Top 10 Best Free Sites To Watch Movies Online

Sally Polly January 25, 2022 | 09:09

Aside from popular and well-known websites to watch movies such as Netflix, HBO, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, etc, there are also several sites that provide the best movies, which you can watch for free.

Top 10 Best Websites You Can Use To Watch Free Movies Online

Watching free movies online is a convenient and frugal way to see the films you love right from the comfort of your own home. We live in a world with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to streaming channels, but subscribing to Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Amazon Prime and a half-dozen others can be as pricey as an old-fashioned cable subscription — or worse. There's a huge variety of freely available movies on these sites, from comedies and dramas to horror and action films. Take a look at these 10 best websites that you can use to watch free movies online.

List of top 10 best sites that you can use to watch free movies online

1. The Roku Channel

2. Vudu

3. IMDb TV

4. Peacock

5. Crackle

6. Popcornflix

7. YouTube

8. Pluto TV

9. Plex

10. Tubi

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What are the 10 best free sites that you can use to watch movies online

1. The Roku Channel

Photo: Business Insider

The Roku Channel is Roku's own streaming channel dedicated to delivering free (ad-supported) TV, movies, sports, and news to anyone with a Roku account.

After a free registration, you can watch The Roku Channel on almost any device. A wide selection of on-demand and live content is available at no extra cost.

A small selection of live news, sports, and entertainment channels are among the free content available on The Roku Channel. News from ABC News, Newsy, and a few others stream live as it's broadcasted. Sports are streamed live on Stadium and a few other channels.

The Roku Channel offers a wide range of content. You can subscribe to premium channels now too. They offer HBO, Showtime, Starz, Epix, and Cinemax subscriptions in one service. The pricing is nearly identical to competing streaming-only services and standalone subscriptions, but you pay only one bill.

The Roku Channel is free, so the premium channels alone are what you pay for, instead of a monthly access fee plus premium channel subscriptions as with other streaming providers (and traditional cable/satellite).

Pricing for each of the most popular premium channels isn't any different when you purchase directly from the provider. Cinemax does not have a standalone subscription service available so the best way to stream is through a service such as The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video, or Hulu + TV.

In addition to popular movie channels, you can also subscribe to a selection of other paid channels such as Smithsonian Channel Plus, History Channel Vault, Lifetime Movie Club, and Noggin. A varied selection of family and lifestyle channels round out the premium channel subscription options.

The Roku Channel is available on many devices. One of the easiest ways to watch is from a Roku streaming device. You can add the Roku channel just as you would any other channel app.

The Roku mobile app features all Roku Channel content. You can watch from an iOS or Android device without logging into a Roku account. The Roku Channel content is featured on the home screen of the app so you can start watching as soon as you launch it.

You can also watch from a web browser on a computer or mobile device. You must be logged in to watch. You will be prompted to create an account if you don't already have one. It's free to sign up for a Roku account, even if you have never purchased a Roku device.

2. Vudu

Photo: Variety

Vudu might not be your first pick when looking for free sites for streaming movies, but there are in fact thousands of movies here that you can watch right now. All you have to do is put up with a few commercials.

Vudu has thousands of free movies, and you can filter them by genre and sort them by most-watched or release date. The genres are pretty basic, so your options include action, comedy, crime, romance, and a few others.

Something unique to call out about this movie site is that not only can you browse the new releases, but you can do so on a single page for every genre. The New to Free page lists each genre to make looking through the newly added films really easy.

Other fun areas of the site you don't want to miss include Most Watched Movies, Critically Acclaimed, Hidden Gems, and Big Time Movie Stars. There are a few hundred videos in each section. Some of the more popular films you can watch here include The Contract, The Warrant, Ravage, The Wrong Car, Soul Men, and Apartment 407.

One great thing about Vudu's movies is that some of them are in 1080p, so you don't have to sacrifice quality just to watch some free movies.

Once you settle on something to watch, you might be given the option to buy or rent it, but so long as you found it through one of the free pages, there will be a button you can use to stream the movie without paying. Of course, you could also pay for movies here, too.

3. IMDb TV

Photo: Variety

IMDb TV is an American ad-supported video on demand streaming service owned by Amazon. The service launched in January 2019 as IMDb Freedive

IMDb TV launched as a free, ad-supported video channel by the Amazon-owned online database IMDb in January 2019, under the name IMDb Freedive. The free video on demand (VOD) service was available on both Amazon and IMDb's websites as well as on all Amazon Fire devices.

On June 17, 2019, IMDb Freedive announced its rebranding to IMDb TV, confirming it would triple its content selection. Signing new deals with Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM Studios, the streaming service offered new content.

The rebranding was set to further ramp up Amazon's ad-supported video strategy, with brands like AT&T, Procter & Gamble, Verizon and PepsiCo running 15- and 30-second advertisement spots within IMDb TV's movies and shows.

Amazon announced that it would be moving IMDb TV's content team to within Amazon Studios on February 20, 2020, with the goal of developing original programming under new IMDb TV co-heads.

In September 2021, Amazon announced they will expand the service in the United Kingdom, but it is available for members and non-members of Amazon Prime, with its access on their Prime Video app. The UK version of the service will not include UK made originals unlike to Prime Video who has UK-produced originals exclusively.

Owned by Amazon, IMDb TV is a standalone service and surprisingly hasn't been rolled into Amazon Prime video. You might know IMDb as the place to go to get information about movies, actors, and filmmakers, but IMDb TV has hundreds of free TV shows and movies. You can watch IMDb TV movies on a wide variety of devices and through the Amazon Prime Video website or app (IMDb TV content is clearly marked as such).

4. Peacock

Photo: Variety

Peacock is an American over-the-top video streaming service owned and operated by the Television and Streaming division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Named after the NBC logo, the service launched on July 15, 2020. The service primarily features series and film content from NBCUniversal studios and other third-party content providers, including television series, films, news, and sports programming. The service is available in a free ad-supported version with limited content, while premium tiers include a larger content library and access to additional NBC Sports and WWE Network content.

Early availability for Xfinity Flex customers began on April 15, 2020, with X1 customers receiving the preview by May 1. Peacock launched nationally on July 15, 2020; as of August 2021, the service had reached at least 54 million signups. Peacock was given a soft launch on the Sky and NOW platforms in the UK and Ireland on November 16, 2021 free to all customers.

Peacock has three tiers of service: Free, Premium, and Premium Plus. The Premium tier is a subscription-based service which includes Peacock's full library of content, while the Free tier contains a subset of its content. The Free and Premium tiers are advertising-supported, with commercials limited to five minutes per-hour. Peacock Premium is included in some services from television service providers, such as Cox and Xfinity. Subscribers to Peacock Premium, whether subscribing directly or receiving service through a provider, can upgrade to the ad-free Premium Plus tier for an additional monthly cost.

From NBCUniversal is this service that has thousands of hours of movies and TV shows, some that are originals that you won't find on any of these other sites. Films are from studios like Universal, DreamWorks Animation, and Focus Features.

We've seen films organized in categories such as Musicals, Primetime Nostalgia, Dark Comedies, Free Laughs, Based on a True Story, Big Screen Heroes, Dynamic Duos, and Totally '80s. This is a fun way to find movies through a new lens.

Some free movies are Die Hard, The Cabin in the Woods, Red, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Bone Collector, Geostorm, and Fletch.

If you're still not sure where to start looking for your next free stream, try Peacock's Featured Films list.

You can pay if you want more features like access to additional titles and ad-free videos. The movies that cost have a purple feather in the corner of the thumbnail to make it easy to distinguish from the free ones.

5. Crackle

Photo: Endgaget

Crackle is a video streaming platform owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. Its library consists of original content and acquired programming. The service is available in 21 countries on connected devices including mobile, tablets, smart TVs, desktop, and gaming consoles. Crackle is also available as in-flight entertainment and in some hotel chains.

Founded as an independent company and originally known as Grouper, the service was purchased by Sony Pictures in 2006 which renamed it Crackle in July 2007, and then Sony Crackle in January 2018. Eric Berger served as the general manager of Crackle from 2008 to 2019. Sony sold a majority stake to Chicken Soup for the Soul in March 2019, which immediately reverted to the Crackle name. Later, Sony sold its remaining stake to the same company.

Crackle is owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. Other Crackle Plus VOD platforms include Popcornflix (AVOD), Truli (faith-based content), and Pivotshare (SVOD platform). Crackle features programming in the following genres: action, comedy, crime, drama, horror, and sci-fi.

Crackle features films and TV shows, some of them on an exclusive basis, mainly from Sony Pictures and its subsidiaries, including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions.

Crackle also features “Crackle Original” series such as On the Ropes, Going from Broke, Hidden Heroes, The Oath, and Snatch. Crackle's content changes each month as titles are added and taken down.

Crackle has been around a long time — it got its start in 2004. And unlike some other streaming channels, Crackle is 100% free, offering all its content at no cost (with ads), so anything you see on the site you can watch without paying. You can browse movies and TV shows by genre, alphabetically, or search for a specific title.

6. Popcornflix

Photo: TechtoolsPC

Popcornflix LLC is a website and over-the-top (OTT) service offering free ad-supported streaming video of feature-length movies and webisodes. It is owned by Screen Media Ventures, Popcornflix and its parent company were acquired by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment in 2017.

Popcornflix was conceived in July 2010, and went into live beta in March 2011. The site primarily streams independent feature films, many of which come from Screen Media's library. The service is accessible in the United States and Canada, with plans to launch in more territories.

Popcornflix is another great place to watch free movies online. Their constant flow of new titles from Screen Media Ventures (the same company that runs Crackle) means that they have lots of movies being added all the time.

This site has several hundred movies that include comedy, drama, horror, action, romance, family, documentary movies, and foreign films. They also feature web and film school originals, and list some titles by a common theme, like Cops and Robbers and Sci-Fi Sanctuary.

No account is needed; simply choose any movie and enjoy. It supports resume playback, so you can watch these movies in pieces if you like.

Some of this site's newest additions include Ragnarok, Timecrimes, Centurion, Bronson, Power Kids, Fay Grim, and The Hunter.

7. YouTube

Photo: TechCrunch

YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is the second most visited website, right after Google itself. YouTube has more than one billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute.

In October 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion. Google's ownership of YouTube has also changed its business model; it no longer generates revenue from advertisements alone. YouTube now offers paid content such as movies and exclusive content. YouTube and approved creators participate in Google's AdSense program, which generates more revenue for both parties. It has since evolved from a small video streaming platform to a large service with reported revenues of $19.8 billion in 2020.

Since its purchase by Google, YouTube has expanded beyond the website into mobile apps, network television, and the ability to link with other services. Video categories on YouTube include music videos, video clips, news, short films, feature films, documentaries, audio recordings, movie trailers, teasers, live streams, vlogs, and more. Most content is generated by individuals. This includes collaborations between YouTubers and corporate sponsors. Since 2015, established media corporations such as Disney, ViacomCBS, and WarnerMedia have created and expanded their corporate YouTube channels to advertise to a larger audience.

YouTube isn't just the place to go to watch the latest movie trailers or videos of skateboarding dogs. They also have dozens upon dozens of movies that you can watch for free.

YouTube has its own curated list of new and popular movies that are easily accessible from the Movies & Shows section, via the link below. Beyond that list are profiles from movie companies, like Popcornflix, that are also 100% free and legal to watch.

8. Pluto TV

Photo: Androidsis

Pluto TV is an internet television service owned and operated by ViacomCBS Streaming, a division of ViacomCBS, Co-founded by Tom Ryan, Ilya Pozin and Nick Grouf in 2013 and based in Los Angeles, California, in the United States and parts of Europe, Latin America, and Brazil. Pluto is an advertiser-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) service that primarily offers a selection of programming content through digital linear channels designed to emulate the experience of traditional broadcast programming. The service's revenue is generated from video advertisements seen during programming within ad breaks structured similarly to those found on conventional television.

Pluto TV licenses its content directly from providers, and as of March 2020 has deals with 170 content partners providing more than 250 channels and 100,000 unique hours worth of programming. Its content is available via its website and supported apps. In August 2021, the service has 52 million monthly active users. As of September 2021, the service has reached 54 million monthly active users.

As of August 2021, Pluto TV carries over 200 channels, packaging content acquired through various content syndication deals, as well as programming from ViacomCBS's internal libraries. Traditional television channels whose feeds are carried directly on Pluto include Court TV, NASA TV, WeatherNation TV, Buzzr, Newsmax TV, the Trinity Broadcasting Network (and sister network Hillsong Channel), Dabl, Bloomberg Television, Sky News, CNN, Professional Bull Riders’ RidePass, Eleven Sports (albeit with some events replaced with alternative programming due to streaming rights restrictions), Stadium and TheBlaze. AVOD services whose feeds are carried on Pluto include CBSN, CBS Sports HQ, FOX Sports, Pluto Sports, ET Live, Nosey, NBC News Now, Newsy (short-form Newsy Briefs are inserted into commercial breaks on other Pluto channels), Cheddar News, TYT Network, and People TV. In addition, Pluto also offers “pop-up channels," which maintain binge-viewing or specialty programming formats that operate on a temporary or open-ended basis.

Pluto TV is a little different than most streaming video services. In addition to being able to watch movies and TV shows on demand, it also streams live programming that you access in a program guide as if you were watching cable or satellite TV. You can jump into programs in progress after browsing the dozens of categories arranged like channels. Or switch to the On Demand tab, and start any of the thousands of TV shows and movies in the library, arranged into easily browsable categories. And it's all free, supported by ads.

9. Plex

Photo: Endgaget

Plex is a global streaming media service and a client–server media player platform, made by Plex, Inc. The Plex Media Server organizes video, audio, and photos from a user's collections and from online services, and streams it to the players. The official clients and unofficial third-party clients run on mobile devices, smart TVs, streaming boxes, and in web apps.

Plex began as a freeware hobby project in December 2007 when developer Elan Feingold created a media center application for his Apple Mac. He ported the media player XBMC (since renamed Kodi) to Mac OS X. Around the same time, Cayce Ullman and Scott Olechowski—software executives who had recently sold their previous company to Cisco—were also looking to port XBMC to OS X, and noticed Feingold's progress via XBMC online forums. They contacted him and offered support and funding, forming a three-person team in January 2008.

The team released early versions of the port, called OSXBMC, intended for eventual full integration into Mac OS X. The developers continued collaborating with the Linux-based XBMC project until May 21, 2008. Due to different goals and vision from the XBMC team, they soon forked the code to become Plex, and published it on GitHub. The OSXBMC code was kept roughly in sync with the upstream XBMC code.

In December 2009, the US-based Plex, Inc. was founded with Ullman as CEO and Feingold as CTO. At that time, Plex had 130 apps, the most popular of which were viewers for Apple Movies Trailers, YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, MTV Music Videos, BBC iPlayer, and Vimeo. Feingold declared Plex apps had been downloaded about one million times. As of July 2016, Plex had 65 employees. In December 2019, Plex, Inc. announced ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) of TV shows and movies available globally to free Plex accounts, from publishers including Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, MGM, Lionsgate, and Legendary. As of August 2019, it had about 100 global employees.

Plex is an interesting service because it's actually a much bigger package than it might seem at first. In addition to free full-length movies, it also has TV shows, podcasts, live TV, and associated software that serves as an at-home media server.

Currently, there are over 20,000 free movies and shows here. They're sectioned off in traditional genres like action and crime, but you can also browse by actor or channel, like BBC, Crackle, Popsy, Lionsgate, and Maverick Black Cinema. Plex has its own unique categories, too, including Crime Time and Cheap Thrills.

On a movie's watch page are similar titles and additional details that help build a total picture of the film, like the full cast list, reviews, and trailers.

Here are a few of the most popular free movies you can watch on Plex: Crank, The Road, The Switch, Vengeance: A Love Story, and The Promotion.

10. Tubi

Photo: TubiTV Corporate

Tubi is an American over-the-top content platform and ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. The service was launched on April 1, 2014, and is based in San Francisco, California. As of January 2021, Tubi has 33 million monthly active users.

Tubi has thousands of free movies and TV shows that you can stream right now. Some of them can only be rented and not viewed for free, but many are no cost to stream.

There are dozens of genres and collections to pick from, even fun and unique ones like Not on Netflix, Black Cinema, Movie Night, Cult Classics, K-Drama+, and Bollywood Dreams. We also particularly like the Leaving Soon and Trending Now sections.

Some films listed as the site's most recent additions include All Madden, War of the Worlds: Annihilation, Girls Getaway Gone Wrong, Sweet Home Alabama, Roswell, The Sixth Sense, The Green Mile, and Schindler's List.

Tubi Kids is a section of this site perfect for streaming just kid-related films. It's available from the top of the website, and has categories just for preschoolers and other kids, including Toon TV, LEGO, and Friendly Monsters films. There are also parental controls you can set through the normal website.