The Best Movies to Watch on Tubi This Month
Tuby is home to a lot of terrible movies that no one has ever heard of, but that’s not the only kind of movie you can find on the completely free streaming service. Among the “turkey” and “weird” films, there are also a ton of truly great films. The 20 films below are gold certified and are great films from a variety of genres. There’s something for everyone—as long as they can tolerate the Tuby commercial breaks.
Childhood (2014)
Filmed over the course of 12 years, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood details the protagonist’s coming of age, allowing us to literally see him grow from the age of 6 to 18. Watching the characters in the film age along with the actors who portray them is a real pleasure. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and it adds resonance and poignancy to this soft and powerful film about love, family and what it means to be a man.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
It may be 50 years old, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains the most harrowing and ruthless horror film ever made. It’s also the most influential: every subsequent horror film, from low-grade trash to sublime horror like Get Out, owes a debt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film that’s as smart as it is brutal.
Melancholia (2011)
I saw Melancholia by Lars von Triers when it came out and never stopped thinking about it. It’s a movie about the end of the world – a mysterious planet is approaching Earth – but it’s not about heroic scientists planning a desperate rocket launch or anything like that. Instead, it’s about what people do in their days when they know destruction is imminent. Spoiler: they spend it arguing, chewing on family grievances and wasting time. You want to scream, “Why are you focusing on this pointlessness? You will die!” but then you remember that your death is as inevitable as the death of these characters, and what do you do with your days?
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Bruce Lee plays a Shaolin monk hired to infiltrate a crime lord’s island stronghold in this ultimate martial arts movie. The visceral yet graceful fight choreography is stunning, and Lee’s charismatic and swaggering presence elevates this fight film to masterpiece status, even when he’s not beating up guys. Lee fights Jim Kelly. He fights Chuck Norris. He fights a million other anonymous guys, sometimes dozens at a time. Enter the Dragon achieves a level of pure cinematic cool that many films strive for but few achieve.
Open Water (2003)
My wife hated Open Water. “Why don’t they try to swim for help or something?” she wanted to know. It’s a valid question, but this is the wrong movie. This is the kind of movie where an innocent married couple who just wanted to try scuba diving on their honeymoon find themselves floating across the vast ocean, forgotten and abandoned, while sharks circle right under their feet.
Goodfellas (1990)
Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is a rare perfect film. There is not a dead moment in this vast story of organized crime and the loyalty, betrayal and arrogant pride it carries. Every performance is perfect. Every situation is convincing. If you haven’t seen Goodfellas yet, what are you waiting for? I promise it’s as good as the hype.
Crimes in Time (2009)
This fast-paced time-travel thriller from Spain proves that you don’t need a huge budget to make a sci-fi film that will make audiences go ” awww .” When an everyman sees a naked woman in the forest, it leads to a time machine and the main character, who meets himself by coming and going. It sounds stupid as hell, but trust me, it’s way smarter and better than it has any right to be. (By the way, Jean-Claude Van Damme ‘s Time Cop is also on Tubi, and will have an interesting double feature with Time Crimes .)
Logan’s Run (1976)
Before Star Wars: A New Hope ruined everything, Hollywood sci-fi was 1976’s Logan’s Run . Set largely in the lobby of a Houston hotel, Logan’s Run takes place in a future city where everyone is beautiful, wears color-coded pajamas, and spends their days doing drugs and having sex (it’s a dark secret, don’t worry). from more famous dystopian sci-fi stories like 1984 and Brave New World , but he puts them in a silly, pulpy 1970s context that’s a lot more fun than any of those dour polemics. It loses momentum when Logan leaves town and meets Peter Ustinov, but the first half is cinematic eye candy.
Knives Out (2019)
In Knives Out, a group of flamboyant rich people gather at the Thrombey estate and a murder occurs – the most heinous murder of all! This ‘everyone is a suspect’ production seems like it was played out on paper, but here it’s brought to the screen with such style, love and skill that you quickly forget the hackneyed detective premise and focus on the sly humor and cinematography. sleight of hand. It’s just an amazing mystery and it never gets old.
Heathers (1988)
Heathers came out at the tail end of the teen movie craze of the 1980s, and it gives the genre a sly, satirical vibe that points to the burnt-out cynicism of the 1990s. Winona Ryder plays a high school student who is so disgusted with the popular clique that she tries to kill them with the help of a juvenile delinquent (aptly named “JD”), played by Christian Slater. It’s dark and fun, just like high school.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
It’s not a good list of “great films” if you don’t include Kubrick. Like much of his work, Barry Lyndon requires patience. It’s deliberately detached and bloodless, choosing to coolly depict the protagonist’s ups and downs rather than telling us how to feel about it. Given the coldness of the story, it’s good that Barry Lyndon is such a beautiful film, with visuals inspired by 18th-century European fine art.
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
I love 1990s indie arthouse 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 film rubs off on the audience. Your initial sympathy for the teenage protagonist, whom everyone calls “Wiener the Dog,” develops into an uneasy feeling of “I’d probably hit her too.” It’s all very creepy, but in the spirit of 1990s indie cinema.
Thing (1982)
I’m trying not to list every good horror movie on Tubi in this post for a general audience (there are many), but I’ll have to include John Carpenter’s The Thing . A research station in Antarctica is the perfect setting for a claustrophobic horror film about paranoia, and the practical slime-covered special effects have never been beat. However, none of this would mean anything if the story wasn’t so tense and well-crafted.
Fall (2005)
The film is best known for the ubiquitous internet meme of Hitler raging over the imminent defeat of the Third Reich, but Downfall is a gripping, unforgettable film from first frame to last. Sticking as close to historical fact as possible and avoiding moralizing, The Fall is the final cinematic word on the depravity and horror of Nazi Germany.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Tubi has a ton of Hitchcock films, including Notorious, North by Northwest , and Foreign Correspondent . They’re all great, but I chose Strangers on a Train because of its very solid premise: two unrelated men meet by chance on a train and decide to “swap murders.” This is pure suspense film perfection, executed in Hitchcock’s hypnotic style.
Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)
I love this film. The low-budget teen exploitation comedy still brims with youthful energy even though it’s almost 45 years old. Filled with goofy jokes and self-deprecating charm, the story of Riff Randell’s devotion to The Ramones is a love letter to weirdos around the world. Highlights include an insane Ramones “game”, an over-the-top portrayal of evil Principal Togar by cult queen Mary Woronova, an extended Ramones concert scene, and the complete destruction of Vince Lombardi’s high school. What’s not to love?
Man on Wire (2008)
This documentary tells the story of French tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s most daring secret trick: stretching a wire from one of the Twin Towers to the other and walking along it. Think about how terrible and nonsense this is. The footage from the top of World Trade will make your palms sweat with dizziness, but it’s just as interesting as a glimpse into Petit’s unique mind. What makes a guy do such a reckless thing?
Ghost World (2001)
If you’re looking for a turn-of-the-millennium hipster comedy, try Ghost World. It is rooted in its era, but at the same time timeless, especially for those who have ever felt smarter and cooler than everyone around them. Such is the life of the main character Enid, who has just graduated from high school and has no plans other than to hang out with her best friend in their boring town and make fun of everyone. It’s a character like this that would get old quickly if the film weren’t so honest and empathetic, especially when Enid begins to realize that maybe she’s been the joke all along.
Cabin in the Woods (2011)
The Cabin in the Woods starts out like a thousand horror movies – a group of shallow, stereotypical teenagers go to a deserted cabin for a weekend of fun – but then takes the biggest left turn in horror movie history, heading straight into a whole world of horror. a meta-commentary where nothing is as it seems. The Cabin in the Woods works because the scares are as scary as the jokes are funny, and the filmmakers clearly enjoy the genre they’re commenting on.
Witch of Love (2016)
In a better world, Anna Biller, writer, director, editor, production designer, music director and costume designer for 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 is like a technicolor musical from the early 1960s, a sensual overload of bright colors and cartoonish characters, but behind the distinctive style lie real questions about female power and how it can be expressed and controlled.