With its lineup of more than 20,000 titles, Tubi is one of the best free streaming services, but it can also seem like an endless array of options with little distinction. It’s easy to get lost scrolling through Tubi’s on-demand movie offerings, wading through long lists of titles you’ve never heard of. While it can be exciting to explore Tubi’s vast selection of marginal independent films, most of them aren’t worth bothering with.
If you’re looking for more reliable, well-known movies to stream for free, Tubi has you covered. The service offers a great mix of familiar titles along with its oddities and obscurities, making for a satisfyingly balanced movie-watching experience. Here are three dependably great movies you can stream on Tubi right now.
‘Jurassic Park’
It may have launched a franchise of varying quality, but Steven Spielberg’s original adaptation of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi novel is one of the best action blockbusters ever made. Crichton came up with a brilliant high concept that Spielberg brings to life perfectly onscreen, in a movie about a theme park set to be filled with cloned versions of ancient dinosaurs.
Of course, that plan goes awry before the park even opens, in a preview for a handful of scientists played by Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum. Spielberg makes the most of the dinosaurs’ limited screen time, building suspense as the characters attempt to escape from these prehistoric predators. The special effects hold up beautifully, capturing the awe and terror of the majestic, deadly creatures as they wreak havoc on the foolish humans.
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‘The Third Man’
Film noir doesn’t get any better than director Carol Reed’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel, set in the occupied city of Vienna, Austria, just after World War II. Joseph Cotten plays American writer Holly Martins, who comes to Vienna on the promise of a job from his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to discover that Harry has apparently died in a car accident.
As he investigates the circumstances of Harry’s supposed death, Holly is drawn into a cover-up related to Harry’s black-market dealings, revealing the pervasive corruption of the post-war government. Longtime collaborators Cotten and Welles are expert sparring partners, and Welles delivers one of cinema’s most famous monologues from atop a Ferris wheel. “The Third Man” is stylish and jaded, with a memorably downbeat ending that encapsulates its clear-eyed pessimism.
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‘Moonstruck’
This Oscar-winning romantic comedy is a warm portrait of an Italian-American community in Brooklyn, with a touch of magical realism. Cher deservedly won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as sharp-tongued bookkeeper Loretta Castorini, who’s resigned to marry a harmless, devoted man she doesn’t love, until she meets his hot-tempered brother.
While her fiancé Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello) is away in Italy tending to his sick mother, Loretta falls for his estranged brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage), in the kind of instantaneous romance that only happens in the movies. Screenwriter John Patrick Shanley and director Norman Jewison make the love story convincing and wondrous, and the whole movie has a joyous, whimsical tone that celebrates the power of love without undermining the characters’ cynicism.
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