Ten Greatest Movies Now On Tubi (August 2024)
From cult classics like Donnie Darko to smash successes like Jurassic Park, Tubi has a wealth of outstanding films right now. Thanks to providing an amazing selection of Movies totally free of cost thanks to adverts, Tubi has seen its user base rise dramatically over the previous several years. Originally starting in 2014, Tubi is the free-to- use streaming platform used by Fox Corporation; as of 2024, it boasts over 80 million subscribers.
With the library of films constantly evolving to provide fresh titles for consumers to enjoy free of charge thanks to commercial sponsorship, some very well-known and blockbuster titles abound among the top Movies on Tubi. There is usually a good range of top-notch titles among the 200,000+ movies on Tubi, hence it's always worth looking in to see what the greatest ones on the platform are.
Viewers still have the choice to legally, free of cost see their favorite films and TV series even if so many streaming platforms are starting to charge.
Goodfellas 1990
Starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta, Goodfellas is a 1990 crime picture Martin Scorsese directed the picture, which chronicles the lives and times of mobster Henry Hill. It sprang from Nicholas Pileggi's book Wiseguy.
One of Martin Scorsese's most well-known films nowadays is among the large collection of movies on Tubi — 1990's Goodfellas; he is permanently associated with gangster movies. Though it only garnered the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which went to Joe Pesci, the film was nominated for several Golden Globes and Oscars when it opened. Goodfellas is still among many modern reviewers' top movies of all time, and it's obvious why it's among the most watched movies on Tubi.
Still regarded as one of the best gangster films ever produced, it set the groundwork for later films and television series including The Sopranos. Among the cast of Goodfellas, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, and Joe Pesci are among the names regarded as classic in the genre. The story takes cues from Nicholas Pileggi's nonfiction book Wiseguy, who also co-wrote the script with Scorcese.
(1993) Jurassic Park
Great scientific technological developments have made it possible for a mogul to build an island full of live dinosaurs. John Hammond has asked four people, together with his two grandkids, to accompany him at Jurassic Park. But will all go as scheduled? Critical security systems are turned off as a park staff member attempts to steal dinosaur embryos; now, survival with dinosaurs running freely across the island becomes a race.
Considered a pinnacle of filmmaker Steven Spielberg's career, 1993's Jurassic Park's availability on Tubi has surely lured more than a few viewers to the site. By the 2020s, the narrative of Jurassic Park is somewhat well-known: an eccentric tycoon brings dinosaurs back to life using cloning technologies. Although he wants to construct a theme park, the film illustrates that prehistoric existence has little attractiveness for tourism.
Although the idea alone is interesting enough, it is not the main reason Jurassic Park is regarded as a masterpiece. Apart from Spielberg's extraordinary directing skills, the practical and computer-generated graphics in this Tubi film have endured over three decades after its first release. Add some career-defining performances from Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern, and it's clear why Jurassic Park remains among the best dinosaur films ever produced—including its follow-up franchise Jurassic World and its successors.
1984's The Terminator
James Cameron oversees the sci-fi action movie The Terminator. Played by Linda Hamilton, whose son will rebel against machine dominance, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a cyborg assassin dispatched from the future to kill Sarah Connor. Michael Biehn plays Kyle Reese, a soldier also dispatched back in time to guard Sarah. The movie looks at ideas of artificial intelligence, survival, and time travel.
Both Arnold Schwarzenegger and filmmaker James Cameron are big names in the 2020s, and among the films that define both of them is The Terminator from 1984. On Tubi, there is no shortage of action and science fiction films; yet, one of the most definite titles in either genre is The Terminator. It was the film that most likely helped the concept of rogue artificial intelligence to become known. being an existential threat to mankind, and given that such technologies are already in active development in the present, SkyNet feels extremely tragic.
But the narrative of The Terminator takes place in the then-present-day of the 1980s, not in the future. The film centers on Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a diner waitress who finds out she will one day conceive the man who will spearhead the final vestiges of humanity in an insurrection against the robots. Regretfully for Sarah, she discovers this after a cyborg assassin—the T800 (Schwarzenegger)—travels back in time to kill her before her son is ever born.
The Usual Suspected 1995
Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, and Benicio del Toro star The Usual Suspects, a Mystery movie written by Christopher McQuarrie under Bryan Singer's direction. One of only two individuals who survived a massacre at the Port of Los Angeles, the story takes place during an interview when a con artist tells detectives what happened.
Though it may not have the general appeal of films like The Godfather or Scarface, 1995's The Usual Suspects is unquestionably one of the top titles in both the larger genre and among the crime movies now on Tubi. Gangster flicks have been a mainstay of film for decades. Bryan Singer guided The Usual Suspects, which stars Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, and Kevin Pollak. Originally meeting in a joint police lineup, the five play a gang of unrelated criminals—the titular suspects—who are put together.
With the mystery surrounding the identity of the feared mobster Keyser Söze, The Usual Suspects ends up running far deeper than most gangster films and boasts one of the best twist ends in cinematic history. From there, the group chooses to band together for a robbery in order to exact revenge on the NYPD; each member suffers guilt about their suspected involvement in a hijacking they had no part in. But because to the mystery of the identity of the notorious mobster Keyser Söze, The Usual Suspects ends up running far deeper than most gangster films and has one of the best twist ends in cinematic history.
America Psycho (2000)
Based on the same-named book by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho centers on Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), an investment banker in New York in 1987 who lives a double life as a serial killer. Trapped in a spiral of violence and excess, Bateman discovers he cannot stop himself from giving in to his progressively dark impulses as detectives circle him following the disappearance of a colleague. Stars include Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon.
Though it was released about 25 years ago, Director Mary Harron's American Psycho is still one of the most often talked and analyzed films of the 2000s. Thanks to Tubi, people who haven't seen it may easily discover why. Based on the same-named novel by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho is both a scathing critique of Wall Street capitalism and an immensely surreal horror — both of which are carried throughout by the career-defining performance of Christian Bale as central character Patrick Bateman.
Many critics and audiences also rank it among the best satire films ever produced, clearly for this reason. Wall Street broker Bateman discovers he is drawn to conduct horrific and brutal murders in order to at least somewhat escape the numbing detachment of his life at the top rungs of investment banking. Over American Psycho, he gradually loses his sanity; the seeming lack of concern and interest of his peers during the times he confesses to have violent intentions fractures his mental state. The picture still has an amazing degree of cultural impact, and it's clear why many reviewers and fans would rank it among the best satirical movies ever produced.
2017 - Life
Set in the not too distant future on a spacecraft returning from a mission to Mars, Life tracks the crew as they unintentionally awaken an alien lifeform in one of their samples of Martian dirt. Not just smart but also quite hostile; the alien starts attacking the crew, who then fight for their life trying to eradicate the menace their ship now presents to Earth. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Olga Dihovichnaya, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Ariyon Bakare.
Sci-fi and horror are two genres that have always blended exceptionally well, and 2017’s Life from director Daniel Espinosa is a fitting addition to this fine tradition. Life attracted a lot of attention from the moment it was announced, with a cast including Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Ryan Reynolds; despite some mixed reviews, it did not disappoint fans hoping for a strong sci-fi adventure with tense events and unsettling images across.
The plot is reminiscent of 1979’s Alien, which is by no means a critique, and Tubi users hoping for a similarly tense ride will find Life certainly satisfies. The plot of Life sees the crew of the ISS International Space Station analyzing soil samples from Mars in the near future. They are, at first, thrilled to discover the samples contain evidence of alien life on the Red Planet. The crew are able to cultivate a multicellular life form from the soil, which they name Calvin.
However, the birth of Calvin is when Life switches from sci-fi to horror, as the creature quickly becomes incredibly dangerous, picking off the crew of the ISS one by one. The plot is reminiscent of 1979’s Alien, which is by no means a critique, and Tubi users hoping for a similarly tense ride will find Life certainly satisfies.
St. Elmo’s Fire (1985)
A group of close-knit college graduates navigates the challenges of adulthood, balancing careers, relationships, and personal growth. Amidst the backdrop of their favorite bar, they confront their fears, ambitions, and the complexities of growing up, discovering the true meaning of friendship and resilience.
There was no shortage of coming-of-age movies in the 1980s, as the subgenre seemed to be entering into its own. Among teen films about the trials of entering adulthood that still stands up today is 1985’s St Elmo’s Fire, the drama from director Joel Schumacher starring decade-legends like Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, and Rob Lowe. While St Elmo’s Fire was initially panned by critics, it has since gone on to achieve cult status, with the same criticisms about its script and (at times) incredibly vacuous characters becoming the reasons that it’s so beloved by its fans.
The plot of St. Elmo’s Fire is relatively straightforward, as it focuses on a group of recent college graduates trying to make their way in the world after finally leaving the education system. However, the charm of St. Elmo’s Fire isn’t in its plot so much but in its characters, with the likes of Emilio Estevez’s Kirby and Demi Moore’s party-girl Jules being hilariously two-dimensional yet still, somehow, near-impossible not to find endearing.
Donnie Darko (2001)
After troubled teen Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes on a local golf course after a night of sleepwalking, he has a vision of a man in a rabbit suit telling him that the world will end in 28 days. Returning home, Donnie sees that a jet engine has fallen on his bedroom in the night, and begins to feel increasingly detached from reality. Scrambling to make sense of the bizarre and unexplainable events that have altered his life, Donnie finds himself unravelling a tangled web of disaster and fate.
Few movies are as misunderstood or as hotly debated as director Richard Kelly’s 2001 sci-fi thriller Donnie Darko. So ambiguous is the plot that there are even disagreements on what Donnie Darko is even about, though this only serves to make the movie even more endearing (and one that definitely counts among the “must watch” titles on Tubi). The story focuses on titular troubled teen Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), a young man who finds himself consistently at odds with the 1988 suburban community he and his family reside in.
Donnie’s psychological problems cause him to have visions of a man in a grotesque bunny costume who he knows of Frank, who constantly forewarns him about the end of the world. However, when Donnie escapes death by following a vision of Frank to a golf course on the night a jet engine crashes through the ceiling of their family home, Donnie realizes his “visions” may be more prophetic than first appears. Notably, Jake Gyllenhaal’s real-life sibling Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Donnie’s sister Elizabeth, and the pair manage to bring plenty of their shared dynamic to the arguments between the two characters.
Terrifier (2016)
Terrifier is a horror-slasher movie that follows two sisters that hop between parties on Halloween night, hunted relentlessly by a sadistic serial killer known as Art the Clown. Art, who has been slowly building his body count and terrorizing the town, finds a girl he becomes infatuated with, beginning a long string of victims for anyone who either stands in his way or is at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Director Damien Leone reinvigorated the slasher horror subgenre in 2022 with the sleeper-hit Terrifier 2, which gained notoriety thanks to some of its incredibly brutal scenes. With Terrifier 3 on the way in 2024 and already creating no shortage of conversation, many uninitiated with the villainous antagonist Art the Clown are wondering where the franchise began — and Tubi is one of the best places to catch up thanks to 2016’s Terrifier currently being available to stream on the platform.
It’s a slasher movie that pulls no punches, and Leone’s career history as a practical effects wizard prior to taking the director's chair is evident throughout. The plot of Terrifier sees various characters stalked and murdered by the truly diabolical silent killer Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), a character Leone first debuted in his 2008 short movie The 9th Circle. 2016’s Terrifier is a far grittier and lower-budget movie than Terrifier 2, though it’s quickly gaining its own fanbase thanks to the prominence of the sequel.
It’s a slasher movie that pulls no punches, and Leone’s career history as a practical effects wizard prior to taking the director's chair is evident throughout. While not hugely critically acclaimed upon its release, Terrifier is quickly defining its own legacy years later thanks both to the success of its sequel and its many brutal kills appearing in horror-fandom circles on social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
The Road (2009)
Based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, The Road centers on a father and son who attempt to make it to the coast after a global apocalypse wipes out all plant and animal life on Earth. The Road was directed by John Hillcoat and stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Movies detailing life after an apocalyptic event are nothing new, but few have managed to pull off the concept as deftly (or, indeed, as bleakly) as 2009’s The Road. Starring Viggo Mortensen as “Man” and Kodi Smit-McPhee as “Boy”, The Road is remarkably light when it comes to character backstories or any information about the specific event that nearly destroyed the world. Instead, The Road focuses on the psychological and emotional impact that the struggle to survive has on its two central characters. It’s this focus, combined with the masterful direction of John Hillcoat, that makes the road such a gripping and, at the same time, harrowing watch.
While some post-apocalyptic movies like the Mad Max saga or The Book of Eli mix visions of life after societal collapse with intense action and uplifting moments, there’s none of either to be found in The Road. It’s a truly unflinching movie that pulls no punches, though this doesn’t make it any less watchable. There are few movies on Tubi, or any other platform, quite like it, and the performances of both Mortensen and the young Smit-McPhee, as well as Charlize Theron in various flashback sequences, make it easily one of the best films currently available on the platform.
