I was clicking through YouTube the other day when I noticed in my side bar there was a recommendation to watch the original Robocop "free with adds". Sure enough with an add blocker running the whole thing played with no issues, and I though that was kind of neat. So I popped on to the YouTube movies page, and sure enough they actually have some really good movies on there, totally free. I didn't really hear anything about this, and a lot of these where put up fairly recently, So I thought I would point it out as another resource to watch film.
With the recent trend of streaming services popping up faster than the movies are coming out for the platforms, what used to be a 10 dollar Netflix subscription can very quickly add up, and for some people that's just not an option. So personally I really like the idea of some of these seminal, highly influential films being put out online for free. Or if your like me and have already blasted though 5 streaming services to find a Wes Anderson movie. Well, its worth checking YouTube as well. This is a trend I would really love to see get put in to more streaming services, A selection of free films and shows with the larger catalogue being blocked off by a paywall. As Piracy starts to rise they will have to do something about people not willing to pay an insane amount of money just to watch a few old movies. I don't think we will ever have the level of high seas thievery we saw back in the 2000s, but if some one wants it back enough, they can still get it, and streaming services have to be aware of that right? Its almost like we are going back to cable. Huge bundles to watch what you want to watch that add up if you get them all, but i'm sure every one of you has seen shaw sahnk on TV at least once. Now we are just doing it on YouTube. I dont think I like it, but we will see where it goes.
I did a quick run though and picked out some films that I personal love and believe every one should see at least once. There are some absolute stinkers on this as well, to the point if you like so bad its good movies, you have a lot to work with. Stuff like Fred 3 and Bait shop with Billy Ray. So you might have to do a little sifting to find the movie you want. The tools they have in place for searching are pretty abysmal, buy you can view the full list here.
Darjeeling limited: The Best Wes Anderson film set on a train for a portion of the film.
The Terminator: A classic that still holds up today.
The great escape: A must watch 60s epic
Pumping Iron: A great Doc about Arnolds body building career
Ghost in the shell: A move that would change anime for ever.
But im a cheer leader: Good movie but pretty big in the LGBT space. Very much worth a watch.
Grizzly Man: Some absolutely insane guy, named Warner, made a movie with found footage of a dude who lives with bears. Another must watch.
Christmas vacation: Who doesn't love a Griswold family adventure.
Lord of war: Nick Cage, but hes good.
There are a ton more that I skipped over, but there is a little something of everything here, action, drama, and a few really great Documentaries that I haven't even seen yet. In that spirit, feel free to point out any of your personals favs on the list. YouTube doesn't have a best of category so, lets sort out the best of the best.
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Grizzly man makes me laugh every time. I'm pretty sure Herzog has a dark sense of humour and that the film is deliberately funny in parts.
I thought this for a long time and was telling two of my friends about this really funny film about a guy that goes to live with grizzly bears. Anyway they watched it and did not find it funny at all.
Herzog is fucking HILARIOUS. He takes serious doc subjects (Lo and Behold, Fireball, Grizzly Man) and sprinkles juuuust the right amount of deadpan gallows one-liners to season them perfectly. Always cracks me up, I'm glad I'm not the only one.
he's got that inherent german way of seeing the absurdity in everything.
I always think of this clip after the ending.
https://youtu.be/5YW-5Flkiuw
This had me giggling so much.
Werner Herzog is hilarious!
I keep coming back to this clip of him recalling the moment he realised John Waters is gay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnTU_hJoByA
Honestly one of the funniest fucking clips I've seen of Werner is the one where they spot a penguin walking away from it's pack and Werner goes on about THE INSANITY AMONG ZA PENGUINS! THIS DISTURBED PENGUIN! And you can tell they just got some B-role footage of a few walking penguins, spliced em together and had Werner say the most Grimm reflections over it.
I LOVE grizzly man, because there are parts that absolutely tear you up inside. Like when his is playing back the last tape, and its just so awful he wont even put it in the film. This guy is never holding back, he's brutally honest to a fault... And he tells her to burn it.... that's just how... nope.
But then near the end when the bear is looking straight at the lenses and he goes. "I see nothing but the bleak desolation of a crule reality, nothing more than a meandering boredom of food, No kinder spirits or brotherhood, just a chaotic world of madness and murder." That just gets me for some reason... I dont know if he is trying to be funny but I always crack up. I love Warner.
What did Herzog have to do with those Harmony Korine films?
Herzog acts in Julian Donkey Boy, but that's the extent. OP is mistaken.
I think he just acted in them, but I gather that it was a lot of ppl Korine was friends (or kindred spirits) with that ended up being in the film. Harmony has a "background vocals" credit on Will Oldham's "Ease Down the Road" record, Oldham has a bit part in his film... it seems like a bunch of weirdos who'd get along. I'm sure Herzog had an influence.
apparently herzog really drank the bottle of cough syrup for the film as well.
ive watched it a few times... seems legit.
Oh. I was remembering it wrong. He was in julian donkey boy. And always lump him in with the whole dogme95 crew.
Recently he said he regrets telling the woman to destroy the tape and that it would be a horrible mistake if it were destroyed
That’s interesting. I personally thought pretty highly of him for giving her that advice. After all she was very close with Timothy and listening to that tape probably would have been an extremely traumatic experience for her. One that she could never un-hear. Yet if she held onto the tape she may have always had that morbid curiosity in the back of her mind. Destroying the tape would ensure that she would never be tempted to listen to it. And I admired him for wanting to spare her from that trauma.
But on the other hand, it IS an extremely unique piece of media/historical artifact. And not just in the sense of it being a morbid curiosity. Not only is it rare for someone to be killed by a bear in general, Timothy was a filmmaker who ultimately died due to the nature of his absolutely uncompromising quest for filming up-close and personal with the bears. In the end it was his passion and unwillingness to yield to it that killed him as much as a the bear. And the tape is a firsthand recording of what that lead to, as morbid as it is. I think Hertzog definitely related to Timothy in the same sense of being uncompromising in any of the art that he creates. So I’m not surprised he regrets telling her to destroy it. It should be preserved if only for history’s sake.
Apparently she has it locked away in a safe somewhere and still hasn’t listened to it. I hope she never does.
I did some digging and found where he says this: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/gmokxt/werner_herzog_replied_to_my_message_about_a_scene/
All of Herzog's documentaries are worth watching. I really recommend his stuff. :)
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There are tapes of peoples last moments online. Out of all the weird things I have seen over the years the one that gets to me the most Is a clip of a police officer getting shot during a traffic stop.
I would agree with Herzog that people should never hear it. I don't recommend you go looking for it. Just know its awful, terrifying, gut wrenching, just, awful beyond what you can think of as they scream for there life. Its literally hard wired in your monkey brain that if you hear it, you know danger here, run away.
Trust me when I say you don't want to hear the tap. The description they give is enough haha.
Any recording you have heard of the supposed "tape" is bullshit. It doesn't exist. Just fake recordings made by assholes and uploaded since 2008. All this shit was debunked a long time ago.
Well people being eaten alive by bears is not something everyone finds amusing. I guess there is an absurdity in that the guy made it his life’s mission going around telling everyone how great it is to live with grizzly bears. It was not too much of a stretch to figure he’d end up in the stomach of a bear. The foxes were cute though. And I liked the movie; just didn’t chortle during.
To Live And Die in L.A. is also up on YouTube, ad free. I own the BluRay from Shout Factory (which is excellent) but was surprised to learn that it is otherwise unavailable for digital streaming/rental.
If I am looking for certain movies that are older or difficult to find, I typically check Dailymotion or even Facebook as a last resort (some films I was able to find: Judgment at Nuremberg, Picnic & The Train among others).
Blocked in copyright it says on your link.
Well that sucks :( Where are you located? I'm in Canada & the link is working for me.
apparently it's unavailable in the US
I’m so sad I thought I was about to finally see this movie. Love me some Friedkin
yep. I'm in US and it's blocked for me
The US :(
What older films are you looking for that you can’t find?
Then it might interest you that I made a Letterboxd list of free-to-watch films on the YouTube Movies channel more than 4 months ago, and I've been maintaining it ever since.
One thing to note is that these are only available to watch in the U.S.
Another thing is that the list/page you linked to doesn't actually link ALL of the free-to-watch films (nor does the playlist I refer to), for some reason.
Currently this list has more than 930 films (including those not on Letterboxd).
Here are more great examples:
Scenes from a Marriage (1974), Raging Bull (1980), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Killing (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Black Christmas (1974), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Drug War (2012), Dances with Wolves (1990), Moonstruck (1987), Big Fish and Begonia (2016), Bernie (2011), Operation Avalanche (2016), The Ghost Writer (2010), The Wolfpack (2015), Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), Triangle (2009)
Some other good ones on YouTube for free:
Love Exposure (2008)
Inland Empire (2006)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
Fish Tank (2009)
Perfect Blue (1997)
Close-Up (1990)
Yi Yi (2000)
The Tree of Life (2011)
Some other channels I sub to, which others may find interesting:
Cult Classics has old horror (Inc. stuff like White Zombie, the og zombie movie). Tbh there are a bunch of these old pre-code movie channels, you'll often find them if you search for early cinema.
Mosfilm has soviet movies, albeit subtitles can be spotty
British Pathe have a load of archived stuff, and constantly add new films n shorts
That cult classics channel has Carnival of Souls, which is a really interesting independent, experimental horror movie from the early 60s that had a major influence on people like David Lynch, George Romero, and James Wan
Going to watch this now, sounds interesting! The blurb reminds me of a short story by Chambers called 'In the Court of the Dragon'
https://youtu.be/1jqqJsPJTVQ
I made this movie a few years ago and am tremendously proud of it but it only sits at 1.8k views, I co-wrote, directed, shot, produced, edited, and scored this thing so if anyone wants to give it a shot it's an hour long film about two friends dealing with their relationship issues besides both being clueless, toxic alcoholics who enable the worst in each other. Ive made more movies than this but it's my most well liked movie. Thanks for giving it a shot if you choose to :)
Thanks checking it out!
Adding it to my watchlist!
I’m going to watch this later tonight. Thanks for sharing, friend.
Just a reminder that if you're looking for free movies to stream, Peacock has a free, ad-supported version, and they have a fair amount of content on there. Just glancing at their site, they've got stuff like Children of Men, American Psycho, Secretary, Inside Man, They Live, E.T., Jumanji, Fast Times, In Bruges, Frost/Nixon, Cape Fear (the Scorsese version), The Deer Hunter, Eastern Promises, Highlander, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, Fletch, Zombieland, Dallas Buyers Club, Field of Dreams, Schindler's List, and a bunch more. A few of their films are locked behind the premium paywall (like the Jurassic Park, Bourne, and Fifty Shades films), but the majority of them are free. And in my experience, the amount of commercials is significantly less than broadcast TV (though I don't know whether it varies by title).
I don't pay for Peacock, but I keep it alongside Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon, and Disney+/Hulu in my rotation of streaming apps.
Tubi is another free with ads streaming service that has some good stuff, often on the more obscure side. I watched two movies on it recently, Essential Killing and Return to Waterloo, that I wasn't able to find elsewhere. No account necessary and with an ad-blocker I didn't even have to watch the ads.
The Tubi selection sure is interesting, watched Bakshi’s Fire and Ice the other day on it. Hadn’t seen the adult animated fantasy in forever.
Also Pluto TV has an interesting selection of old king fu movies.
Pluto TV is a lot of fun for watching random movies, we like their horror channels a lot in my house
I haven't watched very many movies on Peacock, but the one I watched basically had two minutes of ads at the beginning of the film and then it was the unedited film, commercial free.
I have all of the streaming apps except Amazon. So, I have access to plenty of films. HBO Max has a lot of great films on their service.
HOW DARE THEY LOCK THE GREATEST TRILOGY KNOWN TO MAN BEHIND THE GOLD- LACED GATES OF PREMIUM
#FreeAll50Shades
You have to put a backslash in front like so: \# and then you'll just get the hash mark and not the bold-enlarged thing.
Thanks homie appreciate it
Peacock used to have a ton of Hitchcock free too, but I think they switched to premium. Also note that ad-blocker works for Peacock as well as YT.
Good call, I just watched a great doc on youtube the other day actually. It's called Brother's Keeper and it really is an amazing dive into a community of people you probably would otherwise never even know existed.
Highly recommended, especially for free.
Just FYI - that was directed and produced by the guys who later did the Paradise Lost trilogy about the West Memphis Three. Well worth a watch. Cheers!
Also on Kanopy (www.kanopy.com) if you have a library card, you can watch 4 movies a month. Outstanding selection, emphasis on foreign, documentary, classics as well as a decent amount of new titles that are popular with this sub. There's also an app for smart TV.
Hoopla also has movies you can watch and it's connected to your library card. I think the max is 15 a month.
“Putney Swope” is a really interesting movie dealing with advertising, race, and counterculture. Made by Robert Downey Sr. In the 60s it is quite a wild and often very funny ride. It’s on YouTube with no ads, highly recommend checking it out.
Edit: here is the link https://youtu.be/OPgId7RgQ2E
A while back there was a heavily censored version of The Usual Suspects for free on YouTube. It was way shorter than the official version, and censored out a lot of the profanity, which made for some unintentional comedy.
the darjeeling limited is definitely top 5 films ever made period. lets discuss.
Also my father sadly passed this year and this film really helped when dealing with the pain. Im glad its free for all the watch. definitely a great watch about loss,grief,love,and self exploration
I'm a fan of both Wes Andersen and Indian music, so I was stoked when this hit theaters. The general reaction however seemed to boil down to "not as good as Tebenbaums" which made me sad. It's definitely my favorite of his, along with Life Aquatic. He was getting a lot of flak at the time for his movies being emotionally distant which almost made me think I was the only one seeing things differently. I think there's so much emotion especially in Darjeeling. Glad to read your comment, and OP.
I just showed the movie to my gf last night. A great study on family dynamics, changing relationships, and grief. Cinematography and set design is great as well.
I think its my Favorite of his films, its hard to pick between life aquatic and moonrise kingdom. Maybe not Top 5 ever but.
I come from a very dysfunctional family and it just resonates with me so much. As where The Royal Tenenbaums Feels like an exaggerated tale of true evens, A book written about them if you will, Darjeeling limited feels more like the true events as them happen. For that reason the hits just hit a little harder. Such a sad movie, that's also hilarious, charming and creepy, caring and indifferent. I love it.
You got me interested, and I’m going to try to watch it this evening. Thank you for sharing, friend!
I discovered this the other week and I've been telling everyone I can!
If it's your kinda thing there is also a LOT of hilarious garbage - a friend and I watched "Lavantula", a movie about volcano spiders, and it was a blast. There's also a lot of cheap sci-fi from the 50s, really fun to dig into.
That's "Lavalantula". Hilarious garbage describes it perfectly. I love movies like this.
Lmao at the description for The Darjeeling Limited. Tbf (and nitpicky), The Grand Budapest Hotel has very brief portions set on a train and I would argue that’s his best film overall (not my personal favorite)
Thanks for the info overall
I just discovered another one. Waterloo. 1970. A grand scale of Napoleonic warfare. 17,000 Soviet soldiers, including a full brigade of cavalry, were used to make this film.
There's a good quality version of one of my favourite movies of the 1960s, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsKQiVJkEvI
And a less good-quality version of one of my favourites from any decade, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGI4RwY-frc
Both of these are primo examples of great filmmaking. They come at you and crush you in a dozen ways. Thanks for this reminder, friend!
This is a great list! I figured I might as well add some Youtube movies I enjoy/ think others would appreciate. (I advise copying these links to a sticky note on the computer if your school blocks Reddit)
Movies:
The 47 Ronin (THIS IS REAL AND THE ENTIRE THING!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiCWrDMZZFk&list=PL7ksO06on5ZIdILwTfZ1UBNYdIL5mB0AD&index=53&ab_channel=menatil
A Better Tomorrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm-uXPPA8oU&list=PL4B8aqwptYRSYB7eDFL-_0pagTFGP79Sj&index=123&ab_channel=gontagelop
Afro Samurai: The Movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCSwiaEy6cI&list=PL4B8aqwptYRSYB7eDFL-_0pagTFGP79Sj&index=87&ab_channel=AhmadisAhmad
Heat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-8IEHNbsR8&list=PL7ksO06on5ZIdILwTfZ1UBNYdIL5mB0AD&index=48&ab_channel=PhotographersWithoutBorders
Gandhi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_boPFpPbAgk&list=PL7ksO06on5ZIdILwTfZ1UBNYdIL5mB0AD&index=49&ab_channel=SPICMACAY
Day of the Dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dIQJ39HKU0&list=PL7ksO06on5ZIdILwTfZ1UBNYdIL5mB0AD&index=54&ab_channel=roon%E3%82%B7
The Punisher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiYmQ9tL81E&list=PL7ksO06on5ZIdILwTfZ1UBNYdIL5mB0AD&index=50&ab_channel=FullScreenMoviesCollection
Killer Bean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyYHWkVWQ4o&t=2s&ab_channel=KillerBean
American Gangster (unfortunately in 3-6minute chunks, but full movie is there) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbF8x5LI2IkZlzSkJiKCUtTE0fEdkmisM
Chlorine (full fan film that's quite good): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON6cfOD8ab4&list=PL7ksO06on5ZIdILwTfZ1UBNYdIL5mB0AD&index=31&ab_channel=922Films%2F5DollarFilmSchool
TV Shows:
Cowboy Bebop (most episodes): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrHuTmYj8p4Y8m3La6QgG6ZsE8fs_p9_e
HBO Spawn: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1hDHKhci6cGuErlKeipDc4bnuD_LLxqu
Trigun (most episodes) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbKtvfCfR9IQiildqopectaS7T5mjjnaS
Final Note: If you like Kung Fu movies check out this channel, it has full movies from a wide number of independent studios: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUpbgPbDccjoB9PxI-nI7oA
Marketa Lazarova
Randomly found this on there a while ago after having it on my list of films I wanted to check out for a while
Definitely worth a watch.
I came across this Iranian film from the 90's and its English translation is "A Moment of Innocence". Really beautiful film that is pretty much similar to the other films made during that time i.e. neo-realism. Would highly recommend.
I love genre shlock like Film Noir and Blaxploitation, and whilst you're not going to find the defining classics such as White Heat or The Mack for there is a plethora of the lesser known/underrated films in the respective genres. As for the Noir films I can recommend these on youtube.
Kiss Of Death (1947) Pretty good Noir that hits all the notes however the villain Tommy Udo played by Richard Widmark is one of the more charismatically diabolical antagonists in the whole genre.
Scarlett Street (1945) This is a great Film Noir from Fritz lang that highly recommend
That Youtube movies page appears completely empty when i click on it ( all other pages i'm subbed to are working fine )
Do i need to pay or rent a movie so i can get access to the free ones on their page ?
Seems to be American only... Doesn't work for me either, and searching for one of the mentioned ones I can only rent them
The Corporation (2003), The Mirror (1975), The Sacrifice, etc are some of the movies I can remember being on YouTube. But yeah, there are lots of hidden gems in youtube. Especially older ones, where the studios don't come running to take them off of YouTube.
US Go Home by Claire Denis is on YouTube with English subtitles. It's a short film, just a little over an hour long, a beautiful meditation on sex and adolescence where most of the action is shown through tender and evocative dance scenes. Oh, and the soundtrack is top.
Lol this is the worst thread I've seen in a while. It's literally nothing but old ass movies that you COULDNT HAVE POSSIBLY not seen and straight GARBAGE movies. Half of these are literally rated less than 20% liked by all who watched and voted. You reddit users need to gain an understanding for good cinema and not just weird shit to rub your butt to
If I'm looking for a film, YouTube is one of the places I look. In addition to the "official" YouTube offerings, as someone else mentioned, a lot of people upload entire films. The quality of the film differs. Sometimes it looks like they took their phone and recorded the film that way. I've seen films where the image is reversed, which is awful. But in many cases it's a decent upload of a hard to find film.
For example, here's the original version of The Heartbreak Kid starring Charles Grodin. It's interesting to compare this to the Farrelly Bros remake with Ben Stiller. I prefer this version, as it's trying to say something about the idea of "belonging" and I think it's funnier too. I love Charles Grodin!
https://youtu.be/vusvJaxKZFo
Also, my friend made a really neat film, Be Like Trees. They shot it on an iPhone for practically nothing(I think $7000), but were able to get great locations because they were shooting without a huge crew.
https://youtu.be/IJmyFXSjuQw
Dances with Wolves is on there. A classic that i've somehow never seen, but now will get to watch. Kind of surprised it's there. Feels like it's considered overrated by most people, but I am hoping it is a good experience.
Not sure if this link will work outside of Canada but someone has uploaded Naked Lunch onto YouTube. One of the weirdest & surrealist Cronenberg movies.