Streaming services are an awesome way to catch the latest release without leaving your house. Many of the available options offer a healthy mix of old and new titles, classics, and non-classics of every imaginable genre. But streaming services come with subscriptions, and if you can't afford the cost, it becomes difficult to diversify your movie-watching experience.
Here's where YouTube comes in, and not the YouTube Movies & Shows section, but just YouTube. There are countless channels on the platform dedicated to sharing licensed movies you can view for free, completely legally. Let's look at some of them.
1. Movie Central
Movie Central has a thorough description informing everyone that all of the channel's content is legally licensed, making it one of the best legal ways to watch movies online for free. You can watch each video uploaded for free and without wondering if you're breaking the law—you're not.
The Movie Central YouTube channel uploads content daily, sometimes even multiple times a day. You can find the occasional trailer or show episode, but most of the featured videos are full-length movies. There are titles under every genre, so you're bound to find at least one that interests you enough to watch it.
2. Mr Bean
Comedy is king in most households as comedic movies can be watched in the background or fully engaged, and either way, they're still worth the watch. That applies especially to Mr Bean's type of comedy. It's nostalgic, and years after their original release, the movies showcasing the particular character's antics have earned the title iconic—the Mr Bean YouTube channel banks on that.
Mr Bean's official YouTube channel has over 30 million subscribers, and everything on it is fully licensed and legal to watch. You can find short-form, long-form, animated, and live-action videos, and they all center on Mr Bean. And what's not to love about that?
3. Horror Central
As the name suggests, Horror Central caters to fans of the macabre. Each upload on the channel is a full-length movie you can enjoy, and the titles are a healthy mix of ones you might have heard of before and indie ones.
Every movie you see on the YouTube channel is fully licensed and legal to watch, so watch away.
4. Barbarella X: Science Fiction Movies
Though its name is a mouthful, the Barbarella X: Science Fiction Movies channel is awesome. As it lets on, the channel mainly focuses on the science fiction genre, so if that's what you're looking for, look no further.
The YouTube channel may offer fewer uploads than the previously mentioned ones, but it still manages to provide a lot of TV shows and movies for free on YouTube. You can find a blend of sci-fi, adventure, and fantasy content on the channel to watch with a guilt-free conscience.
5. Sci-Fi Central
Sci-Fi Central is another hub for sci-fi fans to find their next watch. The YouTube channel offers both movies and series, mixing short and long-form content. The shows tend to cover interesting topics aimed at starting a discussion, but if that's not your thing, you can just delve into one of the channel's full-length movies.
You can find documentary-style content and classics like Ancient Aliens, and you'd definitely find something to appeal to your curiosity if you're a UFO and Paranormal fan.
6. Movie Express
Nobody does the dramatic soap opera style staredown as Indian features do, and their level of drama is unmatched, and it's no wonder so many people love them. If you're looking for some Indian flicks but don't have access to Indian TV, the Movie Express YouTube channel is what you need.
Movie Express offers a ton of full-length movies that let you lose yourself in the drama, romance, action, and comedy of Indian shows and movies.
7. Terror Films
The Terror Films YouTube channel doesn't have as many video uploads as other channels on this list. However, there's still a lot of content to watch, with a new video added every couple of days.
Terror Films offers full-length indie horror movies. An awesome aspect of the YouTube channel is that the revenue from the watch time and ad breaks goes back to the indie filmmakers behind the features, so if you're looking to support indie artists by watching a free movie on YouTube, give Terror Films a view.
8. PizzaFlix
The PizzaFlix YouTube channel offers a little bit of everything. There are uploads under a slew of genres you can enjoy, from comedy to action, thriller, romance, and more. There are animated features, documentary-style videos, and, of course, full-length movies. The channel has focused its efforts on ‘‘the preservation and discovery of the Golden Age of Hollywood and Television.’’
PizzaFlix showcases a ton of ‘old-timey’ black and white pictures that have been digitally remastered so you can watch them with the highest quality. If you've never seen The Bat (1959) with Vincent Price, jump over to the PizzaFlix channel and give it a watch. Everything is licensed and legal to watch, and you can download the channel's videos for offline viewing later.
9. Ultra Movie Parlour
Ultra Movie Parlour offers a first-row seat looking into the Indian entertainment industry. You can find a ton of full-length movies and a few trailers scattered about on the YouTube channel, and with over 19 million subscribers and four billion channel views, it's no wonder it's such a hit.
Ultra Movie Parlour boasts over 1,500 features under comedy, drama, action, and every other genre you can imagine. The uploads are pretty regular, so the YouTube channel is a total treasure trove of Indian feature content.
YouTube Offers a Wealth of Entertainment—Use It!
YouTube upholds strict copyright standards, so channels and creators, whether individual ones or not, don't last long on the platform if they pirate their content and share it illegally. But don't think that's all the platform has to offer. There's more to it than only individual channels to explore.
YouTube's Movies & Shows service offers endless entertainment you can buy or rent. And there are even features you can watch absolutely for free. YouTube may not rank as high as Netflix or HBO Max as a streaming service, but don't underestimate it. It offers hours of legal, licensed entertainment, and you don't necessarily have to pay for it.