Much like Tubi and Freevee, Crackle is a streaming service that offers hundreds of movies and TV shows for free. Some of the more considerable titles include network series like Shameless and Community, Hollywood hits like Mad Max: Fury Road, and small indies like Short Term 12. Granted, Crackle doesn’t nearly have as many to offer as its competitors, and the ads are relentless, but it’s still a worthy and penny-less alternative that fills in the gaps for any streaming needs you might have. It also plays on most major streaming devices, including gaming consoles PlayStation and Xbox.

Hoopla is a digital library that partners with public libraries across the US to grant their patrons free access to the wealth of media they have online and on the go. This includes movies and television shows, but Hoopla also has a vast collection of ebooks, audiobooks, podcasts, and albums it offers members. You can check their website to see if your library card is valid, and if it is, you can continue on to registration (with no extra fees) and start viewing their available titles. Hoopla rotates its selection every week or so, but generally, it has a good mix of old films, cult classics, past hits, and foreign movies. Occasionally, it will also have the latest blockbusters. For television, it’s recently partnered with the BBC and a couple of manga publishers to deliver content from around the world. 

Microsoft is most known for its computer and gaming services, but the tech corporation also has a streaming service under its belt. Microsoft’s media store allows you to rent or purchase a host of films and TV shows, many of which are still up in theaters or being broadcast on network TV. The good news is that Microsoft often puts up sales and specials that slash prices up to half, and the even better news is that Xbox Game Pass holders are entitled to many of these discounts. So for instance, a Game Pass holder can pay just $7 for a film that costs $20 to rent. Now, the not-so-good news is that Microsoft’s rental store is only available for Xbox and PCs and mobile devices that run on Windows. Anything outside of these devices, unfortunately, won’t be able to access the store. 

Plex is a media management software that doubles as a free streaming service. Its main function is to organize your own library of content—that is, your own video, photo, or sound files—and make it streamable alongside Plex’s offerings of 200+ live TV channels and 50,000+ on-demand movies and shows. Plex’s basic package comes at no cost, but it also has a premium package starting at $4.99/month that boasts additional features, such as the ability to download content and watch them offline, among other things.

YouTube’s Movies & TV storefront (not to be mistaken with YouTube TV) allows you to rent and purchase thousands of films and TV shows. You can pick from the latest blockbuster releases, foreign films, award-winning staples, beloved classics, and even pre-order titles that have yet to be available elsewhere. A big draw here is that YouTube is already everywhere—it’s a tab on your browser, an app on your phone, a channel on your smart TV—so renting, purchasing, and later on accessing a title is as easy as entering your credit card or PayPal details. And as a bonus, YouTube also has a lineup of free movies it lets you watch with ads. Granted, they’re not as big or new as their rentable titles, but there are gems like Moonstruck and Cooley High hidden in there somewhere. 

Now, some things to note before heading to the storefront: you must be 18 years or older to watch these titles, and while buying a movie or TV episode allows you to access them indefinitely, you have only 30 days to start viewing a rental. Once you’ve started watching it, you usually have about 48 hours until it expires, but this can vary per title. YouTube also allows playback in HD and 4k, but these features are currently unavailable on web browsers.