The 100 Best Movies on Tubi Right Now

The 100 Best Movies on Tubi Right Now

December 19, 2024

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Tubi is very much like Netflix, except you don’t have to sign in to watch movies, and more importantly: you don’t have to pay. Tubi is ad-supported. So as long as you can stomach multiple ads stitched into the movie, then Tubi comes as a movie miracle, a treasure trove that offers some of the best cinema has to offer. Below are the best movies on Tubi that we recommend.

81. Wendy and Lucy (2008)

best

8.1

Country

United States of America

Director

Female director, Kelly Reichardt

Actors

Ayanna Berkshire, David Koppell, Deirdre OConnell, Gabe Nevins

Moods

A-list actors, Challenging, Depressing

Wendy (Michelle Williams) is a drifter driving up to Alaska in hopes of finding work. When her car breaks down, she and her dog Lucy are stranded and forced to scrounge for food and repairs, hitting one roadblock after another on her path to an uncertain dream. This sympathetic and solemn look at poverty from director Kelly Reichardt serves as a reminder of how easy it is to fall through the fragile American safety net.   

Reichardt’s uncompromising approach paired with Williams’s restrained performance makes the experience authentic and intense, recalling the work of Ken Loach. This natural sharpness makes for an engrossing watch that builds in power until the emotional release of the film’s heartbreaking conclusion. 

82. Lady Vengeance (2005)

best

8.1

Country

South Korea

Director

Chan-wook Park, Park Chan-wook

Actors

Anne Cordiner, Bu-seon Kim, Byeong-ok Kim, Cha Soon-bae

Moods

Action-packed, Intense, Mind-blowing

This Park Chan-Wook classic is the third part of a trilogy of films around the theme of revenge, following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy. While ultimately unique, Lady Vengeance is a thriller set in a prison, in the vein of films such as the Japanese action drama Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion. After being framed and wrongly convicted for murder, our protagonist seeks out the true perpetrator of the crime –– but more than anything else, she seeks vengeance. 

This film’s run time is 115 minutes and every second is essential. There is often gratuitous violence perpetrated by men against women in film, however Lady Vengeance takes back control and for that reason it remains one of my favorite revenge films.

83. Miracle Mile (1988)

best

8.1

Country

United States of America

Director

Steve De Jarnatt

Actors

Alan Berger, Alan Rosenberg, Annie Wood, Anthony Edwards

Moods

Dark, Gripping, Mind-blowing

Before anything else, Miracle Mile is a romance. It begins with a meet-cute so adorable, it convinces lovebirds Harry and Julie to stick to each other in the next moments of the film, which couldn’t be more different than the first. Where the opening scene is sweet and lovely, the ones that follow it are fraught and bleak and eerily existential. At this point, the film transforms into its true self: an apocalyptic nightmare. When Harry receives word that a nuclear attack is incoming, the news spreads like wildfire and all hell breaks loose in this film that makes you question reality and humanity. 

It’s one of the smoothest shifts in cinematic history, but even with panic swirling and violence erupting, love is still there. Harry and Julie’s quest to save and savor the bond they’ve formed is genuinely moving, and it effectively grounds this out-of-this-world film about the end.

84. Pearl (2022)

best

8.1

Country

United States of America

Director

Ti West

Actors

Alistair Sewell, Amelia Reid, David Corenswet, Emma Jenkins-Purro

Moods

Character-driven, Original, Thrilling

It’s rare to see a prequel surpass its antecedent, but Pearl is that exception. You can watch it before or after X and still get the same satisfaction from piecing together the puzzle of Mia Goth’s many roles (three in total across the trilogy). If the first film owed a lot to slasher classics like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the second (surprise!) channels The Wizard of Oz and nods to the splendiferous melodramas of Douglas Sirk. The jarring form-content opposition here makes sense, as we’re seeing through the eyes of the main character, who most of all dreams of being in a movie. Because of that very same whimsy, everything has to change: the violence is not as explicit and the role of sex is brought to the forefront. All hail the new kind of final girl: a farm girl-turned-star.

85. I Am Not a Witch (2017)

best

8.1

Country

France, Germany, United Kingdom

Director

Female director, Rungano Nyoni

Actors

Dyna Mufuni, Gloria Huwiler, Henry B.J. Phiri, Maggie Mulubwa

Moods

Dark, Funny, Original

Remarkably for a movie about women being shunned and exploited by those more powerful than them, I Am Not A Witch is often wryly funny. That’s because this satire about Zambia’s labor camps for “witches” is told with a matter-of-fact-ness that brings out both the heartbreak and absurdity of the film’s events. The bitter gravity of the predicament nine-year-old Shula (Maggie Mulubwa) finds herself in — she’s been accused of witchcraft on the back of some very flimsy evidence — is never glossed over, but neither is its farcicality. Appropriately for its subject, there are also touches of magical realism here, notes that elevate the film into something even more complex than a wry commentary on this morbidly fascinating form of misogyny. This hybrid tonal approach is executed with the kind of fluidity filmmakers might hope to one day master late on in their career — which makes the fact that this is director Rungano Nyoni’s debut all the more extraordinary.

86. La Belle Noiseuse (1991)

best

8.1

Country

France, Switzerland

Director

Jacques Rivette

Actors

David Bursztein, Emmanuelle Béart, Jane Birkin, Marianne Denicourt

Moods

Challenging, Character-driven, Discussion-sparking

When it comes to work, most apply to a job, take a 9-5 role for some decades, and then retire once enough funds have been acquired, the body gives out, or they reach the statutory age in their respective countries. This path isn’t as straightforward for the artist. La Belle Noiseuse is a portrait of an artist in his later years, only making a return due to an unexpected muse. It is quite lengthy, almost four hours, so it may feel like a daunting task for casual film viewers, as much as it is for the painter, but the way Rivette dedicates the time to the etching, the turn of the page, the brush of the paint upon the paper feels so calming, with the artist and their muse at their most natural. It’s easy to deduce the inevitable connection that forms, but La Belle Noiseuse is much more interested in the creative process, rather than the romantic drama, more interested in exploring the way art endeavors to capture the soul, even when the muse continues to remain elusive.

87. Motherland (2017)

best

8.0

Country

Philippines, UK, United States of America

Director

Female director, Ramona S. Diaz

Actors

Anna Maxwell Martin, Diane Morgan, Ellie Haddington, Lucy Punch

Moods

Heart-warming, Touching

The Fabella Hospital in the Philippines is clearly overburdened and understaffed, and though it offers some of the lowest pregnancy delivery rates in the country, it remains unaffordable to most of its patients. It has been dubbed the world’s busiest maternity hospital because of this, and its boundless flurry of activity is what Ramona Diaz tries to capture in her cinéma-vérité film Motherland. 

What’s interesting and ultimately heartening about the documentary is that despite the difficulties the subjects face, they are always presented with warmth and humanity. We don’t observe them from a strict or stylized distance, but rather, we move with them when they laugh, befriend each other, worry about their babies, curse their partners, and eventually leave. Indeed, the film is a land of mothers, filled with their authentic stories before anything else.

88. House of Hummingbird (2018)

best

8.0

Country

South Korea

Director

Female director, Kim Bora

Actors

In-gi Jeong, Jeong In-gi, Jung In-gi, Kil Hae-yeon

Moods

Lovely, Slice-of-Life, Slow

It’s 1994, and Seoul is facing massive, rapid changes. The unrest is reflected by a lot of its residents, including Eun-hee, a disaffected teen with a less-than-stellar home and school life. She manages to get by with the help of friends and lovers, that is until they change too, and Eun-hee is forced to grapple with the volatility of it all. 

Sensitively told and genuinely captivating, House of Hummingbird is a stellar debut by writer-director Kim Bo-ra. Her command shines in how young actress Park Ji-hoo dynamically portrays Eun-hee, in how the story meanders but never loses footing, and in how each frame displays a quiet gorgeousness as the primary colors of her youth pop against the faded backdrop of urbanized Seoul. The delicate balance of all these elements is sure to evoke a sincere, profound feeling in every viewer. 

89. Open Hearts (2002)

best

8.0

Country

Denmark

Director

Female director, Susanne Bier

Actors

Anders Nyborg, Birthe Neumann, Hans Henrik Clemensen, Ida Dwinger

Joachim and Ceilie are engaged to be married when a car crash leaves the former paralyzed. While Joachim recovers in the hospital, Ceilie becomes entangled with his doctor—who also happens to be the husband of the woman who caused Joachim’s accident. What transpires after is not unlike a car crash itself: gut-wrenching to watch, impossible to look away from.

Although the film’s premise toes the line of melodrama, Susanne Bier handles the characters with extraordinary care. Elsker dig for evigt (Open Hearts) boasts incredible performances from its core cast of four, with Mads Mikkelsen and Paprika Steen particularly shining. This is not an easy nor feel-good movie to sit through, but its unflinching gaze at complicated characters in a tragic situation makes for a rewarding journey.

90. Frantz (2016)

best

8.0

Country

France, Germany

Director

François Ozon

Actors

Alice de Lencquesaing, Anton von Lucke, Axel Wandtke, Camille Grandville

Moods

Character-driven, Dark, Dramatic

It’s always fun to watch something that makes you second guess each move, that shifts seamlessly from one thing to another. Frantz is that kind of film, and as the deceptively simple premise unfolds—a widow befriends her late husband’s friend—you’re never really sure if what you’re watching is a romance, a mystery, or a sly combination of both.

It helps that Frantz is also more than just a period piece, packed as it is with tiny but thoughtful details. When it is filled with color, for example, it does so in the muted palette of 1900s portraits, making each shot look like a picture come to life. When it talks about love, it goes beyond heterosexual norms and hints at something more potent and, at times, political. And when it takes a swing at melodrama, its actors ground the moment with enough restraint and reserve so that it never teeters on excess. All this results in a well-executed, gripping, and overall lovely film to watch.

Comments

A
Anonymous

In reading the top 100 films article, I read first 35 of them and only a handful of movies had well known actors. Many are B MOVIES only. With inflation got rid of DISH as a disabled senior for live streaming. Even DISH with paid movie channels had 2 good movies repeatedly play and rest B MOVIES and expensive. Directed to ROKU device and TUBI, being an avid movie watcher, TV is no longer a viable source of GOOD ENTERTAINMENT. New movies have to reach guidelines of only having a few blacks, Spanish and guys to be eligible to win any awards. Liberals are destroying a half sane world.

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