20 Best Indie Movies on Tubi Right Now

20 Best Indie Movies on Tubi Right Now

February 7, 2025

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With its limited budgets and freedom from corporate oversight, independent films made big swings with the craft, telling original stories in original ways. It’s because of its popularity that the filmmaking industry shifted, carving a different path that is still taken today.

You’re likely to find many independent films on many streaming services, but you can actually watch some great ones on Tubi for free. In this list, we ranked some of the best indie films that you can watch for free without log-ins on Tubi.

11. Wild Style (1983)

best

8.4

Genres

Drama, Music

Director

Charlie Ahearn

Actors

Busy Bee, Daze, Dondi, Fab 5 Freddy

Moods

Easy, Lighthearted, Original

This cult classic is the first hip-hop movie in cinema’s history — and, aptly, one of the most sampled movies in rap music. With a cast drawn exclusively from the NYC graffiti, breakdancing, and rap subcultures that it spotlights, Wild Style wisely doesn’t try too hard to construct a conventional drama. Instead, there are toe-tapping scenes in neon-lit, smoke-filled clubs that stretch far beyond usual cinematic limits because they’re following the dynamic pace and infectious rhythm of the battling emcees, not film’s rules.

In lieu of a plot, Wild Style captures the singular atmosphere of the period it was filmed in, when hip-hop culture was thriving and art curators had begun to look to graffiti artists to fill their galleries. That uneasy turning point in the culture is chronicled here through the perspective of Zoro (real graffiti “writer” Lee Quiñones), a young artist who looks on with disdain as his peers embrace the commercialization of their medium by NYC’s art world. (As he shrewdly puts it, risk is central to graffiti’s identity — made for subway cars and walls, not framed canvases.) Brilliantly capturing the freewheeling spirit of NYC’s hip-hop scene, this is a time capsule that never feels dusty thanks to the appropriately off-the-cuff filmmaking.

12. Cleaners (2019)

best

8.4

Genres

Comedy

Director

Glenn Barit

Actors

Carlo Mejia, Gianne Rivera, Ianna Taguinod, Julian Narag

Moods

Character-driven, Original, Quirky

In Letterboxd, Cleaners was once the highest rated film of 2021, and was once in the list of the top 250 narrative features overall before the rating system changed in 2023. To viewers outside the Philippines, this might have been mind-boggling, especially since the film wasn’t yet released internationally the year it premiered, but it shot up the ranks for a reason. The coming-of-age anthology just looks so different, being filmed live, then xeroxed and highlighted, frame by frame, just like print-outs for school. The unique approach evokes a sense of nostalgia in high contrast print and blurred movement, and it’s matched with the classic Filipino coming-of-age moments that has rarely been seen before.

13. Double Happiness (1994)

best

8.3

Genres

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Director

Female director, Mina Shum

Actors

Alannah Ong, Callum Keith Rennie, Donald Fong, Frances You

Moods

Discussion-sparking, Funny, Original

Sandra Oh earned her breakout in this warm, candid Canadian indie, which — not uncoincidentally — shares its name with that of a decorative Chinese symbol associated with marriage. The movie’s title is also a reference to 22-year-old Jade Li’s (Oh) struggle to pursue her own ambitions and meet the clashing romantic and professional expectations her disapproving first-generation immigrant parents have for her. As she puts it, “Double happiness is when you make yourself happy and everyone else happy, too.”

An aspiring actress who dreams of playing Blanche DuBois, Jade is instead asked by unimaginative casting directors to adopt a pronounced Chinese accent for tiny bit parts. In essence, she’s typecast everywhere: on set, and at home, where she struggles to play the good daughter who’ll give up acting for a more conventional job and will only marry a man her parents approve of. It’s a jarring existence, but Double Happiness never feels claustrophobic because it gives Jade the freedom to finally be herself via witty, confessional monologues and fantasy sequences. There’s undoubtedly bittersweetness to this portrait of a young woman fighting to be herself on every front, but that it’s nevertheless such an irresistibly charming, never-flippant watch is a testament to first-time director Mina Shum and Oh’s already mature talents.

14. 99 Homes (2015)

best

8.2

Genres

Drama

Director

Ramin Bahrani

Actors

Albert C. Bates, Andrew Garfield, Ann Mahoney, Carl Palmer

Moods

Depressing, Slice-of-Life

Andrew Garfield is a single father living with his own single mother in their family home. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, they find themselves evicted from their home by a businessman – Michael Shannon in a role as intriguing as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, if not more. Desperate for work, Garfield’s character starts working for the same businessman, ultimately evicting other people. A star-packed, gritty and sobering tale on capitalism and our the lengths to which we’re ready to go to save face – while at the same time risking our most important relationships.

15. Maidentrip (2013)

best

8.1

Genres

Adventure, Documentary

Director

Jillian Schlesinger

Actors

Laura Dekker

Moods

Inspiring, Uplifting, Warm

In 2010, Dutch 15-year old Laura Dekker set out on a mission to be the youngest person to sail solo around the world. Maidentrip is the beautiful and inspiring documentary film that tells her story as she took on this behemoth task.

The film lets you experience this adventure of a lifetime along with Laura, share at first in her loneliness at sea, and later in her desire to be left alone when surrounded by people. Documenting her thoughts and feelings during this voyage, Laura reveals herself to be wise beyond her years. Yet despite the magnitude of the task Laura has taken in, her teenager self still glows clearly with its distinct child-like quality – simply wanting to do what makes her happy – sailing and seeing the world. The sheer honesty in Laura’s narrative is what makes this story so extraordinary. You will accompany the young skipper against all odds as she follows her dream and in the process, lose and once again find her identity and sense of belonging. Maidentrip will leave you with an itch – an itch to travel, but more importantly, an itch to follow your dreams.

16. Another Year (2010)

best

8.0

Genres

Comedy, Drama

Director

Mike Leigh

Actors

Badi Uzzaman, Ben Roberts, David Bradley, David Hobbs

Moods

Feel-Good, Heart-warming, Romantic

This is a very nice movie about a lovely older couple named Tom and Gerri. It follows their lives for an entire year, as they work at their jobs, invite friends over for dinner, and work in their garden. They live modest but fulfilling lives, and they seem mostly happy and very much in love, a rarity in the movies. This probably sounds horribly boring to most people, but since Mike Leigh is the director, the film is instead a touching and realistic portrayal of love and how people spend their time together. We should all be so lucky as to live a life as charmed as the central couple in this film.

17. Blindspotting (2018)

best

8.0

Genres

Comedy, Crime, Drama

Director

Carlos López Estrada

Actors

Aviel Ayoung, Carlos López Estrada, Casey Adams, Cassie Hendry

Moods

Raw, Thrilling, Well-acted

It’s hard to pin point exactly what makes this movie so good. It’s an all-around “movie” movie. I think it can be called a buddy comedy because it is about two best friends who are also movers. It’s about their day-to-day, their families and their relationships. They’re both from the underclass of Oakland, and one of them is black, the other is white. And that’s where it stops being a comedy and becomes a more hard-hitting film. It illustrates gentrification better than any other movie I’ve ever seen. It has relevant and striking commentary on the main characters’ race, upbringing, and identity. But at the end of the day, it has a great plot, and for the most part it’s an easy-flowing movie. It’s half entertainment, half social commentary, and both parts are equally well-done. It’s like movie unicorn, and it’s perfection. One of the two friends is played by Daveed Diggs, who you might know from Hamilton.

18. Borg vs. McEnroe (2017)

best

8.0

Genres

Drama, History

Director

Janus Metz, Janus Metz Pedersen

Actors

Anders Berg, Ben Bradshaw, Bjorn Granath, Bob Boudreaux

Moods

Inspiring, True-story-based, Uplifting

Shia Laboeuf and Stellan Skarsgård star in this true story about one of the greatest tennis matches in history: the 1980 Wimbledon final. The movie dissects what drives both competitors (one played by Laboeuf and the other by Sverrir Gudnason). Their personalities, considered opposites, are studied through their paths and how they got into tennis. All this leads to that one match, in this beautiful story of dealing with competition and fear of failure. Don’t stop watching when the credits roll, read what they say!

19. Handsome Devil (2016)

best

8.0

Genres

Comedy, Drama

Director

John Butler

Actors

Amy Huberman, Andrew Scott, Ardal O'Hanlon, Ardal O'Hanlon

Moods

Easy, Feel-Good, Slice-of-Life

I can’t get a song out of my head from this movie: the 1985 UK hit Desire As from Prefab Sprout.

It plays when the two main characters, a sensitive kid who’s bullied by his school for not liking rugby, and the school’s rugby star; talk over the “Berlin Wall” that separates their dorm room.

The song echoes “It’s perfect as it stands, so why then crush it in your perfect hands?”. These two seemingly incompatible personalities form a friendship that comes under threat from their school’s traditional authority, especially as one of them is revealed to be gay. 

It might seem like a tough premise, but Handsome Devil is actually a comedy. It’s a sweet and easy coming-of-age comedy.

20. King Jack (2016)

best

8.0

Genres

Drama

Director

Felix Thompson

Actors

Charlie Plummer, Chloë Levine, Christian Madsen, Cory Nichols

Moods

Dramatic, Heart-warming, Slice-of-Life

This small movie set over one summer weekend is a tender and affecting coming-of-age drama.

Jack is a bullied adolescent who lives in a run-down small town. When his aunt falls sick, he has to take care of his cousin, a younger and even more vulnerable kid. Their relationship evolves in this sensitive drama that spans a quick hour and 15 minutes.

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