Entertainment
The best places to watch free movies online
Wondering which sites offer options to watch free movies online? Keep reading, we’ll list our favorites below.
With the age of the internet in full swing, traditional television is growing less popular while the more convenient and cheaper online streaming is on the rise.
Streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have pioneered a whole new market of accessible movies and shows at a much lower cost than a cable or satellite TV subscription.
Most of the big streaming services still have a cost, but there are also plenty that offers their libraries for free. Wondering which sites offer options to watch free movies online? Keep reading, we’ll list our favorites below.
Here are 9 of the best places to watch free movies online
As you can see, there are a lot of options to watch free movies online. Sure, some are better than others, but all of them have their ups and downs. Keep reading to learn the various perks and what to expect from each of these free streaming services.
YouTube
If you frequent the internet, you probably use YouTube regularly or at least know what it is. If you don’t, it’s a popular platform for all kinds of video streaming, primarily in the form of content uploaded by users worldwide.
What you might not know about YouTube is that this website has its own movie & TV catalog as well. Curated and run by YouTube, this catalog features an impressive selection of movies to choose from, especially considering this isn’t even the platform’s primary service.
READ MORE: How to rent or buy movies on YouTube
A lot of the content on YouTube Movies & TV is only viewable through buying or renting it, but they also have an impressive and always-changing free selection. You might assume these would all be old or low-quality movies, and some are, but a lot of them are pretty good!
You can expect about as many ads on these movies as you would from normal YouTube browsing, which is to say, more than zero but less than some of the competitors.
Vudu
If you’re looking for a more dedicated movie streaming platform, Vudu is one free service that specializes in this. They have paid and free categories, but their free catalog is quite large on its own. I would say that it’s about on par with YouTube’s service.
One common complaint with Vudu is that it has a lot of ads. You’re probably not going to find a legitimate movie streaming service that’s free with no ads, and that’s because they have to pay for their own services somehow, but Vudu can have as many as four ad breaks in a single episode of a TV show.
With that said, if you don’t mind ads, it’s pretty good.
Crunchyroll
This one is more of a specialty service that focuses on a specific category of content: anime. If you like anime, this is the one and only service for you.
Crunchyroll’s entire catalog is free with ads, and its category is extensive. While it’s mostly made up of anime series, it also has plenty of anime movies and even a separate category for Eastern live-action dramas.
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One caveat is that new episodes of shows are off-limits to free users for a week after their official release. It has ads too, but considering everything on their website is free, a few ad breaks are a fair price to pay.
If you love anime and foreign films, Crunchyroll is likely to have everything you could ever want. Give it a try!
IMDb TV
You may have heard of IMDb, a popular online information database for movies and TV shows. What you might not know is that they’re owned by Amazon, and Amazon is in the streaming game.
One thing Amazon has done with the popular name of IMDb is using it to start up their own free streaming service. IMDb TV is a free-to-use parallel to Amazon’s Prime Video service, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it won’t have any good content.
Of the sites on this list, IMDb TV has perhaps one of the strongest catalogs of content available. Most of the available movies are very popular titles, and they claim to have only half the amount of ads of a traditional TV network.
If you’re just looking for a high-quality selection of titles, IMDb TV is a great service to check out. You won’t find a lot of low-budget movies or extremely old releases cluttering their catalog up, unlike with most of the others on this list.
Crackle
Another completely free service, Crackle, has a large selection of movies with none of them behind a paywall. If an infinite supply of free movies is what you want, they’ve got it.
That’s about all they’ve got, though. Most of their featured titles are pretty unnoteworthy. That’s not to say there are no good movies on the site, but you’re unlikely to see a lot of recognizable names or big-budget movies.
If you’re looking for specific, familiar titles, you may be disappointed with what you find here. Still, their catalog is completely free to browse and use, so there’s no reason not to check it out!
Roku
If you’re looking for more of a traditional TV-styled experience, Roku might be of interest to you. This brand is known mostly for their streaming devices made to connect to TV sets, but their “channel,” as they call it, can be accessed online for free.
The content you can expect to see on Roku is similar to what you would find with a standard cable or satellite television setup. There’s a mix of movies, shows, and things like live news broadcasts to really give it that TV channel feel. Accordingly, the quality of content varies between titles.
Since Roku tries to be like a TV network, a lot of what they offer is pretty recognizable stuff. By no means do they specialize in movies, but there are plenty there nonetheless.
Pluto TV
Very similar to Roku, Pluto TV chooses to copy the style of a traditional television network.
The movies and shows they have to choose from are par for the course with what you would expect to see on TV, and they have live-streamed content as well as a robust on-demand video section.
There’s not a whole lot to say about this one that hasn’t already been said about Roku. Both are commonly included on TV-connected streaming devices, and both try to offer an experience similar to real TV channels.
The biggest difference between the two is that Pluto TV is owned by CBS/Paramount, meaning it’s pretty much an authentic TV channel. If you like what’s on TV, you’ll probably like what’s on Pluto.
Peacock TV
This one’s another TV-channel-styled service like Roku and Pluto. Just like Pluto, Peacock TV is noteworthy for actually being owned by a TV network: NBC. As such, you can expect their content to be exactly what you would find on TV.
One notable downside is that you have to make an account to use their website. It’s hard to even see what they have available without an account, but their signup process is easy, and you don’t need any personal info like your credit card to try it out.
Popcornflix
Last on the list is Popcornflix. What makes this website special? Not a lot, honestly. Their whole website is free to use, which can’t be said for a lot of the contenders on this list, but there’s nothing special about its selection of titles.
You won’t find a lot of popular movies on here, and the ones you do spot will probably be old movies. It also has a lot of low-budget comedy, horror, and action movies, which can be a selling point for some people.
Since their whole selection of movies and shows is free and easy to access, you’re not losing anything by checking it out. If you’re the type who likes cheesy movies or just isn’t picky, give it a try.
So, there you have it. The sites listed above are some of the best places to watch free movies online.
If you’re tired of forking money over to companies like Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and a half-dozen other streaming services – save some money and check out the options listed here in this post.
Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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