Oscar season is now in full swing, and while you’ll mostly have to pay for the privilege of watching the 2025 Best Picture Oscar nominees from the comfort of your own home, you don’t need to fork out big subscription fees to watch some top-tier movies this week.
These days, the best free streaming services offer an impressive selection of classic and recently released titles, and below, I’ve highlighted five of the best free movies to stream on Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, and more this week.
In Time (Plex, Pluto TV)
Release date: October 2011
Rotten Tomatoes score: 36%
Length: 109 minutes
Director: Andrew Niccol
Main cast: Amanda Seyfried, Justin Timberlake, Alex Pettyfer, Cillian Murphy
Its Rotten Tomatoes rating be damned – Andrew Niccol’s In Time is a fun, original, and well-acted sci-fi adventure that’s currently streaming for free on both Plex and Pluto TV.
Starring Amanda Seyfried, Justin Timberlake, and Cillian Murphy, this dystopian thriller imagines a future where time is money (literally) and everyone stops aging at 25. Timberlake plays Will Salas, a day-by-day worker who, after being gifted a century by a mysterious member of the 1%, attracts unwanted attention from criminals and the authorities. Sure, its message is a little on-the-nose, but In Time is a good time nonetheless.
The Terminator (Hoopla)
Release date: October 1984
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Length: 107 minutes
Director: James Cameron
Main cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield
Sticking with the sci-fi theme, James Cameron’s iconic action thriller The Terminator is now streaming for free on Hoopla.
This franchise-spawning film centers on a merciless cybernetic assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), an unsuspecting woman whose unborn son will, in the future, save mankind from AI-induced extinction. That premise sounds complicated on paper, but The Terminator is the most accessible of all the Terminator movies and, for many, still the best of the lot (Judgment Day fans, make your case in the comments!).
Four Weddings and a Funeral (Tubi)
Release date: January 1994
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Length: 117 minutes
Director: Mike Newell
Main cast: Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Hannah
Made for just £3 million in 1994, Four Weddings and a Funeral – which is now streaming for free on Tubi – would go on to become the highest-grossing British film in history (for a time) and the launchpad for Hugh Grant’s international stardom.
Written by acclaimed screenwriter Richard Curtis, Mike Newell’s fast-moving rom-com follows Charles (Grant), a bachelor who struggles to express his true romantic feelings for an American woman (Andie MacDowell) he encounters at a friend’s wedding. For fans of Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Love Actually, and About Time, Four Weddings and a Funeral is necessary viewing.
Shoplifters (Pluto TV)
Release date: May 2018
Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%
Length: 121 minutes
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Main cast: Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, Mayu Matsuoka, Kairi Jō
Given the boom in internationally-received foreign-language films in recent years, you’d be forgiven for missing out on Shoplifters, which is now streaming for free on Pluto TV.
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s understated (albeit Palme d’Or-winning) 2018 drama centers on a poverty-stricken Tokyo family who supplement their income with petty thievery. The good-spirited foursome grows by one when the patriarch, Osamu (Lily Franky), brings a seemingly abandoned neighborhood girl in from the cold. Shoplifters is a slow-burning tale, but its heart-wrenching twist makes it worth the commitment.
Half Nelson (Pluto TV)
Release date: September 2006
Rotten Tomatoes score: 91%
Length: 102 minutes
Director: Ryan Fleck
Main cast: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie, Tina Holmes
Before Ryan Gosling became Ken, Sebastian or Officer K, generally one of the most bankable movie stars on the planet, he was a poster boy for the noughties indie movie scene, starring in critically acclaimed (but lesser seen) films like Half Nelson.
Now streaming on Pluto TV, Ryan Fleck’s low-budget drama stars Gosling as Dan Dunne, a history teacher and drug addict who befriends a 13-year-old student with her own issues at home. Together, the pair help each other work through their problems. Half Nelson earned Gosling a deserved first Best Actor nomination, and despite its relative lack of plot, it’s worth a watch for his peroxide-free performance alone (sorry, Barbie fans).
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axel.metz@futurenet.com (Axel Metz)
