Our top picks of the best free movies to stream this week lean into tension, psychological drama and bold, eerie storytelling. If you’re craving something that’ll leave you feeling unnerved, intrigued and maybe a little breathless, without spending any money on a subscription, you’re in the right place.
This week’s lineup includes a bizarre folk horror, a gritty space survival tale, a grubby cop drama, and an adrenaline-pumping heist. It’s a collection of free films that are gripping, gritty and just the right amount of unhinged. Some are critically acclaimed and others are crowd-pleasers.
Every title is streaming on one (or several) of the best free streaming services, such as Kanopy, Plex, and Pluto TV. That means you have to sit through a few ad breaks in exchange for a night of free films – but there’s no subscription required. Whether you’re into slow-burn horror, twisty mysteries or just want to watch Patrick Swayze rob banks in a rubber mask, these best free movies are well worth your time.
1. Men (Plex, Prime Video)
Release date: 2022
Rotten Tomatoes score: 69%
Length: 100 minutes
Director: Alex Garland
Main cast: Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Gayle Rankin
Age rating: R
Director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) delivers a slow-burning and surreal folk horror with Men. It follows the story of Harper (played by Jessie Buckley), a young woman grieving the loss of her partner.
She takes a trip to the countryside to find herself trapped in an eerie village filled with unsettling male figures (all played, brilliantly and grotesquely, by Rory Kinnear).
What begins as a strange, atmospheric story slips into full-blown nightmare territory that’ll have your heart racing. It’s deeply symbolic and visually-loaded too – it’s one of those films you’ll want to talk about (or Google) a lot afterwards.
It’s certainly not for everyone, but if you like your horror ambitious and strange, and you’re a fan of Alex Garland’s film-making, you’re in for one strange and twisted ride.
2. Prospect (Favesome, Plex, Prime Video, Xumo)
Release date: 2018
Rotten Tomatoes score: 89%
Length: 98 minutes
Director: Zeek Earl
Main cast: Pedro Pascal, Sophie Thatcher, Jay Duplass
Age rating: R
Pedro Pascal is more popular than ever right now, but before he won our hearts with his leading roles in The Last of Us and The Mandalorian, he was already exploring distant planets in this gritty sci-fi film.
Prospect feels more like a frontier survival tale than your average space adventure. It follows the story of a teenage girl called Cee (played by Sophie Thatcher) and her father (Pascal) who land on a toxic moon to mine rare gems. But, as with any frontier survival story, things go very wrong, very quickly.
It’s tense, smart and doesn’t have the huge budget of other set-in-space stories, but it’s still packed with atmosphere. If you like your sci-fi grounded, a bit gritty and still packed with emotion, Prospect is a real hidden gem of a movie – especially if you’re craving even more Pedro Pascal in your life, and aren’t we all?
3. Filth (Fandango at Home, Hoopla, Kanopy, Plex, Pluto, Prime Video, Roku)
Release date: 2013
Rotten Tomatoes score: 67%
Length: 97 minutes
Director: Jon S. Baird
Main cast: James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Eddie Marsan, Jim Broadbent, Imogen Poots
Age rating: R
Be prepared for James McAvoy to go absolutely feral in Filth. This is the darkest of black comedies, based on the 1998 Irvine Welsh novel of the same name.
McAvoy plays Bruce “Robbo” Robertson, a corrupt Edinburgh cop whose grip on reality is slipping. We watch him on the job as he manipulates, exploits and spirals.
As well as showing us what’s going on in his day-to-day life, the story shows us his increasingly fractured inner world, complete with hallucinations, breakdowns and bizarre therapy sessions.
It’s filthy by name and by nature but beneath all of that vile chaos there’s a heart-breaking story. Think Trainspotting with a nastier edge – it’s bleak, twisted, but also a strangely moving trip too.
4. The Lighthouse (Plex, Prime Video)
Release date: 2019
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
Length: 110 minutes
Director: Robert Eggers
Main cast: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe
Age rating: R
The Lighthouse is what happens when one phenomenal director teams up with two of our greatest actors, and they lose their minds in a black and white fever dream.
Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe play Thomas Howard and Thomas Wake, two lighthouse keepers on a remote island in the late 1800s. The isolation sets in, the seagulls start circling, the tension rises and their sanity begins to slowly slip away.
Directed by Robert Eggers (Nosferatu, The Witch), this isn’t just a horror flick. It’s poetic, incredibly claustrophobic and has hints of mythology too. As you might expect, The Lighthouse isn’t an easy watch. It’s a salty, slippery descent into cabin fever anchored by astonishing performances from Pattinson and Dafoe.
5. Point Break (Favesome, Kanopy, Plex, Pluto, Prime Video, Roku)
Release date: 1991
Rotten Tomatoes score: 70%
Length: 122 minutes
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Main cast: Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey, Lori Petty, John C. McGinley
Age rating: R
If you didn’t grow up loving Point Break, it’s best to think of it as the original adrenaline-fuelled bromance long before the Fast & Furious franchise. It follows the story of Johnny Utah (played by Keanu Reeves), an FBI agent, and Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), a philosophical surfer and bank robber who Johnny is meant to be taking down.
It’s a wild action ride packed with skydiving, wave riding and masked heists. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), it may sound like a mindless, macho movie, but it’s unexpectedly soulful and, as you’d expect with Bigelow at the helm, beautifully shot. If you haven’t seen it, now’s the time. If you have, it never gets old.
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