11 best free movies on YouTube in January 2022

xi best free movies on YouTube in January 2022

Dillon Freasier as H. W. Plainview Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview in a conversation with someone else in There Will Be Blood

(Paradigm credit: AA Film Archive / Alamy Stock Photo)

You lot volition be shocked past the all-time free movies on YouTube. We were. After doing the research for this commodity, we at Tom'south Guide were surprised by ii things. First and foremost: YouTube has gratis movies across just the clips people upload and channels mail service. Nosotros're talking legit films that we all paid coin to go see in theaters.

Our listing of the best free movies on YouTube includes i of Tom Cruise'due south best films of all time, an under-appreciated thriller featuring John Goodman and one of the Coen Brothers' all-time films. And so, what's the take hold of, I tin can hear y'all inquire.

If you lookout these free movies on YouTube, you'll have to sit through ads. Or at least you would if you lot don't take YouTube Premium, which erases ads from all YouTube videos. Oh, and some of them aren't streaming in HD, either. But that's not exactly surprising when YouTube is also a site that sells movie rentals and purchases.

So, without further ado, here are our picks for the all-time gratuitous movies on YouTube.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle, pressed against a door, while John Goodman as Howard Stambler looks through its window in 10 Cloverfield Lane — (Image credit: Amusement Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo)

x Cloverfield Lane

Cloverfield is a name that has a lot of connotations in movies these days, afterwards the woefully received 2008 movie of the aforementioned proper noun. But 10 Cloverfield Lane is a must-run across no matter if you saw Cloverfield or not. A "bottle episode" of a film, it takes place nearly entirely in a bunker where Howard (Goodman) has been keeping Michelle (Winstead) after he found her mail service-motorcar crash. Howard doesn't seem entirely trustworthy (and he's more than a little creepy), so Michelle doesn't know if she should believe him that the outside world has been destroyed by a chemic set on. Tension ramps upwards as Michelle learns more and more nearly Howard.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 90% (Certified Fresh)
Stars: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr.
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Watch it for free on YouTube

Dillon Freasier as H. W. Plainview and Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview in a conversation with someone else in There Will Be Blood — (Image credit: AA Picture show Annal / Alamy Stock Photo)

In that location Volition Exist Blood

Researching this story gave me plenty of surprises, non the to the lowest degree of which including the reveal that the fantastic award-winning There Will Be Blood is actually free on YouTube. Some other fantastic Daniel Twenty-four hours-Lewis performance — this time every bit miner Daniel Plainview — anchors this amazing film almost how money corrupts man. Yep, that clarification, and the story of how oil ruins everything information technology touches, isn't exactly new. That said, There Will Be Blood thrives off of amazing work from all involved, including co-star Paul Dano, manager Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, whose original orchestral score ties the whole thing together.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 91% (Certified Fresh)
Stars: Daniel 24-hour interval-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, Dillon Freasier
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Watch it for gratis on YouTube

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Another surprising gem to find in this listing, O Brother, Where Fine art K? is ane of the Coen Brothers' all-time films. Also beloved for its folk music soundtrack, O Brother, Where Art Thou? transports audiences back to Mississippi in 1937 — but it's actually referencing even older lore. Co-written by Ethan and Joel Coen, O Brother uses three escaped convicts — Pete (Turturro), Delmar (Blake Nelson) and Ulysses Everett McGill (Clooney) — to riff on Homer's epic Greek poem The Odyssey. The trio are hunting for treasure, and wind up on a series of farcical adventures. A principal-class of filmmaking in many ways.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 78%
Stars: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Gootman, Holly Hunter
Manager: Joel Coen
Lookout it for gratis on YouTube

Wargames

Global Thermonuclear War sounds similar a fun retro computer game, right? Well, that's basically what David Lightman (Broderick) thought. In actually, the high schooler had hacked into a military supercomputer, and set the state into the start of an actual war with the Soviet wedlock. How is that possible? Lightman's accidentally interacted with the WOPR, a NORAD supercomputer that is running simulations of war. The endgame for these wargames comes through trying to convince the AI behind WOPR about the reasons to not become to war. A slap-up mix of teen drama and thrilling adventure, Wargames is one of the best free movies on YouTube.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 93% (Certified Fresh)
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy, John Forest
Director: David Fincher
Watch it for free on YouTube

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Perchance the spaghetti Western, Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is more than proof that the best complimentary movies on YouTube include inarguable classics. Clint Eastwood stars as a compensation hunter called Blondie who has to piece of work with 2 swain lowlifes — Tuco (Eli Wallach) and Angel Optics (Lee Van Cleef) — to notice buried gold. Betrayal, murder and bullets all pour in the subsequent scenes. Ennio Morricone provides a fantastic score, filled with songs that volition get stuck in your head.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 97% (Certified Fresh)
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef
Managing director: Sergio Leone
Picket it for free on YouTube

Airplane!

There are movies that use one-act as punchlines, with gaps in betwixt riffs. And then there's Aeroplane!, a pic that is constantly trying to make you laugh, and likely make the cast crevice up, too. It all revolves around a whole plane'due south crew and passengers who are struck with nutrient poisoning. Hilarious if you lived through the spate of disaster films released right before Airplane! came out in 1980, merely still funny if you love a good punchline.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 97% (Certified Fresh)
Stars: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Peter Graves, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Leslie Nielsen
Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Watch it for costless on YouTube

Minority Report

Again, our search for the best gratis movies on YouTube let us hit some other gem with one of Tom Cruise's top movies: Minority Written report. An adaptation of Philip Thousand. Dick's novella of the same name, the film revolves around the concept of precrime: the "art" of using a trio of psychics to effigy out and end crime before information technology's even committed. The inherent issues of the system, judging someone for something they haven't done, are brought to low-cal when Chief Paul Anderton (Cruise) is accused of murdering a homo he'due south never met. He then dives into the system to reveal how (or if) he'south been framed.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 90% (Certified Fresh)
Stars: Tom Prowl, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow, Lois Smith, Peter Stormare
Director: Steven Spielberg
Watch it for free on YouTube

Romeo + Juliet

Director Baz Luhrman's color-soaked and emotional adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy came out at just the right time. Dropped right during Leonardo DiCaprio's ascendance to be the male monarch of the teen heart-throbs, this version of Romeo & Juliet seems ripped from MTV with its await. Claire Danes, equally Juliet, is a perfect match for this Romeo, and their chemistry made this motion-picture show feel like the ideal setup for Titanic, the following year'due south mega-blockbuster. It doesn't hurt that DiCaprio is surrounded by a squad of all-stars working their all-time magic, including an excellent performances from John Leguizamo every bit Tybalt.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 73%
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, Paul Rudd, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrinau
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Watch it for free on YouTube

The cast of But I'm a Cheerleader, in cleaning clothing, including Clea Duvall, Melanie Lynskey and Natasha Lyonne — (Image credit: AF annal / Alamy Stock Photograph)

Only I'm a Cheerleader

A nice and lite satirical comedy, Simply I'1000 a Cheerleader gives united states one of the few starring roles in Natasha Lyonne's early on career — well before Russian Doll reminded everyone that she was severely underrated. The moving-picture show is focused on Megan (Lyonne), who thinks she'southward a normal loftier school girl, or at least she did earlier her panicked parents declare her to be gay and send her to a True Directions, a boot camp meant to strength her back into heterosexuality. And, of class, her visit to Truthful Directions leads to Megan questioning her heterosexuality.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 41%
Stars: Natasha Lyonne, Clea Duvall, RuPaul, Cathy Moriarty, Bud Cort, Mink Stole
Director: Jamie Babbit
Watch it for free on YouTube

Spaceballs

Spaceballs, a low-fi Star Wars parody, may not leave you lot saying "may the Schwartz be with you," but you lot may remember it for making sure the farce is with y'all. With characters such every bit Yogurt, Pizza The Hutt and Lord Dark Helmet, Spaceballs is a movie for people who don't believe in subtlety. Not every joke may hitting, but the ratio is potent plenty to make this a memorable movie that many nerds of a certain vintage will love to put on, merely probably don't know it's one of the best free movies on YouTube.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 56%
Stars: Mel Brooks, John Processed, Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga
Director: Mel Brooks
Sentinel it for complimentary on YouTube

A close of Arnold Schwarzenegger in black and white — (Image credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photograph)

Pumping Iron

If you thought Arnold Schwarzenegger was a weird adult, yous should run across immature Arnie in this documentary shot during his days equally a young body-builder. Through a series of interviews with Schwarzenegger in the days before the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions (and during said events), the film shows a side of the megastar y'all've probably never seen. Surrounded by his fellow bodybuilders, Schwarzenegger constantly says the unexpected, and yous get a glimpse of how he became then popular — as it was all happening.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 91
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Roger Callard, Franco Columbu
Directors: George Butler, Robert Fiore
Sentinel it for free on YouTube

Henry is a senior editor at Tom's Guide roofing streaming media, laptops and all things Apple, reviewing devices and services for the past half dozen-plus years. Prior to joining Tom'southward Guide, he reviewed software and hardware for TechRadar Pro, and interviewed artists for Patek Philippe International Mag. He's also covered the wild world of professional wrestling for Cageside Seats, interviewing athletes and other industry veterans.