionless as its potheaded, poetry-penning protagonist. Sure, there's a plot in here somewhere (hiding beneath that aforementioned skunky fug), but it's really about the joy of watching McConaughey having so much fun in such a silly, surprisingly sweet film set in the Florida sunshine. Yet it isn't just McConaughey enjoying the ride here. Korine has lassoed in a number of stars, such as Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill, Jimmy Buffett (naturally), and Martin Lawrence, who plays "Captain Wack." The Beach Bum is somehow both smart and supremely stupid (complimentary), and if that sounds like it's your jam, I couldn't recommend hanging out with Moondog for 95 minutes more highly.
How to watch: The Beach Bum is now streaming on Tubi.
13. Shoplifters
Some dramas pummel you with epic emotions and big performances, but this quietly moving gem from Monster director Hirokazu Kore-eda takes a subtler tack — and evokes more feeling for it. Shoplifters mulls the concept of family with its story of a tight-knit group living in poverty in Tokyo who steal to survive. The precarious position of the Shibata family (Lily Franky, Sakura Andô, Kirin Kiki, Mayu Matsuoka, and Jyo Kairi) is put into further danger when they take in a young girl (Miyu Sasaki) who is being searched for by the authorities.
This Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film is gently devastating, but Shoplifters isn't purely sad. Kore-eda's script has plenty of wit and specificities that add levity to offset the heavy subject matter. The details of the family's routines, the pleasures they take in small moments, and above all their connections to each other are touching and tender, without ever descending into schmaltz.
How to watch: Shoplifters is now streaming on Tubi.
14. The Wages of Fear
This French adventure starts off a little slowly, but trust me — when it gets moving, it cannot be stopped. The Wages of Fear has an impeccable premise: Four men agree to drive two trucks filled with nitroglycerine across hundreds of miles of bumpy, dangerous terrain to put out an oil well fire. I do not know the science behind this insane endeavor, but I do not need to. Sold.
For those who worry that a movie made in 1953 might not be as exciting as its contemporary brethren, The Wages of Fear has plenty of surprises while it pulls no punches. This film does not mess around. (How hard it goes won't be a shock for those who have seen director Henri-Georges Clouzot's other big movie, Les Diaboliques.) There are long stretches of this black-and-white classic where you hold your breath as peril after peril strikes for these four men, played by Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, and Peter van Eyck.
You could watch the critically derided 2024 remake on Netflix if you'd like a journey as arduous as the one embarked upon here, but the original is almost impossible to beat. The Wages of Fear is one of the greatest thrillers of all time.
How to watch: The Wages of Fear is now streaming on Tubi.
UPDATE: Dec. 20, 2024, 4:41 p.m. EST This was first published on May 30, 2024. It has been updated to reflect the latest streaming options.
