Our critics have curated the 20 best free films to watch right now - from a high-speed Hollywood blockbuster to the brilliant, single-take precursor to Adolescence
With so many different streaming services offering their own selection, it can become quite expensive to watch your favourite movies. So our film experts at the Daily Mail have scoured the streaming platforms serving up free films, saving you time and money. From classic British comedies to high octane thrillers, here are the best free films to stream right now...
Priscilla
Sofia Coppola's subtle and moving biopic of Priscilla Presley
Year: 2023
Certificate: 15
There hasn't been a shortage of movies about the life and times of Elvis Presley in the last few years, but this biopic breaks refreshing ground by focusing not on the King but on the woman who struggled with being his queen, Priscilla Presley.
Director Sofia Coppola shapes a quiet but compelling story of a young girl (very young - Priscilla was just 14 when Elvis began courting her) who grapples to maintain her own identity in the swirl of Elvis's rock'n'roll lifestyle. Cailee Spaeny is wide-eyed and hypnotic as Priscilla, giving a still but powerful performance as a woman who navigates powerlessness to discover just how much clout she wielded in Elvis's life and her own. (113 minutes)
Lightyear
Toy Story spin-off film following the adventures of the real Space Ranger
Year: 2022
Certificate: pg
If you're a fan of Toy Story - and frankly who isn't? - then this spin-off about the adventures of Buzz Lightyear should appeal. He's no toy action figure here though, but a fully fledged Space Ranger who, with his robot cat Sox, must fight for survival against his arch-enemy, the evil Emperor Zurg. Marvel's Chris Evans is the voice of Buzz, who winds up marooned in such a way that his companions ultimately age much faster than he does.
Essentially, this is the film that made Andy want a Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place and, while it's not in the same poignant league as the Toy Story movies themselves - not quite to infinity and beyond, as Buzz's catchphrase has it - it is a beautifully animated, fun and funny film, and that counts for a lot. (108 minutes)
Fall
Nerve-shredding climbing thriller about one woman's recovery from loss
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Who would have thought that a climbing movie with a $3 million budget would end up shooting to number one on Netflix in the UK? That's where Fall started life, here.
It's often the simplest films which are the most effective though, and Fall is a very simple film. That's not a criticism - you know where you are right from the opening scenes, a breathtaking climbing sequence that results in a terrible loss for our heroine, Becky (Shazam's Grace Caroline Currey). How will she recover?
Her friend Hunter has a plan to get Becky back on track - a trip to climb an 'insanely high' tower in the middle of nowhere. Strap in for what follows, because the journey they go on from that point is a nerve-shredding and vertigo-inducing survival thriller with echoes of The Shallows. It never loses that emotional connection to Becky, though, which is why it's so effective - you're rooting for her the whole way. (107 minutes)
The Lost City
Sandra Bullock stars in this hilarious old-school comedy adventure
Year: 2022
Certificate: 12
Few films have 'Friday Night Treat' written across them quite so large as this crowd-pleasing comedy adventure. Sandra Bullock is on top form as the publicity-shy romance novelist who's kidnapped by a billionaire (played with scenery-chewing relish by Daniel Radcliffe), while Channing Tatum portrays her cover model-turned-incompetent rescuer.
A proper old-school blockbuster is the result, one that recalls the likes of Romancing The Stone, but which plays with considerably more modern comic edge. Bullock in particular is a delight. There are few actresses around who can match her talent for slapstick - it's not for nothing that she was one of the romcom queens of the 1990s and 2000s. (112 minutes)
Boiling Point (2021 film)
One-take kitchen drama starring Stephen Graham as a super-stressed chef
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
Award-winning film with Stephen Graham in blistering form as Andy, the chef at a top London restaurant who is having the night from hell. Tension is there from the start and rises and rise until - yes - reaching boiling point seems inevitable. The restaurant is overbooked, guests include a famous food critic and a chef he owes money to and there's a problem with the restaurant's management.
And then, to compound the nightmarish evening there is a visit from a health and safety inspector. And all the time customers need to be fed. This is a tense, almost exhausting, but thoroughly compelling watch will help you appreciate the restaurant staff next time you eat out. The director, Philip Barantini, and star, Stephen Graham, since went on to make the superb Adolescence for Netflix. (92 minutes)
Casino Royale (2006 film)
Daniel Craig's brilliant debut as 007, opposite Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre
Year: 2006
Certificate: 12
Not to be confused with the 1967 spoof of the same title, this introduced the Daniel Craig years with terrific swagger, and really in the nick of time. Craig's predecessor, Pierce Brosnan, was a better 007 than some insist, but there's no doubt the venerable franchise was beginning to look its age by the time he signed off with Die Another Day in 2002 - that silly invisible car certainly had a whiff of late Roger Moore about it.
Casino Royale was a brilliant re-branding, giving us a much harder-edged Bond, a top-notch villain in Mads Mikkelsen's sinister Le Chiffre, and Eva Green's smart, sultry, doomed double agent Vesper Lynd, who gets most of the film's best lines. (144 minutes)
The Lavender Hill Mob
The classic Ealing comedy starring Alec Guinness and Sid James
Year: 1951
Certificate: u
Cracking Ealing comedy from T.E.B. Clarke and Charles Crichton - the same writer and director behind Hue And Cry (1947) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) - this is another tale of the little man taking on the wealth and might of the Establishment.
Alec Guinness is the mild-mannered, fastidious bank clerk who hatches a plan to steal gold bullion from the Bank of England, with a little help from a dodgy businessman (Stanley Holloway) and two lackeys (Alfie Bass and Sid James). The scheme is ingenious, but will it succeed? It's hard to imagine crooks being quite as genial in this day and age and, while it's unlikely that they will turn out to be master criminals, these are thieves we can all root for. (81 minutes)
Open Range
A former gunslinger takes up arms to protect his ranch from a corrupt lawman
Year: 2003
Certificate: 12
Some people were born for certain genres - with Kevin Costner joining the likes of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne as actors so easy in the saddle of the western. Between Yellowstone and his Horizon movies, Costner is certainly doing his bit to keep the contemporary western alive.
After winning a lot of Oscars (seven, including Best Picture and Director) for 1990 epic Dances With Wolves, Costner climbed back in the saddle to direct another western. Here, his subject is the range wars that saw ordinary folk forced into violently defending their cattle or their land. Costner and Robert Duvall play ranchers who take up arms against Michael Gambon's land baron. (139 minutes)
Goldfinger
Sean Connery is on top form alongside Honor Blackman and Gert Frobe as the villain
Year: 1964
Certificate: pg
The third Bond film stands supreme in each of the most important departments. It has the best 007 (Sean Connery), most menacing villain (Gert Frobe's Auric Goldfinger), the most memorable henchman (Olympic wrestler Harold Sakata as the silent but deadly manservant Oddjob), the swishest car (Aston Martin DB5), the sexiest femme fatale (Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore), the most fiendish mode of murder (Shirley Eaton as the ill-fated Jill Masterson, sprayed with gold) and the ultimate theme song (by Shirley Bassey). It even has the greatest one-liner. Bond: 'Do you expect me to talk?' Goldfinger: 'No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.'
The pre-titles sequence has rarely been bettered (it's the one with a wet-suited 007 emerging from the sea with a model seagull on his head), indeed practically every scene is a classic, from Bond confounding Bernard Lee's M with his knowledge of vintage French brandy, to him outsmarting the cheating Goldfinger over a game of cards, and later, a game of golf. Ian Fleming died during filming, but by then he knew that his cherished characters were in safe hands. By the time of the premiere in September 1964, Bond-mania was almost as frenzied as Beatlemania. At the Odeon Leicester Square the crowd broke through the security barriers and crashed through the cinema's glass windows, scaring the life out of Tania Mallet (who played Jill Masterson's sister Tilly). It was 'like a tidal wave', she later recalled.
The only boxes this glorious picture does not tick are those of political correctness. The screenplay implied that Pussy Galore was a lesbian until Bond 'converted' her. From Blackman's point of view, she said that Connery was 'the sexiest creature I have ever met'. (110 minutes)
Dumbo (2019 film)
Tim Burton's live-action remake of Disney's flying elephant tale
Year: 2019
Certificate: pg
Director Tim Burton's live-action update of the 1941 animated classic has all the fun of the fair, plus a sweet, orphaned elephant with really big ears. It all looks absolutely splendid thanks to Burton's flair for the circus of the strange, with Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton and Eva Green completing a line-up of colourful human characters.
Burton, however, does not seemed to have enjoyed the process of making the film. 'The thing about Dumbo is that's why I think my days with Disney are done, I realised that I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus and I needed to escape. That movie is quite autobiographical at a certain level,' he commented in 2022. That's as may be, but the elephant is still very sweet to look at. (118 minutes)
Peter Rabbit 2
The superior sequel to the rambunctious 2018 adventure, with James Corden as the voice of the rabbit
Year: 2021
Certificate: pg
Blending CGI and live action, the first Peter Rabbit film did great business in 2018, making a sequel inevitable. James Corden again gives voice to floppy-eared Peter, with Margot Robbie and Elizabeth Debicki as his sisters Flopsy and Mopsy, and Rose Byrne as Bea, the live-action character loosely based on the book's author Beatrix Potter.
The result is, suprisingly, one of those rare sequels that manages to improve on the original. The plot follows Peter to Gloucester as the cheeky rabbit becomes pals with a bad crowd and risks falling into a life of crime. Is he naughty or nice? Meanwhile, back at the cottage, author Bea is seduced by the powers of consumerism. (89 minutes)
F9: The Fast Saga
The ninth instalment of the blockbuster motoring franchise starring Vin Diesel
Year: 2021
Certificate: 12
Some movie franchises, if they run long enough, define a generation. A handful please critics as much as audiences. Rare are those that improve with age. The Fast & Furious franchise ticks all three boxes with its ninth film as Vin Diesel and the rest take another exhilarating thrill-ride around the track, in which Dom (Diesel) and his car crew are taking on international terrorists - and Dom gets a shock when he discovers they are led by his estranged brother, Jakob (John Cena).
The stunts are, of course, incredible, and the extended cast is almost as extraordinary - including Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron. You can never accuse them of stinting on the Fast & Furious movies. (145 minutes)
Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory
Gene Wilder is superb as the eccentric chocolatier in a film scripted by Roald Dahl himself
Year: 1971
Certificate: u
Johnny Depp put a very different spin on Roald Dahl's strange creation in Tim Burton's 2005 film, and Timothée Chalamet was a lot of fun as the young and mostly innocent version in 2023 origin story Wonka. But for many of us there is only one Willy Wonka - Gene Wilder. In this 'scrumdiddlyumptious' musical version of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - scripted by Dahl himself - it is Wilder's confectionary wizard Wonka who is the star attraction, as indicated by that subtle title change.
His Wonka is the perfect blend of trustworthy and untrustworthy, fatherly and childlike, mercurial yet totally and utterly in control - in a way that Depp's oddball turn could never quite convey, and which Chalamet's version was, necessarily, only on the way to being. For an extra treat, seek out pal Mel Brooks's sublime satire The Producers, which boasts Wilder's only Oscar-nominated acting role - which is incredible, when you think about it. (100 minutes)
The Long Good Friday
Bob Hoskins stars as a gangster whose empire is crumbling
Year: 1980
Certificate: 18
This British gangster drama has a superb cast and is still highly regarded today as one of the best British films of all time. It's quintessentially English, with Bob Hoskins as gravelly Londoner Harold Shand - a ruthless crime boss with big ideas to build a legitimate empire out of London's then depressed and rotting Docklands area. He wants to partner with the New York mafia, but the IRA have Shand in their sights and all hell breaks loose.
Helen Mirren stars alongside Hoskins as Shand's girlfriend Victoria. Mirren recalled in 2021 how she fought to make Victoria a more interesting character than 'the girlfriend in the corner' and said of Hoskins (who died in 2014), 'Bob was just electrifying. It was the role of his life. That feeling of being a bomb that's about to go off. In reality he wasn't terrifying, but he did have all that energy. He was an incredibly generous and kind guy.' Hoskins was nominated for a BAFTA but didn't win - although he did for Mona Lisa in 1986. (114 minutes)
Downton Abbey: A New Era
The Crawleys are off to the south of France in their second big screen outing
Year: 2022
Certificate: pg
It's Downton Abbey, but not quite as you know it. When a film crew set up shop in the stately home, the Crawley family and their servants head off to the South of France, to temporarily move into a villa unexpectedly inherited by the dowager Countess (Maggie Smith).
The setting may be sunny and new, though, but the opportunities for drama are as reassuringly regular as ever, with legal, romantic and familial problems besetting both the upstairs and downstairs cast of characters. Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Imelda Staunton and Penelope Wilton are all among the familiar faces making a return in the iconic TV show's second spin-off movie. (124 minutes)
The King's Speech
Oscar-winning film starring Colin Firth as George VI
Year: 2010
Certificate: 12
This beautifully appointed British historical drama exudes effortless quality. Colin Firth is George VI, who assumed the throne after his brother Edward's surprise abdication in 1936. He's not considered fit to rule the country, largely because of his stammer. Step forward Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (a brilliant performance by Geoffrey Rush), who comes to the King's aid - after much persuasion, particularly from the King's wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the future Queen Mother.
This handsome period piece proved a surprise hit and stormed to victory at the Oscars, winning Best Film, Best Actor for Firth, Best Original Screenplay for David Seidler and Best Director for Tom Hooper - for only his second feature film. (118 minutes)
Where The Crawdads Sing
An enchanting murder mystery set in 1950s North Carolina
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
An enchanting, surprising and exotic story based on the bestselling novel by Delia Owens. Normal People's Daisy Edgar-Jones does a superb job in the starring role of Kya, the mysterious 'marsh girl', while Taylor Swift - a huge fan of the book - supplies the Golden Globe-nominated song Carolina on the soundtrack.
Abandoned first by her mother and then by her violent father, Kya grows up entirely alone with just the occasional help of a nearby shopkeeper in the marshes of 1950s North Carolina. But as she becomes a teenager she gets caught up with two local boys - and when one of them is found dead in mysterious circumstances, Kya finds herself in the dock. The ensuing story is a compelling mix of mystery and coming-of-age tale. (125 minutes)
Licorice Pizza
Oscar-nominated teen romance set in early 1970s Los Angeles
Year: 2021
Certificate: 15
The story of a girl and a boy (Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman) and the elaborate money-making schemes they cook up in the Los Angeles suburbs of the early 1970s. In anyone else's hands it would be a simple teen romance but director Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master and Phantom Thread) makes the bittersweet, Oscar-nominated movie richer and infinitely more complicated (not least because of the age gap between the 15-year-old boy and the twentysomething girl).
Watch out for cameos from Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper, but it's the understated lead performances from Haim and Hoffman that shine here. If the latter looks familiar, it's probably because he's the son of Anderson's frequent collaborator, the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. (128 minutes)
Mona Lisa
Brilliant British thriller love story, starring Bob Hoskins and Cathy Tyson
Year: 1986
Certificate: 15
In this lean, efficient crime drama, a BAFTA-winning Bob Hoskins lands the perfect role, playing gangster's lackey George, who, fresh out of prison, has been hired by his boss to drive prostitute Simone (Cathy Tyson). He falls for her, and both of them want out of the murky criminal underworld they inhabit - but with George's boss (Michael Caine) and his brutal enforcer (Clarke Peters) on their tail, they'll have to fight for their freedom. One of the standout films from the British production company co-founded by Beatle George Harrison - subject of the documentary An Accidental Studio. (64 minutes)
Medusa Deluxe
Stylish murder mystery set backstage at a high-end hairdressing competition
Year: 2022
Certificate: 15
Suspicion fills the air like hairspray after one of the contestants at a British hairdressing competition is found scalped and murdered. Did he jealously cross combs with another of the contestants? Or did one of the models decide on vengeance because she didn't like her towering sculptural do? Untangling the solution certainly won't be easy...
Writer and director Thomas Hardiman's debut film is a dark, stylish and acidly funny murder mystery full of memorable characters and scissors-sharp dialogue. EastEnders actress Clare Perkins is particularly good fun as no-holds-barred crimper Cleve, but watch out too for Skins graduate Luke Pasqualino as one of the long-suffering models. (101 minutes)
