Tubi is home to tons of scraggly movies that no one has ever heard of, but that’s not the only kind of cinema you can find on the totally free streaming service. There are also a ton of truly great movies among the turkeys and weirdo flicks. The 20 films below are certified gold, great movies in a variety of genres. There’s something for everyone—as long as they can put up with Tubi’s commercial breaks.
Boyhood (2014)
Shot over the course of 12 years, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood details the coming-of-age of its main character by letting us literally see him grow up from the age of 6 to 18. Watching a film’s characters age with the actors who portray them is like nothing that you’ve ever seen before, and it adds resonance and poignancy to this gently powerful movie about love, family, and what it means to be man.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
It’s 50 years old, but Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains the most harrowing, unrelenting horror movie ever made. It’s also the most influential: every fright flick that followed, from low-grade gutter trash to elevated horror like Get Out, owes a debt to Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a movie that is as smart as it is brutal.
Melancholia (2011)
I saw Lars Von Triers’ Melancholia when it came out, and I’ve never stopped thinking about it. It’s a film about the end of the world—a mysterious planet is hurdling toward earth—but it’s not about heroic scientists planning a desperate rocket launch or something. Instead, it’s about what people do with their days when they know annihilation is inevitable. Spoiler: They spend them arguing, chewing over family slights, and wasting time. It makes you want to scream “Why are you focusing on this meaninglessness; you’re going to die!” but then you remember that your death is just as inevitable as these characters’, and what are you doing with your days?
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Bruce Lee plays a Shaolin monk hired to infiltrate the island stronghold of a crime lord in this best-ever martial arts movie. The visceral-but-graceful combat choreography is amazing, and Lee’s charismatic, swaggering presence elevates this fighting-flick to masterpiece status, even when he’s not beating guys up. Lee fights Jim Kelly. He fights Chuck Norris. He fights a million other anonymous guys, sometimes dozens at once. Enter the Dragon reaches levels of pure cinematic badassery that many movies aspire to but few achieve.
Open Water (2003)
My wife hated Open Water. “Why aren’t they trying to swim for help or something?” she wanted to know. It’s a valid question, but it’s not that kind of movie. It’s the kind of movie where the innocent married couple who just wanted to try SCUBA diving on their honeymoon float on the endless ocean, forgotten and abandoned, while the sharks circle just below their feet.
Goodfellas (1990)
Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is a rare perfect film. There’s not a dead moment in this sprawling story of organize crime and the loyalty, betrayal, and high-living swagger it brings. Every performance is perfect. Every situation compelling. If you haven’t seen Goodfellas, what are you waiting for? It’s as good as the hype, I promise.
Timecrimes (2009)
This tightly paced time travel thriller from Spain proves you don’t need a huge budget to make a science fiction film that will leave audiences saying, “whoooaa.” When an everyman sees a naked woman in the woods, it leads to a time machine, and a main a character who meets himself coming and going. It sounds goofy-as-hell, but trust me, it’s way smarter and better than it has any right to be. (Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Time Cop is also on Tubi by the way, and would make an interesting double feature with Timecrimes.)
Logan’s Run (1976)
Before Star Wars: A New Hope blew everything away, 1976’s Logan’s Run was what Hollywood science fiction was about. Largely shot in a Houston hotel lobby and set in a future city where everyone is beautiful, wears color-coded pajamas, and spends their day doing drugs and having sex (there’s a dark secret, don’t worry), Logan’s Run shamelessly ganks ideas from better known dystopian science fiction stories like 1984 and Brave New World but it shoves them into a goofy, pulpy, 1970s context that’s way more fun than either of those dour polemics. It loses steam when Logan leaves the city and meets Peter Ustinov, but the first half is cinematic candy.
Knives Out (2019)
In Knives Out, a cadre of colorful rich people gather at the Thrombey estate, and there’s a murder—a murder most foul! This everyone-is-a-suspect set-up seems played out on paper, but it’s brought to the screen here with such style, affection, and skill that you quickly forget the well-worn whodunnit premise and focus on the sly humor and cinematic sleight-of-hand. It’s just a cracking good mystery, and that never gets old.
Heathers (1988)
Heathers came out at the end of the 1980s teen movie craze, and it puts a bow on the genre with an arch, satirical vibe that points toward the burned-out cynicism of the 1990s. Winona Ryder plays a high school kid so disgusted with the popular clique that she endeavors to murder them with the help of a juvenile delinquent (aptly named “J.D.”) played by Christian Slater. It’s dark and hilarious, just like high school.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
It’s not a proper “great films” list if you don’t include Kubrick. Like a lot of his work, Barry Lyndon demands patience. It’s purposefully distant and bloodless, choosing to coolly portray the main character’s rise and fall instead of telling us how to feel about it. Given the coldness of the story, it’s a good thing Barry Lyndon is such a beautiful film, with a visuals inspired by European fine art of the 18th century.
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
I have a taste for 1990s indie art-house cinema, and Welcome to the Dollhouse is a great example of the genre. Director Todd Solondz’s endless contempt for the characters in his own movie rubs off on the audience. Your initial sympathy for the ‘tween main character who everyone calls “Wiener Dog” grows into an unsettling feeling of “I’d probably punch her too.” It’s all very creepy, but in a good, 1990s indie movie way.
The Thing (1982)
I’m trying to avoid listing every good horror movie on Tubi in this general-audience post (there are a lot of them), but I have to include John Carpenter’s The Thing. An Antarctica research station is perfect setting for a claustrophobic horror movie about paranoia, and the covered-in-goo practical special effects have never been topped. None of that would mean anything though, if the story wasn’t so suspenseful and well-crafted.
Downfall (2005)
This movie is best known for an ubiquitous internet meme of Hitler raging about the imminent defeat of the Third Reich, but Downfall is a riveting, unforgettable movie from the first frame to the last. By sticking as closely as possible to the historical record and avoiding moralizing, Downfall is the final filmic word on the depravity and horror of Nazi Germany.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
There are a ton of Hitchcock movies on Tubi, including Notorious, North by Northwest, and Foreign Correspondent. They’re all great, but I chose Strangers on a Train for its rock solid premise premise: two men with no connection to each other randomly meet on a train and decide to “swap murders.” It’s pure suspense movie perfection delivered with that hypnotic Hitchcock style.
Rock n’ Roll High School (1979)
I love this movie. The low-budget teen exploitation comedy still crackles with youthful energy, even though it’s nearly 45 years old. Filled with cheesy jokes and self-deprecating charm, the story of Riff Randell’s dedication to The Ramones is a love letter to weirdos everywhere. Highlight include the braindead “acting” by the Ramones, cult queen Mary Woronov’s over-the-top portrayal of evil Principal Togar, an extended Ramones concert sequence, and the total destruction of Vince Lombardi High School. What’s not to love?
Man on Wire (2008)
This documentary tells the story of French high-wire walker Philippe Petit’s most daring clandestine stunt: stringing a wire from one of the twin towers to the other and walking across. Think of how terrifying and batshit that is. The footage from atop the World Trade will make your palms sweat with second hand vertigo, but it’s just as interesting for the look into the unique mind of Petit. What drives a guy to do such a foolhardy thing?
Ghost World (2001)
If you’re in the mood for a turn-of-the-Millenium hipster comedy, try Ghost World. It’s rooted in its era, but timeless too, especially for anyone who ever felt they were smarter and cooler than everyone around them. That’s the life of main character Enid, who just graduated from high school and has no plans beyond hanging out with her best friend in their boring town and sneering at everything. This kind of character would get old fast if the film wasn’t so honest and empathetic, especially when Enid starts to realize that maybe the joke has been on her all along.
Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Cabin in the Woods begins like thousands of horror movies—a group of shallow, stereotypical teenagers drive to a deserted cabin for a weekend of fun—but then it takes the biggest left-turn in horror movie history, driving straight into a whole world of meta-commentary where nothing is as it seems. Cabin in the Woods works because the scares are as scary as the jokes are funny, and the filmmakers clearly love the genre they’re commenting on.
The Love Witch (2016)
In a better world, Anna Biller, the writer, director, editor, production designer, music supervisor, and costume designer of The Love Witch, would be a household name. Her film is a complete expression of her personal aesthetic, an illustration of the power of the auteur. Biller’s world looks like a technicolor musical from the early 1960s, a sensory overload of bright colors and cartoonish characters, but beneath the distinctive style are real questions about female power and the ways in which it’s expressed and controlled.
