There’s a near-endless supply of movie options on the best streaming services, but why pay when you can watch excellent films for free? That’s where the best free streaming services – like Tubi, Pluto TV, and Plex – come in.
This week, our pick of the best free movies lean toward the hard-hitting, the mind-bending, and the downright gripping. Sci-fi, time travel, action, crime, and a touch of horror, it’s all here.
With directors such as David Fincher and the indie cult duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead in the mix, these films will keep you thinking long after the credits roll.
Coherence (Plex, Pluto, Tubi)
Release date: 2015
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
Length: 89 minutes
Director: James Ward Byrkit
Main cast: Nicholas Brendon, Elizabeth Gracen, Emily Baldoni, Hugo Armstrong
Think sci-fi, and you might picture spaceships and intergalactic battles. But there’s a subtler, stranger side to the genre, where small budgets meet big, mind-bending ideas. Coherence is a perfect example.
This is one of those twisting, turning sci-fi thrillers where the less you know, the better. But here’s the basic setup. A group of friends gather for a dinner party on the night that a mysterious comet passes by, and, well, reality starts to unravel. What follows is a psychological puzzle that feels both eerie and grounded, thanks to an improvised script and incredible performances.
If you loved Primer, The Endless, or anything that plays with time, space and reality, Coherence is a must-watch. It’s unsettling and truly unforgettable.
Spring (Tubi)
Release date: 2015
Rotten Tomatoes score: 85%
Length: 109 minutes
Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Main cast: Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker, Vinny Curran, Jeremy Gardner
One of the more obscure picks here, but one of the most fascinating, too. Spring comes from the brilliant minds of directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (The Endless, Synchronic) and blends horror, romance, and sci-fi in a way that’s unsettling, beautiful and unique.
It’s another one that we don’t want to tell you all that much about. But, without giving anything away, the story follows Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), a young American who flees to Italy after a personal tragedy. There, he falls for a mysterious woman named Louise (Nadia Hilker), but she has an… otherworldly secret.
It’s part Before Sunrise, part body horror, if you can believe it. With stunning cinematography and an eerie atmosphere. If you like your movies weird and deeply original, Spring is a hidden gem.
Looper (Pluto)
Release date: 2012
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%
Length: 119 minutes
Director: Rian Johnson
Main cast: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano
Looper is a time-travel thriller that packs in both a lot of heart and a lot of action, directed by Rian Johnson (Knives Out, Star Wars: The Last Jedi).
Set in a future where the mob disposes of targets by sending them back in time, it follows the story of Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a hitman – known as a ‘looper’ – who kills these time-displaced victims. But when someone he knows is sent back as a target, everything spirals out of control.
While the second half shifts gears a little into a more emotional film, Looper is full of bold sci-fi concepts, striking visuals, and great performances. It’s clever, stylish, and one of my favorite time-travel movies.
Zodiac (Plex, Pluto)
Release date: 2007
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
Length: 157 minutes
Director: David Fincher
Main cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Edwards
Nearly 20 years after it first came out, Zodiac is still one of David Fincher’s finest films. It’s a chilling, obsessive deep-dive into one of America’s most infamous unsolved crimes.
Based on these real events, it follows the story of journalist Robert Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), and reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) as they attempt to reveal the identity of the Zodiac Killer in 1970s California. Their investigation spans years and turns from the essential into the obsessive and destructive, for all sorts of reasons.
At more than 2.5 hours, it’s a slow-burn procedural rather than a traditional thriller, but it’s still utterly engrossing. Fincher’s attention to detail, the eerie atmosphere, and stellar cast make Zodiac one of the best true crime films you’ll ever see.
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