4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, Documentaries & More

Watch 4,000+ movies free online. Includes clas­sics, indies, film noir, doc­u­men­taries and oth­er films, cre­at­ed by some of our great­est actors, actress­es and direc­tors. The col­lec­tion is divid­ed into the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories: Com­e­dy & Dra­ma; Film Noir, Hor­ror & Hitch­cock; West­erns (many with John Wayne); Mar­tial Arts MoviesSilent Films; Doc­u­men­taries, and Ani­ma­tion.

Free Comedy & Dramas

  • 125 Kore­an Fea­ture FilmsFree — The Kore­an Film Archive has put on YouTube over 100 Kore­an fea­ture films, includ­ing Im Kwon-taek’s Sopy­on­je and Hong Sang­soo’s The Day the Pig Fell Into a Well. A bonan­za for fans of Kore­an film.
  • 70 Movies in HD from Famed Russ­ian Stu­dio Mos­filmFree — Includes films by Tarkovsky, Eisen­stein and Kuro­sawa. These all appear on Mos­film’s offi­cial YouTube chan­nel.
  • 300+ Free Movies Stream­ing on YouTubeFree — YouTube offi­cial­ly pro­vides a large num­ber of Hol­ly­wood movies that you can watch free with ads. Many films are unfor­tu­nate­ly geo-restrict­ed to cer­tain geo­gra­phies. Get more detail here.
  • 3,000 Free Films from the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da – Free – The Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da has put online thou­sands of films across all gen­res of film. Get an overview here.
  • A Farewell to ArmsFree — Gary Coop­er and Helen Hayes star in a film based on famous nov­el by Ernest Hem­ing­way. (1932)
  • A Hunt­ing Acci­dentFree — Sovi­et roman­tic dra­ma direct­ed by Emil Loteanu, adapt­ed from Anton Chekhov’s “The Shoot­ing Par­ty.” It was entered into the 1978 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. Click “CC” for titles. (1978)
  • A Mat­ter of Life and Death  — Free — Roman­tic fan­ta­sy film cre­at­ed by the British writ­ing-direct­ing-pro­duc­ing team of Michael Pow­ell and Emer­ic Press­burg­er, and set in Eng­land dur­ing the Sec­ond World War. It stars David Niv­en, Roger Livesey, Kim Hunter, Mar­ius Gor­ing and Ray­mond Massey. (1946)
  • A Song of LoveFree — The only film by play­wright Jean Genet. The erot­ic film was cen­sored. (1950)
  • A Star is BornFree — Janet Gaynor por­trays Esther Blod­gett, a star­ry-eyed small town girl with a dream of mak­ing it big in Hol­ly­wood. (1937)
  • Adven­tures of Robin­son Cru­soeFree — The clas­sic nov­el by Daniel Defoe gets adapt­ed by the great Luis Buñuel. (1954)
  • AfonyaFree — Direct­ed by Geor­gi Daneliya, this Sovi­et com­e­dy film became an unex­pect­ed block­buster. It’s made avail­able by the Russ­ian film stu­dio Mos­film. Click “cc” to get sub­ti­tles. (1975)
  • Alexan­der NevskyFree — A his­tor­i­cal dra­ma film direct­ed by the great Russ­ian film­mak­er Sergei Eisen­stein. (1938)
  • Andrei RublevFree — A Sovi­et epic bio­graph­i­cal his­tor­i­cal dra­ma film direct­ed by Andrei Tarkovsky and co-writ­ten with Andrei Kon­chalovsky. Put online by Mos­film. (1966)
  • Angel on My Shoul­derFree — A gang­ster com­e­dy star­ring Claude Rains and Paul Muni. (1946)
  • Anna Karen­i­naFree — An 8‑part adap­ta­tion of Tol­stoy’s clas­sic nov­el by Karen Shakhnazarov.
  • As You Like It - Free — It’s Lau­rence Olivier’s ear­li­est Shake­speare per­for­mance on film. It’s also the first fea­ture-length British sound Shake­speare film. (1936)
  • Bat­tle­ship PotemkinFree — A clas­sic Sovi­et silent dra­ma film direct­ed and co-writ­ten by Sergei Eisen­stein. (1925)
  • Becky SharpFree — The first fea­ture film to use three-strip Tech­ni­col­or film, or, put dif­fer­ent­ly, the first real col­or film. (1935).
  • Blade Run­ner 2049 Pre­quelsFree — Three short offi­cial pre­quels for Blade Run­ner 2049 have been released, advanc­ing the Blade Run­ner sto­ry. One is shot by respect­ed Japan­ese ani­ma­tor Shinichi­ro Watan­abe. (2017)
  • Cap­tain Kidd - Free - Charles Laughton and John Car­ra­dine star in film with dra­ma on the high seas. (1945)
  • Castel­lo Cav­al­can­tiFree — Wes Ander­son­’s short film takes place in a ham­let tucked away some­where in Italy. Fea­tures Jason Schwartz­man, star of Anderson’s 1998 break­out Rush­more. (2013)
  • Cha­radeFree — Cary Grant and Audrey Hep­burn star in the best Hitch­cock film that Hitch­cock nev­er made. (1963)
  • Cha­radeFree — The film con­sists of three short sto­ries star­ring James Mason and his wife Pamela Mason. (1953)
  • collective:unconscious — Free — Five indie film­mak­ers adapt each oth­er’s dreams for the screen. The New York­er’s Richard Brody called it one of his favorite films at the 2016 SXSW film fes­ti­val. (2016)
  • Cold SweatFree — Charles Bron­son, Liv Ull­man, James Mason, and Jill Ire­land star in this action packed movie about a ruth­less drug run­ner who holds a man’s fam­i­ly hostage. (1970)
  • Crash: The Short Film — Free — Oth­er­wise known as The Atroc­i­ty Exhi­bi­tion, this pre-Cro­nen­berg short film was direct­ed by Harley Coke­liss and stars J.G. Bal­lard him­self. (1971)
  • Cyra­no De Berg­er­acFree — Michael Gor­don’s tale based on the clas­sic French tale. (1950)
  • Dar­win - Free — 53-minute explo­ration of the life and work of Charles Dar­win by Peter Green­away. (1993)
  • DétourFree — A short charm­ing film shot by Michel Gondry pure­ly on his iPhone. (2017)
  • DiaryFree — Short film by Tim Het­her­ing­ton (direc­tor of Restre­po) that reflects on his ten years of war report­ing. (2010)
  • Din­ner for OneFree — A short com­e­dy film that has become part of a New Year’s Eve tra­di­tion in Ger­many and many oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries. Once held the Guin­ness World Record for Most Fre­quent­ly Repeat­ed TV Pro­gram. (1963)
  • Doo­dle­bugFree — One of Christo­pher Nolan’s ear­ly short films. Made in 1997, released in 2003.
  • Dou­ble TakeFree — Alfred Hitch­cock meets Jorge Luis Borges Borges in Cold War Amer­i­ca in a film direct­ed by Johan Gri­mon­prez and writ­ten by Tom McCarthy. (2009)
  • Dreams That Mon­ey Can BuyFree — A sur­re­al­ist film by Man Ray, Mar­cel Duchamp, Alexan­der Calder, Fer­nand Léger & Hans Richter. (1947)
  • Duet for Can­ni­bals — Free — A tale of emo­tion­al can­ni­bal­ism by Susan Son­tag. A pair of psy­cho­log­i­cal & sex­u­al can­ni­bals come close to devour­ing a younger cou­ple. (1969)
  • Eat, Sleep & Kiss — Free — Three silent anti-films by Andy Warhol. (1963–1964)
  • Edgar Allan Poe’s the RavenFree — Win­ner of the Best Short at the H.P. Love­craft Film Fes­ti­val, this film mod­ern­izes Poe’s sto­ry, sit­u­at­ing it in Hol­ly­wood 1959. (2011)
  • End of the WorldFree — After wit­ness­ing a man’s death in a bizarre acci­dent, Father Per­ga­do goes on a spir­i­tu­al retreat, where he encoun­ters his alien dou­ble bent on world con­quest. Sci-fi film stars Christo­pher Lee. (1977)
  • Enthu­si­asmFree — Dzi­ga Ver­tov’s mas­ter­piece of ear­ly sound film, Enthu­si­asm deals with the Five Year Plan of the late 1920s. His goal was “to grasp the fever­ish real­i­ty of life in the Don Basin, to con­vey as true to life as pos­si­ble its atmos­phere of the clash of ham­mers, of train whis­tles, of the songs of work­ers at rest.” In Russ­ian. (1931)
  • Erotikon - Free — Direct­ed by Czech film­mak­er Gus­tav Machatý and star­ring Hedy Lamarr, the film was con­tro­ver­sial in its time because it had nude scenes. It was the first non-porno­graph­ic movie to por­tray sex­u­al inter­course and the female orgasm. (1929)
  • Evi­dence — Free — From the mak­er of Koy­aanisqat­si, a short film about kids watch­ing car­toons (1995).
  • Fear and Desire — FreeAn uncut print of Stan­ley Kubrick­’s “lost” ear­ly film. Kubrick did­n’t like how his first film came out, so removed it from cir­cu­la­tion. (1953)
  • Fight for Your Right Revis­it­ed - Free — Adam Yauch com­mem­o­rates the Beast­ie Boys’ leg­endary video for (You Got­ta) Fight for Your Right (To Par­ty!). 30 minute sur­re­al film stars Eli­jah Wood, Dan­ny McBride and Seth Rogen. (2011)
  • Five Min­utes to LiveFree — Amaz­ing bank heist movie stars John­ny Cash, Vic Tay­back, Ron Howard, and coun­try music great, Mer­le Travis. (1961)
  • Fla­men­co at 5:15Free — Oscar-win­ning short film about a fla­men­co dance class giv­en to senior stu­dents. Made avail­able by the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da. (1983)
  • Franz Kafka’s It’s a Won­der­ful Life - Free — Direct­ed by Peter Capal­di, the Oscar-win­ning short film shows Kaf­ka, on Christ­mas Eve, strug­gling to come up with the open­ing line for his most famous work, The Meta­mor­pho­sis. (1993)
  • Frei­heit — Free - The third short film George Lucas made while a film-school stu­dent at USC and the first with a nar­ra­tive. (1966)
  • From the DrainFree — David Cronenberg‘s short film made while attend­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. (1967)
  • Geome­triaFree — A ghoul­ish short film by Guiller­mo del Toro. One of his ear­li­est films that you can watch online. (1987)
  • Ghost Train - Free — Clas­sic ghost­ly com­e­dy, star­ring Arthur Askey and based on the play by ‘Dad’s Army’ actor Arnold Rid­ley. (1941)
  • Great Expec­ta­tionsFree ‑The clas­sic sto­ry of Pip the British orphan. Based on the great Charles Dick­ens nov­el avail­able in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. (1946)
  • Hard­ware WarsFree — It’s the moth­er of all Star Wars fan films, and also one of the most pop­u­lar short films ever made. (1978)
  • Häx­an: The Witch­es or Witch­craft Through The Ages — Free — Ben­jamin Christensen’s 1922 silent film Häx­an gets a nar­ra­tion by William S. Bur­roughs. (1968)
  • Hel­l’s AngelsFree — Amer­i­can war film, direct­ed by Howard Hugh­es and star­ring Jean Har­low, about com­bat pilots of World War I. Stan­ley Kubrick list­ed it as one of his 10 favorite films on his only top 10 list. (1930)
  • Hel­l’s HouseFree — With Bette Davis and Pat O’Brien. The film is set dur­ing the final days of pro­hi­bi­tion. (1932)
  • Her­bert WhiteFree — James Fran­co’s short film made dur­ing film school. Stars Michael Shan­non. Based on a poem by Frank Bidart. (2010)
  • Her­culesFree — Ital­ian epic fan­ta­sy fea­ture film based upon the Her­cules myths. (1958)
  • Hi Did­dle Did­dleFree — When the bride’s moth­er is sup­pos­ed­ly swin­dled out of her mon­ey by a spurned suit­or, the groom’s father orches­trates a scheme of his own to set things right. Quentin Taran­ti­no named it one of the 12 best films of all time. (1943)
  • His Girl Fri­dayFree — Direct­ed by Howard Hawks. A clas­sic com­e­dy star­ring Cary Grant, Ros­alind Rus­sell and Ralph Bel­lamy. (1940)
  • Home­town in My Heart — Free — Made in the ear­ly years of Kore­an Inde­pen­dence, the film is about a young monk who longs to see his moth­er in a new light, by sup­press­ing his emo­tions. (1949)
  • Human: The MovieFree — By direc­tor, pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and envi­ron­men­tal activist Yann Arthus-Bertrand, this unique film fea­tures inter­views with 2,020 peo­ple from 60 coun­tries on what it means to be human. (2015)
  • I Thought I Told You to Shut UpFree — A short film nar­rat­ed by Jonathan Demme about the mak­ing of the 1970s under­ground com­ic, Reid Flem­ing: World’s Tough­est Milk­man. (2015)
  • Impres­sions de la haute Mon­golieFree — Sur­re­al­ist false doc­u­men­tary direct­ed by Sal­vador Dalí and José Montes-Baquer, star­ring Sal­vador Dalí him­self. (1976)
  • Indis­creetFree — Fea­tures super­star Glo­ria Swan­son and direct­ed by Leo McCarey. A com­e­dy that’s almost Chap­linesque. (1931)
  • It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time - Free — Antho­ny New­ley plays a poor avant-garde artist who strug­gles with an ex-wife’s remar­riage to a build­ing con­trac­tor. (1975)
  • Ivan Vasilievich Changes Pro­fes­sion — Free — Sovi­et com­ic sci-fi film direct­ed by Leonid Gaidai, based on the play Ivan Vasilievich by Mikhail Bul­gakov. A huge Sovi­et block­buster.  Click “CC” for sub­ti­tles. (1973)
  • Ivan’s Child­hoodFree — A Sovi­et war dra­ma film direct­ed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Put online by Mos­film. (1962)
  • Ivan the Ter­ri­bleFree — A two-part Sovi­et epic his­tor­i­cal dra­ma film writ­ten and direct­ed by Sergei Eisen­stein. A biopic of Ivan IV of Rus­sia, it was Eisen­stein’s final film. (1944)
  • J’at­tendrai le suiv­antFree — A French film nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award for the Best Short Film in 2002.
  • Jun­gle BookFree — A col­or action-adven­ture film based on the Rud­yard Kipling’ nov­el, The Jun­gle Book. Direct­ed by Zoltán Kor­da, the film was nom­i­nat­ed for four Acad­e­my Awards. (1942)
  • Killer DrillFree — Direct­ed by Lewis D. Collins, Killer Drill is about the Door-to-door sales­man John­ny Dill, an exact dou­ble of a noto­ri­ous gang­ster, who finds him­self struck between the forces of good and evil. (1947)
  • King LearFree — Made for TV adap­ta­tion of Shake­speare’s King Lear star­ring Orson Welles. (1953)
  • La Dialec­tique Peut-Elle Cass­er Des Briques? (Can Dialec­tics Break Bricks?) - Free — A French Sit­u­a­tion­ist film pro­duced by René Viénet which explores the devel­op­ment of class con­flict through rev­o­lu­tion­ary agi­ta­tion against a back­drop of graph­ic kung-fu fight­ing. (1973)
  • La Femme 100 TetesFree — An adap­ta­tion of Max Ern­st’s col­lage book “La femme 100 têtes,” orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 1929. Con­sid­er the film a col­lage in motion. (1967)
  • L’Age d’or — Free — French sur­re­al­ist com­e­dy direct­ed by Luis Buñuel about the insan­i­ties of mod­ern life, the hypocrisy of the sex­u­al mores of bour­geois soci­ety and the val­ue sys­tem of the Roman Catholic Church. Sal­vador Dalí co-wrote the screen­play. (1930)
  • Lady Blue Shang­haiFree — David Lynch’s short movie that dou­bles as a com­mer­cial for Dior. Stars Mar­i­on Cotil­lard. (2010)
  • Lick the StarFree — Sofia Cop­po­la’s very first short film fol­lows a 7th-grade con­spir­a­cy (1998)
  • Love and PigeonsFree — Sovi­et roman­tic com­e­dy film by Vladimir Men­shov. His pre­vi­ous film Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears received the Acad­e­my Award for Best For­eign Lan­guage Film. (1984)
  • LumiereFree — A very short film by David Lynch. 55 sec­onds. (1966)
  • MFree — Clas­sic film direct­ed by Fritz Lang, with Peter Lorre. About the search for a child mur­der­er in Berlin, (1931)
  • Meet John DoeFree — Frank Capra’s com­e­dy, with Gary Coop­er and Bar­bara Stan­wyck. Vot­ed one of the most inspir­ing films of all time. (1941)
  • Meetin’ WAFree — In a short film Jean-Luc Godard meets Woody Allen. (1986)
  • Men­theFree — The sec­ond film by Lars von Tri­er is based on the sado­masochis­tic nov­el by Dominique Aury, Sto­ry of O, and tells the sto­ry of a vol­un­tary female sub­ju­ga­tion. (1979)
  • Meta­mor­fo­s­isFree ‑Franz Kafka’s best-known short sto­ry gets adapt­ed into a Tim Bur­tonesque Span­ish short film (2004)
  • Mike Leigh’s Five Minute FilmsFree — The BBC com­mis­sioned him to make a series of five-minute movies in 1975. They even­tu­al­ly aired in 1982.
  • My Best Friend’s Birth­dayFree — First (incom­plete) film direct­ed by Quentin Taran­ti­no. Some good rock­a­bil­ly fun. (1987)
  • Mul­ber­ryFree — S. Kore­an dra­ma film direct­ed by Lee Doo-yong. The film became “known for its erot­ic sub­ject mat­ter, made pos­si­ble by the gov­ern­men­t’s grad­ual relax­ation of cen­sor­ship and con­trol over the film indus­try dur­ing the 1980s.” (1986)
  • Mur­der in Harlem - Free — Film by Oscar Micheaux, the first African-Amer­i­can to pro­duce a fea­ture-length film (1920) and sound movie (1931). His films pro­vide a win­dow into Amer­i­can views on race. (1935)
  • No Exit/Huis Close - Free — Harold Pin­ter inter­prets the lead role of Gar­cia in Sartre’s famous claus­tro­pho­bic play of self-def­i­n­i­tion and iden­ti­ty. (1965)
  • Our TownFree — Film adap­ta­tion of a play of the same name by Thorn­ton Wilder star­ring William Hold­en, Martha Scott, Fay Bain­ter, Beu­lah Bon­di, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee and Frank Craven. Find Alter­nate ver­sion. (1940)
  • Pen­ny Ser­e­nadeFree — With Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. “Depicts the sto­ry of a cou­ple who must over­come adver­si­ty to keep their mar­riage and raise a child. Grant was nom­i­nat­ed for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Actor for his per­for­mance.” (1941)
  • Plaisir d’amour en IranFree — A short, six minute film by Agnès Var­da, about a love sto­ry between a hand­some Iran­ian (Ali Raf­fi) and a vis­it­ing French woman (Valérie Mairesse). The film was shot in Iran. (1976)
  • Plan 9 from Out­er SpaceFree — An Ed Wood “clas­sic.” Con­sid­ered one of the worst films ever made and yet the ulti­mate cult flick. (1959)
  • Plas­tic Bag - Free — Wern­er Her­zog nar­rates the touch­ing, exis­ten­tial jour­ney of a plas­tic bag. A short film direct­ed by Ramin Bahrani, who Roger Ebert called the “new great Amer­i­can direc­tor”. (2009)
  • Pyg­malionFree — Clas­sic is based on George Bernard Shaw’s play. Won Oscar for best screen­play. (1938)
  • ¡Que viva Méx­i­co!Free — A film project begun in 1930 by Russ­ian avant-garde film­mak­er Sergei Eisen­stein por­tray­ing Mex­i­can cul­ture and pol­i­tics from pre-Con­quest civ­i­liza­tion to the Mex­i­can rev­o­lu­tion. The trou­bled film was even­tu­al­ly aban­doned.
  • Rak­kaFree — Star­ring Sigour­ney Weaver, “Rak­ka” takes us inside the after­math of an alien inva­sion some­time in the year 2020. (2017)
  • Reefer Mad­nessFree — Arguably the most unin­ten­tion­al­ly hilar­i­ous “anti-drug” exploita­tion film. (1936)
  • Rem­brandtFree — A lumi­nous biopic of the leg­endary Dutch painter. Alexan­der Kor­da con­sid­ered this to be his finest film. (1936)
  • Romance Sen­ti­men­taleFree — Direct­ed by Sergei Eisen­stein. (1930)
  • Roy­al Wed­dingFree — Musi­cal com­e­dy film star­ring Fred Astaire and Jane Pow­ell, with music by Bur­ton Lane and lyrics by Alan Jay Lern­er. (1951)
  • Rus­lan and Lud­mi­laFree — Russ­ian film direct­ed by Alek­san­dr Ptushko. Based on poem writ­ten by Alexan­der Pushkin in 1820. Sub­ti­tled in Eng­lish. Made avail­able by Mos­film. (1972)
  • ScroogeFree — The first sound ver­sion of Dick­ens’ clas­sic, A Christ­mas Car­ol. Direct­ed by Hen­ry Edwards (1935)
  • Secret WeaponsFree — David Cro­nen­berg’s sel­dom seen made-for-TV movie. (1972)
  • Sex Mad­nessFree — This is to sex what Reefer Mad­ness is to drugs. YouTube ver­sion here. (1938)
  • ShameFree — Pro­duced by Roger Cor­man and star­ring William Shat­ner. Mys­tery film about a man sent into a south­ern town to stir up race riots. (1962)
  • Sher­lock Holmes and the Secret Weapon — Free — Sher­lock Holmes res­cues an inven­tor of an new bomb site before the Nazis can get him. (1943)
  • Sopy­on­je - Free — The film direct­ed by Kwon-taek Im sur­prised S. Korea by both rekin­dling inter­est in the tra­di­tion­al music of pan­sori and by break­ing box-office records despite play­ing on only three screens. You can find more Kore­an fea­ture films at Kore­an Film Archive. (1993)
  • Spi­der BabyFree — A black com­e­dy hor­ror film, writ­ten and direct­ed by Jack Hill. Stars Lon Chaney Jr. (1968)
  • Stalk­erFree — A sci­ence fic­tion art film direct­ed by Andrei Tarkovsky with a screen­play writ­ten by Arkady and Boris Stru­gatsky, loose­ly based on their 1972 nov­el Road­side Pic­nic. Film has been put online by Mos­film. (1979)
  • StrikeFree — Sergei Eisen­stein’s first fea­ture film and an indi­ca­tor of the bril­liant films to fol­low. (1925)
  • Ter­ror by NightFree — Sher­lock Holmes film, the thir­teenth to star Basil Rath­bone and Nigel Bruce and was direct­ed by Roy William Neill. The sto­ry revolves around the theft of a famous dia­mond aboard a train. (1946)
  • Thanks­giv­ing PrayerFree — A short film by Gus Van Sant where­in William S. Bur­roughs reads a sar­cas­tic Thanks­giv­ing Prayer. (1988)
  • The Amaz­ing Quest of Ernest BlissFree — Cary Grant plays a rich socialite, who makes a bet with his ther­a­pist that he can make a liv­ing for one year using none of his cur­rent wealth. (1936)
  • The BigamistFree — Direct­ed by Ida Lupino, a pio­neer among women film­mak­ers. (1953)
  • The Blood of a PoetFree — Avant-garde film direct­ed by Jean Cocteau. The first part of the Orphic Tril­o­gy. (1930)
  • The Blue AngelFree — The Weimar clas­sic that made Mar­lene Diet­rich an inter­na­tion­al star. (1930)
  • The Con­tenderFree — Stars Buster Crabbe (best known for his role as Tarzan) in well known box­ing film. (1944)
  • The Cut UpsFree — Direct­ed by Antho­ny Balch, this avant-garde film brings William S. Bur­roughs’ cut up tech­nique to film. (1966)
  • The Den­tistFree — W.C. Fields in his sec­ond talk­ing com­e­dy short. One of four short films Fields made with the “king of com­e­dy,” Mack Sen­nett. (1932)
  • The Dia­mond ArmFree — Direct­ed by Leonid Gaidai, the film has become a Russ­ian cult film and is con­sid­ered to be one of the finest come­dies of its time. (1969)
  • The Dis­ci­pline of D.E.Free — Gus Van San­t’s short, 16 mm, black and white adap­ta­tion of William S. Bur­roughs’ short sto­ry. (1978)
  • The Divorce of Lady XFree — British roman­tic com­e­dy film star­ring Lau­rence Olivi­er and Mer­le Oberon (1938).
  • The DoveFree — A par­o­dy of some of Ing­mar Bergman’s best known films, includ­ing Wild Straw­ber­ries (Smul­tron­stael­let) and The Sev­enth Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet). Fea­tures first film appear­ance by Made­line Kahn. Nom­i­nat­ed for Acad­e­my Award. (1968)
  • The Fall of the House of Ush­erFree — Poe’s clas­sic tale turned into an avant garde film. It was script­ed by e.e. cum­mings. (1928)
  • The Fast And The Furi­ousFree — A 1950s B‑action film writ­ten by Roger Cor­man. (1955)
  • The Fly­ing DeucesFree — This was the first com­e­dy that Lau­rel and Hardy starred in with­out pro­duc­er Hal Roach, although they had pre­vi­ous­ly been “guest stars” in four MGM movies. (1939)
  • The Great Saint Louis Bank Rob­bery — Free — Steve McQueen stars in a grit­ty, down­beat, and some­times sav­age heist movie. (1959)
  • The HireFree — Eight short films made by famous direc­tors (John Franken­heimer, Guy Ritchie, Joe Car­na­han, Tony Scott, Ale­jan­dro González Iñár­ritu, John Woo, Wong Kar-wai, Ang Lee) for BMW.  Stars Clive Owens. (2001–2002)
  • The Jack­ie Robin­son Sto­ryFree — Star­ring Jack­ie Robin­son him­self, the film retraces the life and times of the great base­ball play­er and civ­il rights fig­ure. (1950)
  • The Jun­gle BookFree — Direct­ed by Zoltan Kor­da, it starred Sabu, Jospeh Calleia, John Qualen, Frank Puglia, etc. (1942)
  • The Last FarmFree — Short Ice­landic film nom­i­nat­ed for Oscar in 2006.
  • The Last Man on EarthFree — Post apoc­a­lyp­tic hor­ror film star­ring Vin­cent Price and based on Richard Math­e­son nov­el I Am Leg­end. (1964)
  • The Last Time I Saw ParisFree — Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor and Van John­son star in roman­tic dra­ma based on F. Scott Fitzger­ald ‘s sto­ry “Baby­lon Revis­it­ed.” YouTube ver­sion here. (1953)
  • The Leg­end of Hal­lowde­gaFree — Black com­e­dy mock­u­men­tary direct­ed by Ter­ry Gilliam. Stars David Arquette and Justin Kirk, with appear­ances by Dale Earn­hardt Jr. and Dar­rell Wal­trip. (2010)
  • The Lit­tle Shop of Hor­rorsFree — Direct­ed by Roger Cor­man with Jack Nichol­son. It’s is a farce about an inad­e­quate florist’s assis­tant who cul­ti­vates a plant that feeds on human flesh and blood. (1960)
  • The Lunch DateFree — Adam David­son’s com­men­tary on race in Amer­i­ca. The short film won an Oscar and a prize at Cannes. (1989)
  • The Meta­mor­pho­sis – A Study: Nabokov on Kaf­ka - Free — A drama­ti­za­tion of Vladimir Nabokov’s lec­tures on Kaf­ka novel­la, The Meta­mor­pho­sis. Stars Christo­pher Plum­mer. (1989)
  • The Mir­rorFree — Russ­ian art film direct­ed by Andrei Tarkovsky. “It is loose­ly auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal, uncon­ven­tion­al­ly struc­tured, and incor­po­rates poems com­posed and read by the direc­tor’s father, Arse­ny Tarkovsky.” Put online by Mos­film. (1975)
  • The Night of Count­ing the YearsFree — Direct­ed by Sha­di Abdel Salam, this film is con­sid­ered one of the finest Egypt­ian films ever made. (1969)
  • The Orchid Gar­den­erFree — A young, men­tal­ly ill man, a visu­al artist in cri­sis Vic­tor Marse (Lars von Tri­er) meets two nurs­es (Eliza and her girl­friend) dur­ing his stay in a sana­to­ri­um. Bizarre things hap­pen next in an exper­i­men­tal film with a mys­te­ri­ous and sym­bol­ic plot . (1977)
  • The Paint­ed Desert -Free — Notable for being Clark Gable’s first appear­ance in a talkie film. (1931)
  • The Phan­tom Fiend - Free — The first sound remake of the 1927 Alfred Hitch­cock clas­sic, The Lodger. Stars Ivor Nov­el­lo and direct­ed by Mau­rice Elvey.
  • The Quest - Free — Saul Bass’s trip­py, kitschy short film based on a Ray Brad­bury short sto­ry. (1983)
  • The Scar­let Let­terFree — Robert G. Vig­no­la’s adap­ta­tion of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s clas­sic. (1934)
  • The Scar­let Pim­per­nelFree — Adap­ta­tion of the clas­sic adven­ture nov­el by Baroness Orczy. Stars Leslie Howard and Mer­le Oberon. (1934)
  • The Short Films of Louis CKFree — A col­lec­tion of nine short films cre­at­ed by the come­di­an between 1993 and 1999.
  • The Skin Game - Free — A 1931 Hitch­cock film based on a play by John Galswor­thy recounts the trag­ic tale of a fam­i­ly feud. (1931)
  • The Snows of Kil­i­man­jaroFree — Based on Hem­ing­way’s clas­sic nov­el set in Africa. Stars Gre­go­ry Peck. (1952)
  • The StrangerFree — Direct­ed by Orson Welles and star­ring Edward G. Robin­son and Loret­ta Young. This was Orson Welles’ only major box office suc­cess. Alter­na­tive ver­sion on Archive.org. (1946)
  • The Tam­ing of the ShrewFree — The first sound adap­ta­tion of a Shake­speare film ever. Stars Mary Pick­ford and her hus­band Dou­glas Fair­banks. (1929)
  • The Tes­ta­ment of Dr. Mabuse - Free — Direct­ed by Fritz Lang, this was the sequel to Lang’s near­ly four-hour silent film Dr. Mabuse shot in 1922.  (1933)
  • The Wild RideFree — A cult clas­sic that fea­tures Jack Nichol­son play­ing a rebel­lious punk in one of his first roles.  (1960)
  • The Woman in GreenFree — Sher­lock Holmes inves­ti­gates when young women around Lon­don turn up mur­dered, each with a fin­ger sev­ered off. Scot­land Yard sus­pects a mad­man, but Holmes believes the killings to be part of a dia­bol­i­cal plot. Stars Basil Rath­bone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Wat­son. (1945)
  • The World of Stain­boyFree — A series of flash ani­ma­tion shorts cre­at­ed by Tim Bur­ton.  The Stain­boy char­ac­ter first appeared in two short poems in the book The Melan­choly Death of Oys­ter Boy & Oth­er Sto­ries, also cre­at­ed and illus­trat­ed by Tim Bur­ton. (2000)
  • The Young LoversFree — Direct­ed by Ida Lupino, this 1950 film tells the tale of a new­ly engaged woman who con­tracts polio. Film was also titled Nev­er Fear. Alter­nate ver­sion here.
  • Things to ComeFree — A British sci-fi film pro­duced by Alexan­der Kor­da and direct­ed by William Cameron Men­zies. The screen­play was writ­ten by H. G. Wells, and pre­dict­ed a grim future for the world. We have back­ground on the film here. (1934)
  • Tui­leriesFree — A short twist­ed film by Joel and Ethan Coen. Stars Steve Busce­mi and takes place in Paris. (2006)
  • Two MenFree — An award-win­ning short film adapts Franz Kafka’s short sto­ry, “Passers-by.” Set in abo­rig­i­nal Aus­tralia. (2009)
  • Uncle Vanya - Free — Adap­ta­tion of the Anton Chekhov play of the same title. Direct­ed by Andrey Kon­chalovskiy. Click “CC” for sub­ti­tles. (1970)
  • UtopiaFree — Lau­rel & Hardy’s last film. (1951)
  • VinylFree — Andy Warhol’s loose film adap­ta­tion of Antho­ny Burgess’ A Clock­work Orange. (1965)
  • VirusFree — Post-apoc­a­lyp­tic sci-fi movie direct­ed by Kin­ji Fukasaku and based on a nov­el writ­ten by Sakyo Komat­su. (1980)
  • Voy­age to the Plan­et of Pre­his­toric WomenFree — An ear­ly film by “New Hol­ly­wood” direc­tor Peter Bog­danovich (1968).
  • Wait­ing for Godot - Free — Per­for­mances of Wait­ing for Godot direct­ed by none oth­er than Samuel Beck­ett him­self. (1985)
  • War & PeaceFree — Sergei Bon­darchuk’s splen­did film adap­ta­tion of Leo Tolstoy’s grand nov­el, made avail­able online by Mos­film. (1969)
  • We Are JazzmenFree — Direct­ed by Mr. Karen Shakhnazarov, the film chron­i­cles the emer­gence of jazz dur­ing the 1920s in Sovi­et Rus­sia. It’s made avail­able by the Russ­ian film stu­dio, Mos­film. Click “cc” to get sub­ti­tles. (1983)
  • White TigerFree — A Russ­ian action war film direct­ed by Karen Shakhnazarov, and based on a nov­el by Ilya Boy­ashov. The film was put online by the Russ­ian film stu­dio, Mos­film. Click “cc” to get sub­ti­tles. (2012)
  • Why Try to Escape from Which You Know You Can’t Escape from? Because You Are a Cow­ardFree — An ear­ly film by Lars von Tri­er. (1970)
  • Zéro de Con­duite (Zero for Con­duct)Free — Orig­i­nal­ly banned in France, the film was lat­er hon­ored by Truf­faut in The 400 Blows. (1933)

Free Hitchcock, Noir, Horror & Thriller Films

  • A Buck­et of Blood - Free — Roger Cor­man’s clas­sic comedy/horror film set in Bohemi­an San Fran­cis­co. Shot in 5 days for $50,000. Inter­net Archive ver­sion here. (1959)
  • A Life at StakeFree — Direct­ed by Paul Guil­foyle, this Amer­i­can noir film stars Angela Lans­bury and Kei­th Andes. (1954)
  • And Then There Were NoneFree — Film adap­ta­tion of Agatha Christie’s best-sell­ing mys­tery nov­el direct­ed by René Clair. (1945)
  • Angel on My Shoul­derFree — A gang­ster com­e­dy star­ring Claude Rains and Paul Muni. (1946)
  • Beat the Dev­il – Free – Direct­ed by John Hus­ton and star­ring Humphrey Bog­a­rt, the film is some­thing of a com­ic and dra­mat­ic spoof of the film noir tra­di­tion. (1953)
  • Behind Green Lights Free – Stars Car­ole Lan­dis, John Ire­land. Police lieu­tenant Sam Car­son inves­ti­gates a polit­i­cal mur­der after the vic­tim is dumped at the door of police head­quar­ters. (1946)
  • Big Bluff Free – Direct­ed by W. Lee Wilder. When a schem­ing for­tune hunter finds his rich wife is not going to die as expect­ed, he and his lover make oth­er plans to get her mil­lions. (1955)
  • Blood on the SunFree — A film star­ring James Cagney and Sylvia Sid­ney is based on a fic­tion­al his­to­ry behind the Tana­ka Memo­r­i­al doc­u­ment. It won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Art Direc­tion for a Black & White in 1945. In 1973, the film entered the pub­lic domain. (1945)
  • Bon Voy­age — Free — A French lan­guage WWII pro­pa­gan­da film by Alfred Hitch­cock. (1944)
  • Blonde Ice Free — A soci­ety reporter keeps her­self in the head­lines by mar­ry­ing a series of wealthy men. They all die mys­te­ri­ous­ly after­wards though. (1948)
  • Blue­beardFree — Direct­ed by Edgar G. Ulmer and star­ring John Car­ra­dine, this film became a cult clas­sic for hor­ror fans. (1944)
  • Bor­der­lineFree — Two under­cov­er agents infil­trate a drug-smug­gling ring in Mex­i­co, but nei­ther is aware of the oth­er’s iden­ti­ty. Stars Fred Mac­Mur­ray, Claire Trevor and Ray­mond Burr. (1950)
  • Car­ni­val of SoulsFree — An Amer­i­can inde­pen­dent hor­ror film direct­ed by Herk Har­vey for $33,000, the film, although not orig­i­nal­ly pop­u­lar, even­tu­al­ly became a cult clas­sic. The “plot fol­lows a young woman whose life is dis­turbed after a car acci­dent, find­ing her­self drawn to the pavil­ion of an aban­doned car­ni­val.” (1962)
  • Cause for Alarm!Free — Ellen (Loret­ta Young) nar­rates the tale of “the most ter­ri­fy­ing day of my life”, how she was tak­ing care of her bedrid­den hus­band George Z. Jones (Bar­ry Sul­li­van) when he sud­den­ly dropped dead. (1951)
  • Demen­tiaFree — Also called Daugh­ter of Hor­ror, this film by John Park­er incor­po­rat­ed ele­ments of hor­ror film, film noir and expres­sion­ist film. About the film, Cahiers du cin­e­ma wrote “To what degree this film is a work of art, we are not cer­tain but, in any case, it is strong stuff.” (1955)
  • Demen­tia 13- Free — A hor­ror film that was one of Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la’s ear­ly main­stream efforts. HD widescreen ver­sion here. (1963)
  • DetourFree — Edgar Ulmer’s cult clas­sic noir film shot in 6 days. (1945)
  • Dick Tra­cyFree — A 15 episode film series that brought Dick Tra­cy to the sil­ver screen. (1937)
  • Dick Tra­cy Meets Grue­someFree — Dick Tra­cy film from 1947 stars Boris Karloff as Grue­some. (1947)
  • D.O.A.Free — Rudolph Maté’s clas­sic noir film. Called “one of the most accom­plished, inno­v­a­tive, and down­right twist­ed entrants to the film noir genre.” (1950)
  • Dressed to KillFree — The last of 14 films star­ring Basil Rath­bone as Sher­lock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doc­tor Wat­son. (1941)
  • Port of New York Free — Two nar­cotics agents go after a gang of mur­der­ous drug deal­ers who use ships dock­ing at the New York har­bor to smug­gle in their con­tra­band. First film in which Yul Bryn­ner appeared. (1949)
  • Great Guy - Free — James Cagney plays the plucky Irish cru­sad­er, John­ny Cave, who fights against cor­rup­tion. (1936)
  • Guest in the HouseFree – Direct­ed by John Brahm, the noir film stars Anne Bax­ter, Ralph Bel­lamy, Aline MacMa­hon. (1946)
  • He Walked by Night – Free – Film-noir dra­ma, told in semi-doc­u­men­tary style, fol­lows police on the hunt for a resource­ful crim­i­nal. This move became the basis for “Drag­net,” and stars Jack Webb. Archive.org ver­sion here. (1948)
  • Hor­ror ExpressFree — Span­ish hor­ror film star­ring Tel­ly Savalas of Kojak fame.
  • ImpactFree — Arthur Lubin’s well reviewed noir flic. Con­sid­ered a lit­tle known clas­sic you need to watch. (1940)
  • Inner Sanc­tum — Free — A grip­ping noir film about “a mur­der­er who is on the lam and hid­ing out in a small town. Unbe­knownst to him, he is not only hid­ing in the same board­ing house as the only wit­ness to his crime, he is shar­ing the same room.” (1948)
  • Invis­i­ble GhostFree — Bela Lugosi stars in film where a town’s lead­ing cit­i­zen becomes a homo­ci­dal mani­ac after his wife deserts him. Alter­nate ver­sion here. (1941)
  • Jamaica Inn — Free — A young woman dis­cov­ers that she’s liv­ing near a gang of crim­i­nals who arrange ship­wrecks for prof­it. Stars Mau­reen O’Hara, Robert New­ton and Charles Laughton. (1939)
  • Jig­saw - Free — Direct­ed by Fletch­er Markle, and star­ring Fran­chot Tone, Jean Wal­lace and Marc Lawrence, the film fea­tures cameo appear­ances by Mar­lene Diet­rich and Hen­ry Fon­da. (1949)
  • JudexFree — Direct­ed by French film­mak­er Georges Fran­ju, this crime film is a remake of the 1916 film ser­i­al doc­u­ment­ing the adven­tures of pulp hero Judex. (1963)
  • Kansas City Con­fi­den­tialFree — A film noir gem that inspired Quentin Taran­ti­no’s Reser­voir Dogs. (1953)
  • Key Lime PieFree — A zany ani­mat­ed film in the noir tra­di­tion. (2007)
  • Lady in the Death HouseFree — Stars Jean Park­er, Lionel Atwill and Dou­glas Fow­ley. A young woman is on death row for the mur­der of a man who was black­mail­ing her fam­i­ly, though she claims she was framed. And the sto­ry goes from there. (1944)
  • Man in the Attic — Free — Jack Palance as Jack the Rip­per! (1954) 
  • Night of the Liv­ing DeadFree — George A. Romero’s Night of the Liv­ing Dead is the urtext of the mod­ern zom­bie movie. (1968)
  • Please Mur­der MeFree — Lawyer Ray­mond Burr bril­liant­ly defends Angela Lans­bury in 1950s noir film. (1956)
  • Pul­gasari - Free — A North Kore­an Godzil­la-style film pro­duced by South Kore­an direc­tor Shin Sang-ok, who had been kid­napped in 1978 by North Kore­an intel­li­gence on the orders of Kim Jong-il. (1985)
  • Quick­sandFree — Noir film with Mick­ey Rooney and Peter Lorre. (1950)
  • Sab­o­tage – Free – Alfred Hitch­cock directs this British thriller based on Joseph Conrad’s nov­el The Secret Agent. Also released as The Woman Alone. Alter­na­tive ver­sion here. (1936)
  • Scar­let StreetFree — Direct­ed by Fritz Lang with Edward G. Robin­son. A film noir great. (1945)
  • Secret Agent — Free — Direct­ed by Alfred Hitch­cock, this film was loose­ly based on sto­ries by W. Som­er­set Maugh­am. Stars John Giel­gud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Car­roll and Robert Young. (1936)
  • Sev­en Sin­nersFree — British thriller film direct­ed by Albert de Courville and star­ring Edmund Lowe, Con­stance Cum­mings and Felix Aylmer. (1936)
  • Shed No Tears - Free — Until recent­ly, this film star­ring Wal­lace Ford and June Vin­cent was near­ly impos­si­ble to find. Now it’s online thanks to  Archive.org. (1948)
  • Sher­lock Holmes and the Secret Weapon — Free — Sher­lock Holmes res­cues an inven­tor of an new bomb site before the Nazis can get him. (1943)
  • Shock Free –This film noir tells the sto­ry of psy­chi­a­trist Dr. Cross (Vin­cent Price), who is treat­ing Janet Stew­art (Anabel Shaw), a young woman who is in a cata­ton­ic state. The coma was brought on when she heard loud argu­ing, went to her win­dow, and saw a man strike his wife with a can­dle­stick and kill her. (1946)
  • Silent Night, Bloody Night - Free — An under-rat­ed horror/slasher/mystery film — star­ring Patrick O’Neal, Mary Woronov, and John Car­ra­dine — that has fall­en into the pub­lic domain. (1974)
  • Strange Illu­sion — Free — B‑movie update of “Ham­let” has trou­bled teen Jim­my Lydon doubt­ing smooth-talk­er War­ren Williams who is woo­ing his moth­er. (1945)
  • Sud­den­lyFree — Noir film with Frank Sina­tra and James Glea­son. (1954)
  • Swamp Women - Free — One of Roger Cor­man’s first films. A crime/horror film that fol­lows under­cov­er police offi­cer Lee Hamp­ton who joins three female con­victs and escapes from prison. (1955)
  • The 39 StepsFree — One of Alfred Hitch­cock­’s first hits. British thriller is based on nov­el with same name by John Buchan. (1935)
  • The Adven­tures of Sher­lock Holmes — Free — The film is adapt­ed from the 1899 play “Sher­lock Holmes” by William Gillette, and stars Basil Rath­bone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, George Zuc­co and Alan Mar­shal. (1939)
  • The Amaz­ing Mr. X — Free — Noir film direct­ed by Bernard Vorhaus with cin­e­matog­ra­phy by John Alton. The film tells the sto­ry of a pho­ny spir­i­tu­al­ist rack­et. (1948).
  • The Big Com­bo - Free — Direct­ed by Joseph Lewis, this film is today con­sid­ered a noir clas­sic. Crit­ics like to focus on the cin­e­matog­ra­phy of John Alton, a noir icon. (1955)
  • The Cap­ture — Free - Lew Ayres is an oil man who guns down a thief who may have been inno­cent. (1950)
  • The ChaseFree — An Amer­i­can noir film direct­ed by Arthur Rip­ley, based on the Cor­nell Wool­rich nov­el The Black Path of Fear. (1946)
  • The Driller KillerFree — Abel Fer­rara’s cult clas­sic slash­er film. (1979)
  • The File on Thel­ma Jor­dan - Free — This noir direct­ed by Robert Siod­mak fea­tures Bar­bara Stan­wyck and Wen­dell Corey.  At the time Vari­ety said, “Thel­ma Jor­don unfolds as an inter­est­ing, femme-slant­ed melo­dra­ma, told with a lot of restrained excite­ment.” (1950)
  • The Great Fla­mar­i­on — Free - Vaude­ville star Erich von Stro­heim entan­gled with mar­ried assis­tant. Direct­ed by Antho­ny Mann. (1945)
  • The Green Glove - Free — A World War II vet­er­an in France, played by Glen Ford, gets mixed up in mur­der while inves­ti­gat­ing a stolen trea­sure. Direct­ed by Rudolph Maté. Alter­nate ver­sion here. (1952)
  • The Hood­lumFree — Lawrence Tier­ney (“Reser­voir Dogs”) plays an unre­formed, hard­ened crim­i­nal who has just been released from prison. While work­ing at his broth­er’s gas sta­tion, he becomes very inter­est­ed in the armored car that makes reg­u­lar stops at the bank across the street. (1951)
  • The Hitch-Hik­erFree — The first noir film made by a female direc­tor, Ida Lupino. (1953)
  • The House on Haunt­ed HillFree — Vin­cent Price gives a stel­lar per­for­mance as the suave­ly malev­o­lent host of a “haunt­ed house par­ty.” (1959)
  • The ImageFree — A short hor­ror film that hap­pened to be the first film that David Bowie starred in. (1967)
  • The Intrud­erFree — Direct­ed by Roger Cor­man, the film is based on a nov­el by Charles Beau­mont and stars William Shat­ner. (1962)
  • The Ken­nel Mur­der Case - Free — Notes Roger Ebert, “Film his­to­ri­ans such as William K. Ever­son, who pro­nounced The Ken­nel Mur­der Case a “mas­ter­piece” (in the August 1984 issue of Films in Review), con­sid­er it one of the great­est screen adap­ta­tions of a Gold­en Age mys­tery nov­el. (1933)
  • The Limp­ing Man Free — Stars Lloyd Bridges and Moira Lis­ter. A WWII vet­er­an goes back to Eng­land after the war only to dis­cov­er that his wartime sweet­heart has got mixed up with a dan­ger­ous spy ring. (1953)
  • The Lodger: A Sto­ry of the Lon­don FogFree — One of Hitchcock’s silent clas­sics. A land­la­dy sus­pects her lodger is a mur­der­er killing women around Lon­don. It’s said that this is Hitch­cock­’s first “Hitch­cock­ian” film. (1927)
  • The Man Who Cheat­ed Him­self – Free – Some call it “an under-appre­ci­at­ed and lit­tle known gem.”  Stars Lee J. Cobb, John Dall, Jane Wyatt, and Lisa Howard. (1951)
  • The Naked Kiss Free - Con­stance Tow­ers is a pros­ti­tute try­ing to start new in a small town. Direct­ed by Sam Fuller. (1964)
  • The Pearl of Death - Free — Direct­ed by Roy William Neill, the film is based on char­ac­ters cre­at­ed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It stars Basil Rath­bone, Nigel Bruce, and Den­nis Hoey. (1944)
  • The Plea­sure Gar­den — Free — After sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts, Hitch­cock made his solo direc­to­r­i­al debut in the Ger­man-British co-pro­duc­tion based on a nov­el by Oliv­er Sandys.
  • The Red HouseFree — A noir psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller star­ring Edward G. Robin­son. Here’s the gist of the plot: “An old man and his sis­ter are con­ceal­ing a ter­ri­ble secret from their adopt­ed teen daugh­ter, con­cern­ing a hid­den aban­don farm­house, locat­ed deep in the woods.” (1947)
  • The Sec­ond Woman - Free – Direct­ed by James Kern and star­ring Bet­sy Drake, this less­er known noir film gets some good reviews. (1951)
  • The Skin GameFree — A 1931 Hitch­cock film based on a play by John Galswor­thy recounts the trag­ic tale of a fam­i­ly feud. (1931)
  • The Strange Love of Martha IversFree — Noir film start­ing Bar­bara Stan­wyck, Van Heflin and Kirk Dou­glas. Entered into 1947 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. (1946)
  • The Strange Woman — Free — Edgar G. Ulmer’s femme fatale film star­ring Hedy Lamarr. (1946)
  • The Ter­rorFree — With Jack Nichol­son & Boris Karloff, and part­ly shot by Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la. Movie is at bot­tom of the linked page. (1963)
  • The Time of Your LifeFree — Adapt­ed from the 1939 William Saroy­an play of the same title (the play won the Pulitzer Prize), the film stars James Cagney and William Ben­dix. (1948)
  • The Thir­teenth GuestFree —  A pre-code mys­tery com­e­dy thriller film with Gin­ger Rogers, based on the 1929 nov­el by crime fic­tion writer Armitage Trail, also author of the nov­el Scar­face. (1932)
  • They Made Me a Crim­i­nal — Free — Box­er John Garfield flees believ­ing he has com­mit­ted a mur­der while he was drunk. Pur­sued by Claude Rains, he meets up with the Dead End Kids. (1939)
  • Time TableFree — After the theft of $500,000 in a care­ful­ly exe­cut­ed train rob­bery, an insur­ance inves­ti­ga­tor (Mark Stevens, who also dou­bled as direc­tor and pro­duc­er) is forced to can­cel a planned vaca­tion with his wife to assist a rail­road detec­tive in iden­ti­fy­ing the cul­prits and recov­er­ing the mon­ey. Alter­nate ver­sion here. (1956)
  • Too Late for TearsFree — Direct­ed by Byron Haskin and based on a nov­el by Roy Hug­gins, Too Late for Tears is pure noir. (1949)
  • Top­per ReturnsFree — A sassy girl finds her­self dead after trad­ing bed­rooms with her heiress friend. Her ghost seeks aid from banker Cos­mo Top­per to find out why and by whom. Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Car­ole Lan­dis. (1941)
  • Tor­ment­edFree — A man lets a for­mer flame fall to her death rather than let her inter­fere with his new rela­tion­ship, but her ghost returns to dis­rupt his impend­ing nup­tials. (1960)
  • Trapped Free – Star­ring Lloyd Bridges and Bar­bara Pay­ton, the plot of this B noir film turns around a coun­ter­feit­ing ring. (1949)
  • VampyrFree — This hor­ror film was Carl Theodor Drey­er’s fol­low-up to The Pas­sion of Joan of Arc, and his first “talkie.” (1932)
  • Waltzes From Vien­na — Free — Alfred Hitch­cock told Fran­cois Truf­faut that this film (about the writ­ing and per­for­mance of The Blue Danube) was the low point of his film career. (1934)
  • Whis­tle StopFree — A noir flic with Ava Gard­ner. (1946)
  • White Zom­bie - Free — Pre-Code hor­ror film direct­ed by Vic­tor and Edward Halperin. Béla Lugosi stars as the antag­o­nist, Mur­der Legendre, with Madge Bel­lamy appear­ing as his vic­tim. (1932)
  • Woman on the Run Free – After Frank John­son (Ross Elliott) is the sole wit­ness to a gang­land mur­der, he goes into hid­ing and is trailed by Police Inspec­tor Fer­ris (Robert Kei­th), his wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheri­dan), and news­pa­per­man, Dan­ny Leggett (Den­nis O’Keefe).
  • Young and Inno­centFree — Orig­i­nal­ly released in the US as The Girl Was Young, this Alfred Hitch­cock film was based on Josephine Tey’s nov­el A Shilling for Can­dles. (1937)

Find a com­plete col­lec­tion of Film Noir movies here and Alfred Hitch­cock movies here.

Free Kung Fu & Martial Arts Films

  • Black Fist — Free — To make mon­ey, a Los Ange­les street-fight­­er goes to work for gang­sters. (1975)
  • Blood on the Sun — Free — Star­ring James Cagney and Sylvia Sid­ney, the film is based on a fic­tion­al his­to­ry behind the Tana­ka Memo­r­i­al doc­u­ment. Won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Art Direc­tion for a Black & White film. (1945)
  • Bruce Lee Fights Back From The GraveFree — Bru­ce­ploita­tion movie star­ring Bruce Lee imper­son­ator and tae kwon do instruc­tor Jun Chong (using the name Bruce K.L. Lea). (1976)
  • Bruce Lee the Invin­ci­bleFree — Bruce Li with his mas­ter goes to Sin­ga­pore to stop a kung-fu mas­ter named Cheng. (1977)
  • Four Rob­bersFree — Cheap Hong Kong action film which rides the late 80s hero­ic blood­shed wave and, says kungfumovieguide.com “rips off (main­ly) films like A Bet­ter Tomor­row and City on Fire, only with­out any of the same qual­i­ty.” (1987)
  • Guy With Secret Kung FuFree — Two broth­ers put their kung fu skills to the test and do bat­tle with dis­hon­est judges, pow­er­ful war­lords, and giant zom­bies, all in the name of end­ing the oppres­sion of the Ching Dynasty. (1980)
  • Heroes of ShaolinFree — Direct­ed by William Chang. Like many kung fu movies from the late 1970s, the main theme of the film focus­es on revenge.
  • La Dialec­tique Peut-Elle Cass­er Des Briques? (Can Dialec­tics Break Bricks?) - Free — A French Sit­u­a­tion­ist film pro­duced by René Viénet which explores the devel­op­ment of class con­flict through rev­o­lu­tion­ary agi­ta­tion against a back­drop of graph­ic kung-fu fight­ing. (1973)
  • Lady Whirl­windFree — Some­times called Deep Thrust. Here’s the plot: Tien arrives in town look­ing to exact revenge on Ling for aban­don­ing her preg­nant sis­ter and thus dri­ving the sis­ter to com­mit sui­cide. Although Tien agrees to help Ling take down the leader of a local gam­bling syn­di­cate, she nonethe­less still plans to avenge her sis­ter’s death which she holds Ling respon­si­ble for. (1973)
  • Leg­end of the Eight Samu­rai — Free — A Japan­ese his­tor­i­cal mar­tial arts fan­ta­sy film star­ring Son­ny Chi­ba and direct­ed by Kin­ji Fukasaku. The script is adapt­ed from a 1982 nov­el Shin Sato­mi Hakkenden by Toshio Kama­ta, a loose rework­ing of the epic ser­i­al Nan­sō Sato­mi Hakkenden by Kyokutei Bakin. (1983)
  • Mas­ter of the Fly­ing Guil­lo­tineFree — A Tai­wanese wux­ia film star­ring Jim­my Wang Yu, who also wrote and direct­ed the film. It is a sequel to Wang’s 1971 film One Armed Box­er, and thus the film is also known as One-Armed Box­er 2. (1976)
  • Nin­ja Death Tril­o­gyFree — The entire Nin­ja Death Tril­o­gy. Four hours of non stop action. (1987)
  • Return of Kung Fu Drag­onFree — Son­ny Chi­ba stars again as the dead­ly mar­tial arts mer­ce­nary Taku­ma Tsu­ru­gi in a movie where he must bat­tle against the Yakuza because of a deal gone bad. (1976)
  • Return of the Street Fight­erFree — Taku­ma “Ter­ry” Tsu­ru­gi returns. In this sequel to The Street Fight­er, he sets out to bust up a pho­ny char­i­ty put togeth­er by the Yukuza. (1974)
  • Shaolin Tem­pleFree — Oth­er­wise called Death Cham­bers, it is one of the Shaolin Tem­­ple-themed mar­tial arts films and con­cerns their rebel­lion against the Qings. Stars David Chi­ang, Ti Lung, and Fu Sheng. (1976)
  • Sis­ter Street­fight­erFree — Clas­sic grind­house karate film star­ring Sue Shi­ho­mi. (1974)
  • Spir­its of Bruce LeeFree — Richard Lee res­cues a young Thai box­er on his way to Wansen which is a small town with strange cus­toms.
  • The Big FightFree — The Japan­ese oppress the Chi­nese dur­ing WW‑2, until resis­tance breaks out. Stars Tien Peng, Yee Yuen, Che­ung Ching Ching, and Blacky Ko. (1972)
  • The Image of Bruce LeeFree — 70s action film about Bruce Li as a spe­cial agent who teams with a Hong Kong police offi­cer to crack a smug­gling ring. Apart from the title, the only thing this film has to do with Bruce Lee is when some­one tells the Bruce Li char­ac­ter that he resem­bles Lee. (1978)
  • The Real Bruce LeeFree — This mar­tial arts doc­u­men­tary begins with a brief biog­ra­phy of Bruce Lee, and shows scenes from four of his child­hood films, Bad Boy, Orphan Sam, Kid Che­ung, and The Car­ni­val, each sepia-toned and dubbed to Eng­lish. (1979)
  • The Street Fight­erFree — One of Quentin Taran­ti­no’s favorite karate films, and 13# on his list of 20 great Grind­house films. Star­ring Son­ny Chi­ba, the film was the first to get an X rat­ing for vio­lence. (1974)
  • The Street Fight­er’s Last Revenge — Free — A mar­tial arts film and the third in a series start­ing with The Street Fight­er star­ring Son­ny Chi­ba. (1974)
  • TNT Jack­sonFree — A young karate expert search­es for her broth­er’s killer in Hong Kong. (1975)

Free Westerns

  • Angel and the Bad­man Free — A black and white West­ern star­ring John Wayne and Gail Rus­sell. Con­sid­ered a rad­i­cal depar­ture from the West­ern genre at the time. Find Inter­net Archive ver­sion here. (1947)
  • Bil­ly the Kid Want­edFree — Bil­ly the Kid (Buster Crabbe) and his pal Jeff (Dave O’Brien) help their friend Fuzzy Jones (Al St. John) escape from jail, and the trio heads for Par­adise Val­ley, where they find the Par­adise Land Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, ran by Matt Braw­ley (Glenn Strange) and Jack Saun­ders (Charles King), (1941)
  • Blue SteelFree — West­ern film with John Wayne play­ing a U.S. Mar­shal try­ing to cap­ture the Pol­ka Dot Ban­dit. Some con­sid­er it the best of the Wayne Lone Star films. (1934)
  • Born to the West — Free — Can Dare Rudd prove he is respon­si­ble enough to win the heart of Judy and also out­wit the crooked saloon own­er? Stars John Wayne, Mar­sha Hunt and John Mack Brown. (1937)
  • Death Rides a HorseFree — Giulio Petron­i’s top spaghet­ti west­ern. (1967)
  • Fron­tier Hori­zonFree — The Three Mes­que­teers attempt to pre­vent whole­sale slaugh­ter in this fine Repub­lic West­ern star­ring John Wayne, Ray “Crash” Cor­ri­g­an, and Ray­mond Hat­ton. (1939)
  • Gone with the WestFree — James Caan, Ste­fanie Pow­ers and Sam­my Davis Jr. in 1975 west­ern.
  • Hell­townFree — Orig­i­nal­ly called Born to the West, this John Wayne west­ern was based on a nov­el by Zane Grey. (1937)
  • High Lone­someFree — A drifter (John Drew Bar­ry­more) is sus­pect­ed of mur­der, when the real mur­der­ers are two men who every­body thinks are dead. This movie was filmed back to back with “The Sun­down­ers” on the same set. (1950)
  • JoshuaFree — A black sol­dier returns from fight­ing in the Civ­il War only to find out that his moth­er has been mur­dered by a gang of white thugs. He becomes a boun­ty hunter, deter­mined to exact revenge. Direct­ed by Lar­ry G. Span­gler, stars Lar­ry Williamson. (1976)
  • Law of the Rio GrandeFree — Direct­ed by For­rest Shel­don, the film is about Jim and Cook­ie. Escap­ing from the Sher­iff, they decide to go straight. But when they meet their old cohort, The Blan­co Kid, he tells their new boss they are out­laws and they are in big trou­ble again. (1931)
  • McLin­tock!Free — Com­e­dy West­ern star­ring John Wayne & Mau­reen O’Hara. Loose­ly based on Shake­speare’s The Tam­ing of the Shrew. (1963)
  • ‘Neath the Ari­zona SkiesFree — John Wayne plays a cow­boy pro­tect­ing an Amer­i­can Indi­an oil-land heiress. (1934)
  • One Eyed JacksFree — The only film direct­ed by Mar­lon Bran­do. He also plays its lead char­ac­ter, Rio. (1961)
  • Par­adise CanyonFree — West­ern star­ring John Wayne. Fea­tures Wayne as gov­ern­ment agent John Wyatt search­ing for a coun­ter­feit ring oper­at­ing on the Mexican/Arizona bor­der. (1935)
  • Rain­bow Val­ley — Free — John Mar­tin (John Wayne) is a gov­ern­ment agent work­ing under cov­er. Lead­ing cit­i­zen Mor­gan calls in gun­man Butch Galt (Buf­fa­lo Bill Jr.) who blows Mar­t­in’s cov­er. (1935)
  • Randy Rides AloneFree — Jailed for mur­ders he did­n’t com­mit, Randy Bow­ers (John Wayne) escapes only to stum­ble into the den of the real mur­der­ers. Enter­tain­ing ear­ly Wayne film. (1934)
  • RawhideFree — A short west­ern implau­si­bly star­ring the Yan­kee leg­end, Lou Gehrig. (1938)
  • Rid­ers of Des­tinyFree — John Wayne por­trays Sin­gin’ Sandy Saun­ders and has a rep­u­ta­tion as the most noto­ri­ous gun­man since Bil­ly the Kid. Fea­tures Wayne in singing role. (1933)
  • Sage­brush TrailFree — John Wayne plays John Brant who escapes from jail after being wrong­ly accused of mur­der. Fea­tures great stage­coach chase. (1933)
  • San­ta Fe TrailFree — West­ern film direct­ed by Michael Cur­tiz (also direct­ed Casablan­ca) and star­ring Errol Fly­nn, Olivia de Hav­il­land and Ronald Rea­gan. (1940).
  • Sev­en AloneFree — A fron­tier fam­i­ly with sev­en chil­dren heads West on the Ore­gon Trail. When both of their par­ents die, they decide to push on alone. Stars Dewey Mar­tin and Aldo Ray. (1974)
  • Song of Ari­zonaFree — Stars Roy Rogers. Direct­ed by Frank McDon­ald. “Gab­by’s ranch for way­ward boys is in finan­cial trou­ble. One of his boys, Chip is hid­ing stolen mon­ey sent by his father the out­law leader King Blaine. After Blaine is killed, Chip decides to pay off Gab­by’s debt with this mon­ey, but trou­ble aris­es when the remain­ing gang mem­bers arrive look­ing for the loot.”
    (1946)
  • Texas Ter­rorFree — A young John Wayne in a roman­tic west­ern. (1935)
  • The Amer­i­can West of John Ford — Free - A doc­u­men­tary encap­su­lat­ing the career and West­ern films of direc­tor John Ford, fea­tur­ing inter­views with John Wayne, James Stew­art and Hen­ry Fon­da. (1971)
  • The Dawn Rid­erFree — John Wayne plays John Mason, a man aveng­ing his father’s mur­der. A west­ern direct­ed by Robert Brad­bury. (1935)
  • The Desert TrailFree — Ear­ly West­ern with John Wayne. Accord­ing toWest­ern­Clip­pings, not Wayne’s finest hour. (1935)
  • The Great Train Rob­beryFree — Ear­ly west­ern film by Edwin S. Porter. A land­mark in nar­ra­tive film­mak­ing (1903)
  • The Law­less Fron­tierFree — B West­ern star­ring John Wayne and direct­ed by Robert Brad­bury. (1934)
  • The Lucky Tex­an — Free — Jer­ry Mason (played by John Wayne) and Jake Ben­son become part­ners and strike it rich with a gold mine. (1934) They then find their lives com­pli­cat­ed by bad guys and a woman. (1934)
  • The Man From UtahFree — The Mar­shal sends John West­on (John Wayne) to a rodeo to see if he can find out who is killing the rodeo rid­ers who are about to win prize mon­ey. (1934)
  • The Out­law - Free — The Amer­i­can West­ern sto­ry of Bil­ly the Kid, Doc Hol­l­i­day, and Pat Gar­rett, direct­ed by Howard Hugh­es, and debut­ing Jane Rus­sell in her first movie role. (1943)
  • The Range Feud — Free — Clint Turn­er is arrest­ed for the mur­der of his girl­friend Judy’s father, a rival ranch­er who was an ene­my of his own father. Stars John Wayne and Buck Jones. (1931)
  • The San Anto­nio KidFree — Direct­ed by Howard Brether­ton, the film is about a geol­o­gist who has found oil on the neigh­bor­ing ranch­es and teams up with Ace who has his gang cre­ate a reign of ter­ror to get the ranch­ers to sell out.
  • The Star Pack­erFree — A gang work­ing for “The Shad­ow” is ter­ror­iz­ing the town. John Tra­vers (John Wayne) decides to take on the job of sher­iff and do some­thing about it. (1934)
  • The Trail Beyond — Free — West­ern star­ring John Wayne, Noah Beery, Sr., and Noah Beery, Jr. (1934)
  • The Young Land Free — Den­nis Hop­per stars in a West­ern shot in 1959.
  • Two Fist­ed Law Free — After Rob Rus­sell steals Tim Clark’s ranch, Clark starts prospect­ing for sil­ver. Stars John Wayne and Tim McCoy. (1932)
  • Vengeance Val­leyFree —  Amer­i­can West­ern film star­ring Burt Lan­cast­er, based on the nov­el by Luke Short. (1951)
  • War of the Wild­catsFree — John Wayne stars in west­ern oth­er­wise called In Old Okla­homa. One of Wayne’s bet­ter post-Stage­coach per­for­mances. (1943)
  • West of the DivideFree — A young John Wayne in B west­ern. (1934)
  • Winds of the Waste­landFree — The arrival of the tele­graph put Pony Express rid­ers like John Blair (John Wayne) and his pal Smoky (Lane Chan­dler) out of work they try to start a stage­coach route through a ghost town. A rival stage­coach com­pa­ny tries to stop them. (1936)

Find a com­plete col­lec­tion of John Wayne films here.

Free Silent Films

  • 20 Buster Keaton FilmsFree — An assort­ment of films from one of the found­ing fathers of visu­al com­e­dy.
  • 60 Free Char­lie Chap­lin FilmsFree — An assort­ment of films from one of the most pro­lif­ic actors and film­mak­ers of ear­ly cin­e­ma.
  • Abra­ham Lin­coln — Free - DW Grif­fith’s biog­ra­phy of the beloved Unit­ed States pres­i­dent.
  • A Bur­lesque On Car­menFree — Orig­i­nal two-reel par­o­dy of Bizet’s Car­men by Char­lie Chap­lin. Also stars Leo White & Edna Pur­viance. (1915)
  • A Busy DayFree — Char­lie Chap­lin plays a wife jeal­ous of her hus­band’s inter­est in anoth­er woman, played by Phyl­lis Allen. (1914)
  • A Christ­mas Car­ol - Free — Marc McDer­mott stars as Ebenez­er Scrooge in this 1910 ver­sion of Dick­ens’ clas­sic ghost sto­ry.
  • A Day’s Plea­sureFree — “Chap­lin’s fourth film for First Nation­al Films. It was cre­at­ed at the Chap­lin Stu­dio. It was a quick­ly made two-reel­er to help fill a gap while work­ing on his first fea­ture The Kid. It is about a day out­ing with his wife and the kids and things don’t go smooth­ly.” (1919)
  • A Dog’s Life — Free — This endear­ing short Char­lie Chap­lin film tells the sto­ry of under­dogs, human and canine, suc­ceed­ing despite the odds. (1918)
  • A Fair Exchange — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly released as Get­ting Acquaint­ed, the film’s plot has been sum­ma­rized as fol­lows: “Char­lie and his wife are walk­ing in the park when they encounter Ambrose and his wife. The part­ners become fond of their coun­ter­parts and begin chas­ing each oth­er around. A police­man look­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al Don Juan becomes involved, as does a Turk.” (1914)
  • A Film John­nie Free — Char­lie goes to the movie and falls in love with a girl on the screen. (1914)
  • A Man with a Cam­eraFree — Dzi­ga Ver­tov’s exper­i­men­tal film about life as it is lived. A Sight and Sound mag­a­zine poll named it the 8th best movie ever made. (1929)
  • A Night in the ShowFree — Char­lie Chap­lin played two roles: one as Mr. Pest and one as Mr. Row­dy. The film was cre­at­ed from Chap­lin’s stage work from a play called Mum­ming Birds. (1915)
  • A Page of Mad­ness (Kuret­ta Ippei)Free — This film direct­ed by Teinosuke Kin­u­gasa and writ­ten by Nobel Prize win­ter Yasunari Kawa­ba­ta is one of the great land­marks of Japan­ese silent cin­e­ma. (1926)
  • A Sixth Part Of The World — Free — Using a trav­el­ogue for­mat, Dzi­ga Ver­tov’s film depicts the mul­ti­tude of Sovi­et peo­ples in remote areas of the USSR. (1926)
  • A WomanFree — This Chap­lin film starts with Char­lie meet­ing Edna (Edna Pur­viance) and her par­ents in a park; the moth­er is played by Mar­ta Gold­en and the father by Charles Ins­ley. (1915)
  • Aeli­taFree — A silent film direct­ed by Sovi­et film­mak­er Yakov Pro­tazanov. One of the ear­li­est full-length films about space trav­el, the most notable part of the film remains its remark­able con­struc­tivist Mar­t­ian sets and cos­tumes designed by Alek­san­dra Ekster. (1924)
  • After the BallFree — One of the first “adult” films in cin­e­ma his­to­ry. By the pio­neer­ing direc­tor Georges Méliès.
  • Alice in Won­der­landFree — The first-ever film ver­sion of Lewis Car­rol­l’s tale. Based on Sir John Ten­niel’s orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions. (1903)
  • Alice in Won­der­landFree — Silent adap­ta­tion of Lewis Car­rol­l’s clas­sic, direct­ed and writ­ten by W.W. Young. (1915)
  • Anémic Ciné­ma - Free — Mar­cel Ducham­p’s avant-garde film com­bines whirling opti­cal illu­sions, known as Rotore­liefs, with spi­ral­ing puns and com­plex word play. (1926)
  • Bat­tle­ship PotemkinFree — Direct­ed by the great Russ­ian direc­tor, Sergei Eisen­stein. One of the most influ­en­tial pro­pa­gan­da films of all time. Alter­na­tive ver­sion here. (1925)
  • Behind the ScreenFree — A short film writ­ten and direct­ed by Char­lie Chap­lin, the film is long on slap­stick, but it also gets into themes deal­ing with gen­der bend­ing and homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. (1916)
  • Between Show­ers Free — A short Key­stone film from 1914 star­ring Char­lie Chap­lin, Ford Ster­ling, and Emma Bell Clifton.
  • Bro­ken Blos­somsFree — Silent film direct­ed by D.W. Grif­fith and star­ring Lil­lian Gish. (1919)
  • Char­lie Shang­haiedFree — Char­lie Chap­lin and his Tramp char­ac­ter gets shang­haied by crooks. (1915)
  • Char­lie’s Recre­ation — Free — Out of cos­tume, Char­lie is a clean-shaven dandy who, some­what drunk, vis­its a dance hall. There the wardrobe girl has three rival admir­ers: the band leader, one of the musi­cians, and now Char­lie. (1914)
  • Cin­derel­laFree — This film by George Méliès is the old­est known film adap­ta­tion of the 1697 fairy tale. It was also appar­ent­ly the first movie to use a “dis­solve tran­si­tion” between scenes. (1899)
  • Das Wan­dernde Bild — Free — A silent, black and white film direct­ed by Fritz Lang released in 1920.
  • Der GolumFree — Paul Wegen­er’s Ger­man expres­sion­ist clas­sic, says Roger Ebert, “is a vivid piece of dark­ly toned fan­ta­sy that exert­ed a pow­er­ful influ­ence over both Euro­pean cin­e­ma and Hol­ly­wood.” (1920)
  • Die Nibelun­genFree — A series of two silent fan­ta­sy films cre­at­ed by Fritz Lang in 1924. Runs 5 hours.
  • Don QuixoteFree — Clas­sic adap­ta­tion of the Miguel de Cer­vantes’ nov­el (find in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks), direct­ed by Georg Wil­helm Pab­st, and star­ring the famous oper­at­ic bass Feodor Chali­apin. (1933)
  • Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde - Free — Hor­ror film based on Robert Louis Steven­son’s novel­la Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. (1912)
  • Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde — Free — John Bar­ry­more stars in the renowned silent adap­ta­tion of the Robert Louis Steven­son clas­sic. (1920)
  • Edgar Allan PoeFree — The first biopic of Poe, shot by D.W. Grif­fith. Shows Poe writ­ing The Raven. (1909)
  • Earth - Free — The third install­ment in Alexan­der Dovzhenko’s “Ukraine Tril­o­gy,” Earth is con­sid­ered a mas­ter­piece in ear­ly Sovi­et cin­e­ma, and one of the great­est silent films of all time. (1930)
  • Easy Street - Free — Char­lie Chap­lin steps for­ward and keeps the peace. (1917)
  • Easy Virtue - Free — Ear­ly silent film direct­ed by Alfred Hitch­cock. Loose­ly based on a play by Noël Cow­ard. (1928)
  • Emak-BakiaFree — Fea­tures film­ing tech­niques used by Man Ray, includ­ing rayo­graphs, dou­ble expo­sures, soft focus and ambigu­ous fea­tures. (1926)
  • Entr’ActeFree — René Clair’s dadaist mas­ter­piece. Fea­tures scenes of Mar­cel Duchamp and Man Ray. (1924)
  • Faust — Free - Ger­man expres­sion­ist film­mak­er F.W. Mur­nau directs film ver­sion of Goethe’s clas­sic tale. This was Mur­nau’s last Ger­man movie. (1926)
  • Franken­stein — Free - The first time Mary Shel­ley’s lit­er­ary was brought to the big screen. (1910)
  • Ghosts Before Break­fast (Vor­mit­tagsspuk) - Free — Silent avant-garde film by Hans Richter. The nazis destroyed the sound ver­sion of the film, deem­ing it “degen­er­ate art.” (1928)
  • GreedFree — Erich von Stroheim’s silent dra­ma orig­i­nal­ly ran 10 hours, but was even­tu­al­ly hacked down to two. It fol­lows a den­tist whose wife wins a lot­tery tick­et, only to become obsessed with mon­ey. (1924)
  • Harakiri — Free — Ear­ly silent film by Fritz Lang. (1919)
  • Häx­an — Free — Swedish/Danish silent hor­ror film writ­ten and direct­ed by Ben­jamin Chris­tensen. (1922)
  • Hell W10Free — The Clash stars in 1980s gang­ster par­o­dy. Writ­ten and direct­ed by Joe Strum­mer. (1983)
  • Intol­er­ance — Free — D.W. Grif­fith’s most ambi­tious silent film is one of the land­marks in cin­e­mat­ic his­to­ry. (1916)
  • Kino Eye — Free — Dzi­ga Vertov’s first doc­u­men­tary not made from found footage. Shows the joys of life in a Sovi­et vil­lage cen­ters around the activ­i­ties of the Young Pio­neers. (1924)
  • La Souri­ante Madame BeudetFree — Ear­ly fem­i­nist film by Ger­maine Dulac. Fea­tures a woman trapped in a love­less mar­riage. (1922)
  • L’In­fer­noFree — Italy’s first fea­ture film, and some say still the best adap­ta­tion of Dan­te’s clas­sic work. (1911)
  • Joy­less StreetFree — Gre­ta Gar­bo stars in her sec­ond major role. One of the first films of the “New Objec­tiv­i­ty” move­ment. (1925)
  • Kid Auto Races at VeniceFree — It’s the first film in which Char­lie Chap­lin’s icon­ic “Lit­tle Tramp” char­ac­ter makes his appear­ance. (1914)
  • L’Ar­rivée D’un Train En Gare De La Cio­tat - Free — One of the most famous ear­ly silent films shot by Auguste and Louis Lumière. (1895)
  • La Pas­sion de Jeanne d’ArcFree — Direct­ed by Carl Theodor Drey­er and star­ring Renée Jeanne Fal­conet­ti, this film is con­sid­ered a mas­ter­piece from the silent era. Find an alter­nate ver­sion on Archive.org here. (1928)
  • Laugh­ing Gas - Free — Film star­ring Chap­lin is some­times known as ”Busy Lit­tle Den­tist”, “Down and Out”, “Laffing Gas”, “The Den­tist”, and “Tun­ing His Ivories”.
  • Le Bal­let Mécanique - Free — His­toric cin­e­mat­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion between Fer­nand Legér and George Antheil. (1924)
  • Le Retour à la Rai­sonFree — A film from the avant-garde Ciné­ma Pur move­ment shot by Man Ray in 1923.
  • Lime Club Field DayFree — One of the ear­li­est sur­viv­ing fea­ture films with an all black cast (1913)
  • Mabel’s Strange Predica­ment — Free — Watch lots of lots of high jinks go down in a hotel. (1914)
  • Mak­ing a Liv­ing - Free — Pre­mier­ing on Feb­ru­ary 2, 1914, Mak­ing a Liv­ing marks the first film appear­ance by Char­lie Chap­lin.
  • Man­hat­taFree — A col­lab­o­ra­tion by pho­tog­ra­ph­er-painter Charles Sheel­er and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Paul Strand, Man­hat­ta made cin­e­mat­ic his­to­ry as the first Amer­i­can avant-garde film. (1921)
  • Menil­montantFree — When Pauline Kael, long­time New York­er film crit­ic, was asked to name her favorite film, this was it. French silent film. (1925)
  • Metrop­o­lisFree — Fritz Lang’s fable of good and evil fight­ing it out in a futur­is­tic urban dystopia. An impor­tant clas­sic. (1927)
  • NervesFree — Direct­ed by Robert Rein­ert, Nerves tells of “the polit­i­cal dis­putes of an ultra­con­ser­v­a­tive fac­to­ry own­er Herr Roloff and Teacher John, who feels a com­pul­sive but secret love for Rolof­f’s sis­ter, a left-wing rad­i­cal.” (1919)
  • Nos­fer­atuFree — Ger­man Expres­sion­ist hor­ror film direct­ed by F. W. Mur­nau. An unau­tho­rized adap­ta­tion of Bram Stok­er’s Drac­u­la. (1922)
  • Octo­ber: Ten Days That Shook the World — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly called Oktyabr, Sergei Eisen­stein’s film doc­u­ments the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917. A mas­ter­piece by a pio­neer­ing film­mak­er. (1928)
  • Old and New - Free — Also called The Gen­er­al Line, Sergei Eisen­stein’s film has been called a “bucol­ic epic about the Sovi­et strug­gle to col­lec­tivize agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion.”  (1929)
  • One A.M. — Free — The first silent film Char­lie Chap­lin starred in alone. (1916)
  • One WeekFree — The first film to be made by Buster Keaton on his own; Keaton had worked with Roscoe “Fat­ty” Arbuck­le for a num­ber of years. The film was writ­ten and direct­ed by Keaton and Edward F. Cline, and runs for 19 min­utes. Sybil Seely co-stars.  (1920)
  • Romance Sen­ti­men­taleFree — Direct­ed by Sergei Eisen­stein. (1930) Alter­nate ver­sion here.
  • Safe­ty LastFree — Star­ring Harold Lloyd, the film fea­tures one of the most icon­ic scenes from the silent film era: Lloyd “clutch­ing the hands of a large clock as he dan­gles from the out­side of a sky­scraper above mov­ing traf­fic.” (1923)
  • Sher­lock Jr. — Free — A com­ic mas­ter­piece from the silent era. Stars Buster Keaton. (1924)
  • Sher­lock Holmes Baf­fled - Free — Watch the very first Sher­lock Holmes movie. (1900)
  • Sun­rise: A Song of Two Humans — Free — Made by the Ger­man expres­sion­ist direc­tor F.W. Mur­nau. Vot­ed in 2012, the 5th great­est film of all time. (1927)
  • The Adven­tur­er — Free — Char­lie Chap­lin plays an escaped con­vict who falls into favor with a wealthy fam­i­ly after he saves a young lady. (1917)
  • The Aveng­ing Con­scienceFree — Direct­ed by D. W. Grif­fith, the film is based on the Edgar Allan Poe short sto­ry “The Tell-Tale Heart” and the poem “Annabel Lee.” Scroll down to the sec­ond video on the linked page. (1914)
  • The Birth of a Nation — Free — Direct­ed by DW Grif­fith. A land­mark work in film his­to­ry (1915) with racist under­tones. (1915)
  • The Bond — Free — A pro­pa­gan­da film cre­at­ed and fund­ed by Char­lie Chap­lin for the­atri­cal release to help sell U.S. Lib­er­ty Bonds dur­ing World War I. (1918)
  • The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gariFree — This silent film direct­ed by Robert Wiene is con­sid­ered one of the most influ­en­tial Ger­man Expres­sion­ist films and per­haps one of the great­est hor­ror movies of all time. Watch the restored ver­sion. (1920)
  • The Count — Free — The Count was Char­lie Chap­lin’s 5th film for Mutu­al Films. Co-star­ring Eric Camp­bell and Edna Pur­viance, it is a sto­ry about Char­lie and his boss find­ing an invi­ta­tion to a par­ty from a real Count. (1916)
  • The CureFree — Chap­lin plays a drunk who checks into a health spa to dry out and com­e­dy ensues. (1917)
  • The Dev­il­ish Ten­antFree —  In this Georges Méliès, a new ten­ant moves in and fills the room with fur­ni­ture tak­en from his suit­case. (1909)
  • The Eleventh Year — Free — Dzi­ga Ver­tov’s film cel­e­brates “the tenth anniver­sary of the Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion” which, accord­ing to the Har­vard Film Archive, presents that decade of social­ism “in the eyes of a left-wing artist of the twen­ties” as “a rad­i­cal social exper­i­ment [ … ] required to be pre­sent­ed in a rad­i­cal­ly exper­i­men­tal way.” (1928)
  • The Fire­manFree — Char­lie Chaplin’s sec­ond short for Mutu­al con­tin­ued his focus on gags and situations—as the title sug­gests, Chap­lin plays the role of an inept fire­fight­er. (1916)
  • The Floor­walk­er — Free — Filmed for the Mutu­al Film Cor­po­ra­tion, the film fea­tured the first “run­ning stair­case” in cin­e­ma his­to­ry. (1916)
  • The Four Horse­men of the Apoc­a­lypseFree — Huge­ly pop­u­lar silent film that made Rudolph Valenti­no a star. (1921)
  • The Fresh­manFree — Star­ring Harold Lloyd, this com­e­dy film tells the sto­ry of a col­lege fresh­man try­ing to become pop­u­lar by join­ing the school foot­ball team. (1925)
  • The Gen­er­alFree — Orson Welles said that Buster Keaton’s The Gen­er­al is “the great­est com­e­dy ever made, the great­est Civ­il War film ever made, and per­haps the great­est film ever made. Alter­nate ver­sion here (1926)
  • The Golem: How He Came Into the WorldFree — A fol­low-up to Paul Wegen­er’s ear­li­er film, “The Golem,” about a mon­strous crea­ture brought to life by a learned rab­bi to pro­tect the Jews from per­se­cu­tion in medieval Prague. Based on the clas­sic folk tale, and co-direct­ed by Carl Boese. (1920)
  • The Golem: How He Came Into the World — Free — The same film as the one list­ed imme­di­ate­ly above, but this one has a score cre­at­ed by Pix­ies front­man Black Fran­cis. (2008)
  • The Good for Noth­ing — Free — Made at the Key­stone Stu­dios, the film involves Chap­lin tak­ing care of a man in a wheel­chair. (1914)
  • The Great Train Rob­bery — Free — Ear­ly west­ern film by Edwin S. Porter. A land­mark in nar­ra­tive film­mak­ing. (1903)
  • The Hearts of Age — Free — The first film/short film shot by Orson Welles. It’s a play on Jean Cocteau’s movie, The Blood of a Poet. (1934)
  • The Hunch­back of Notre DameFree — With Lon Chaney. (1923)
  • The Immi­grantFree — Char­lie Chap­lin plays an immi­grant com­ing to the Unit­ed States who gets accused of theft along the way. (1917)
  • The Impos­si­ble Voy­ageFree ‑Direct­ed by Georges Méliès, this 1904 film, based on a Jules Verne’s play, is a satire of sci­en­tif­ic explo­ration in which a group of geo­g­ra­phers attempt a jour­ney into the inte­ri­or of the sun. (1904)
  • The Lady and the Hooli­ganFree — Russ­ian silent film direct­ed by and star­ring Vladimir Mayakovsky. His only sur­viv­ing film. (1918)
  • The Last Laugh - Free — F.W. Mur­nau’s clas­sic cham­ber dra­ma about a hotel door­man who falls on hard times. A mas­ter­piece of the silent era, the sto­ry is told almost entire­ly in pic­tures. Yale has more back­ground on the film. (1924)
  • The Lodger: A Sto­ry of the Lon­don Fog — Free — One of Hitchcock’s silent clas­sics. A land­la­dy sus­pects her lodger is a mur­der­er killing women around Lon­don. (1927)
  • The Lost World — Free — The “grandad­dy of mon­ster movies,” the film adap­ta­tion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s clas­sic nov­el about a land where pre­his­toric crea­tures still roam. (1925)
  • The Manor of the Dev­il (Le Manoir du Dia­ble)Free — Cre­at­ed by the film pio­neer George Méliès, it’s con­sid­ered the first hor­ror film ever made. (1896)
  • The Pawn­shopFree — Rich in slap­stick, The Pawn­shop was one of Chap­lin’s more pop­u­lar movies for Mutu­al Film, the pro­duc­er of some of the great­est Chap­lin come­dies. (1916)
  • The Phan­tom Car­riageFree — One of the cen­tral works in the his­to­ry of Swedish cin­e­ma. Notable for its influ­ence on Ing­mar Bergman. Direct­ed by Vic­tor Sjöström, (1921)
  • The Phan­tom of the OperaFree — A clas­sic silent film fea­tur­ing Lon Chaney as the Phan­tom. (1925)
  • The Plea­sure Gar­den — Free — After sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts, Hitch­cock made his solo direc­to­r­i­al debut in the Ger­man-British co-pro­duc­tion based on a nov­el by Oliv­er Sandys. (1925)
  • The RinkFreeThe Rink, Chap­lin’s 8th film for Mutu­al Films, show­cas­es the actor’s roller skat­ing skills. (1916)
  • The Sealed RoomFree — Direct­ed by DW Grif­fith, the film is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Cask of Amon­til­la­do”, with appear­ances by Mary Pick­ford and Mack Sen­nett. (1909)
  • The Seashell and the Cler­gy­manFree — The first sur­re­al­ist film ever. Direct­ed by Ger­maine Dulac. (1928)
  • The SheikFree — Silent film with Rudolph Valenti­no. (1921)
  • The Smil­ing Madame BeudetFree — A short silent by Ger­maine Dulac that also hap­pens to hold the title of the first fem­i­nist film. (1922)
  • The Sto­ry of the Kel­ly GangFree — An Aus­tralian film that traces the life of the leg­endary infa­mous out­law and bushranger Ned Kel­ly. It was inscribed on the UNESCO Mem­o­ry of the World Reg­is­ter for being the world’s first full-length nar­ra­tive fea­ture film. (1906)
  • The Stu­dent of PragueFree — A clas­sic of Ger­man expres­sion­ist film. Ger­man writer Hanns Heinz Ewers and Dan­ish direc­tor Stel­lan Rye bring to life a 19th-cen­tu­ry hor­ror sto­ry. Some call it the first indie film. (1913)
  • The Ten Com­mand­mentsFree — An epic silent film from 1923 direct­ed by Cecil B. DeMille, and the first in DeMille’s bib­li­cal tril­o­gy, fol­lowed by The King of Kings (1927) and The Sign of the Cross (1932).
  • The Ten Com­mand­mentsFree — A ver­sion of the 1923 ver­sion with a new musi­cal score by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Steven Drozd (Flam­ing Lips) & Scott Amen­dola. (2021)
  • The Toll of the SeaFree — The first gen­er­al release film in tech­ni­col­or. (1922)
  • The Tramp Free — The film made Chap­lin’s great Tramp char­ac­ter famous. (1915)
  • The VagabondFree — A silent film by Char­lie Chap­lin that co-starred Edna Pur­viance, Eric Camp­bell, Leo White and Lloyd Bacon, with Chap­lin appear­ing as The Tramp. The British Film Insti­tute calls it the “piv­otal work” of his Mutu­al peri­od – “and his most touch­ing.” (1916)
  • The Water Magi­cian - Free — Japan­ese silent film. One of the most pop­u­lar titles from the silent film work of Ken­ji Mizoguchi. (1933)
  • The Wiz­ard of OzFree — The ear­li­est sur­viv­ing film ver­sion of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 nov­el. (1910)
  • The Wiz­ard of OzFree — The first major film adap­ta­tion of the clas­sic nov­el. Fea­tures Oliv­er Hardy as the Tin Woods­men. (1925)
  • Three Songs About Lenin — Free — Dzi­ga Ver­tov’s film is based on three admir­ing songs sung by anony­mous peo­ple in Sovi­et Rus­sia about Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. (1934)
  • Tillie’s Punc­tured RomanceFree — Among oth­er things, the film is notable for being the last Chap­lin film did­n’t write or direct by him­self. (1914)
  • Trip to the Moon / Le Voy­age dans la luneFree — French black & white silent sci-fi film loose­ly based on two nov­els: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. (1902)
  • Un Chien AndalouFree — Sal­vador Dali and Louis Bunuel’s short, silent sur­re­al­ist film. A restored ver­sion can be viewed here. (1929)

Free Documentaries

  • 3,000 Free Films from the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­daFree — The Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da has put online thou­sands of films, includ­ing a good num­ber of doc­u­men­taries.
  • 400 Free Doc­u­men­taries from Deutsche WelleFree — The Ger­man pub­lic broad­cast­er makes avail­able 400+ doc­u­men­taries cov­er­ing many areas, includ­ing arts & cul­ture.
  • 10 Years with Hayao Miyaza­kiFree — A four part doc­u­men­tary on the unstop­pable Japan­ese ani­ma­tor direct­ed by Kaku Arakawa. (2019)
  • 15 Films by Design­ers Charles & Ray EamesFree — Watch a series of short films by the icon­ic design­ers.
  • 50 Archi­tec­ture Doc­u­men­tariesFree — A col­lec­tion of free doc­u­men­taries direct­ed by Richard Copans on famous archi­tects and build­ings. Top­ics include Bauhaus, Le Cor­busier, Zaha Hadid & more.
  • A is for Archi­tec­tureFree — This short doc­u­men­tary offers a panora­ma of archi­tec­ture, mov­ing from one tra­di­tion to anoth­er, illus­trat­ing how each reflects the sen­ti­ments and val­ues of its time. (1960)
  • A Brief His­to­ry of John BaldessariFree — A short film nar­rat­ed by Tom Waits on the life and work of West-Coast con­cep­tu­al artist John Baldessari. (2012)
  • A Com­mu­ni­ca­tions PrimerFree — An instruc­tion­al film on the basics of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, cre­at­ed by Charles and Ray Eames of Eames Office for IBM. (1953)
  • A Land With­out BreadFree — Osten­si­bly a doc­u­men­tary about the Las Hur­des region locat­ed in a remote cor­ner of Spain, this Luis Buñuel’s film is in fact a lac­er­at­ing par­o­dy of trav­el doc­u­men­taries. (1933)
  • A Look Behind the Future — Free — Intrigu­ing 1966 doc­u­men­tary takes you inside the mak­ing of Kubrick­’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the thrilling tech­nolo­gies then in real-life devel­op­ment. (1966)
  • A Man Among Men: Alber­to Gia­comet­tiFree — An hour-long doc­u­men­tary about Gia­comet­ti, by Jean-Marie Drot. (1963)
  • A Nec­es­sary Ruin: The Sto­ry of Buck­min­ster Fuller and the Union Tank Car DomeFree — Tells the his­to­ry of the Union Tank Car Dome, the largest clear-span struc­ture in the world, based on the engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples of the vision­ary design sci­en­tist Buck­min­ster Fuller. (2010)
  • A Sto­ry of Heal­ing — Free — Won Acad­e­my Award for best Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. Fol­lows a team of vol­un­teers in Viet­nam. (1997)
  • A World of Art: The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art — Free — Found­ed in 1870, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art in New York City is a three dimen­sion­al ency­clo­pe­dia of art his­to­ry. Filmed in 2004.
  • Albert Ein­stein: How I See the WorldFree — Doc­u­men­tary on physi­cist Albert Ein­stein which chron­i­cles the expe­ri­ences that lead him to become a great advo­cate for world peace. (1991)
  • Aleis­ter Crow­ley: The Wickedest Man in the World — Free —  Takes you into the life of Aleis­ter Crow­ley, an Eng­lish occultist, cer­e­mo­ni­al magi­cian, poet, and moun­taineer, respon­si­ble for found­ing the reli­gion of Thele­ma.
  • Albert Camus: The Mad­ness of Sin­cer­i­tyFree — About the life and work of writer Albert Camus, includ­ing inter­views with his for­mer mis­tress­es and Camus’ daugh­ter Cather­ine and her twin broth­er Jean. (1997)
  • Andy Warhol and Roy Licht­en­stein Free — Doc­u­men­tary on the two artists from 1966.
  • Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye Free — A reveal­ing look at the “Father of Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­phy.” Appeared in the PBS Amer­i­can Mas­ters series. (1999)
  • Andy Warhol: The Com­plete Pic­tureFree — A doc­u­men­tary cov­er­ing the life and work of the most enig­mat­ic and influ­en­tial artist of the late twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. (2001)
  • Ansel Adams, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er — Free — Doc­u­men­tary reveals the artis­tic and tech­ni­cal approach of Ansel Adams, Amer­i­ca’s finest pho­tog­ra­ph­er of nat­ur­al land­scapes. (1958)
  • Ansel Adams: The Inci­sive ArtFree — Explores the work of one of America’s most famous pho­tog­ra­phers, Ansel Adams as he goes beneath the sur­face to record nature and the qual­i­ty of human­i­ty. (1962)
  • Arduino: The Doc­u­men­tary — Free — Revis­its a project launched in the Ital­ian town of Ivrea back in 2005. The chal­lenge? To devel­op cheap, easy-to-use elec­tron­ics com­po­nents for design stu­dents. (2010)
  • At the Muse­umFree — The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (aka MoMA) cre­ates an 8‑part doc­u­men­tary series on what it takes to run a world-class muse­um. (2017)
  • Athe­ism: A Rough His­to­ry of Dis­be­lief — Free — A mini-series cre­at­ed by Jonathan Miller explores the his­to­ry of athe­ism in the world. (2004)
  • Audio Ammu­ni­tion — Free — A series of short doc­u­men­taries on The Clash and five of their clas­sic stu­dio albums. Pro­duced by Google. (2013)
  • BadiouFree — The first fea­­ture-length film on France’s most famous liv­ing philoso­pher. (2018)
  • Bauhaus WorldFree — To com­mem­o­rate the 100th anniver­sary of the found­ing of the Bauhaus school, this doc­u­men­tary explores the his­to­ry and influ­ence of Germany’s leg­endary art, archi­tec­ture & design move­ment. (2019)
  • Bob Mar­ley ‘Come A Long Way’Free — Doc­u­men­tary made for NZ tv show ‘Good Day’ by Dylan Taite. (1979)
  • Beat This!: A Hip-Hop His­to­ry — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly part of the Are­na tele­vi­sion series, the TV doc was among the first crop of doc­u­men­taries about hip-hop and hip-hop cul­ture. (1984)
  • Bed Peace Free — 70 minute doc­u­men­tary revis­its John and Yoko’s famous 1969 Bed-Ins, which amount­ed to a peace­ful protest against the Viet­nam War. (2011)
  • Beau­ti­ful Equa­tionsFree — Artist/writer Matt Collings takes the plunge into an alien world of equa­tions, ask­ing top sci­en­tists to help him under­stand five of the most famous equa­tions in sci­ence. (2010)
  • Benoit Man­del­brot: Father of Frac­talsFree — In this final inter­view shot by film­mak­er Erol Mor­ris, Man­del­brot shares his love for math­e­mat­ics and how it led him to his won­drous dis­cov­ery of frac­tals. (2013)
  • Black Cof­feeFree — A three part look at  “the world’s most wide­ly tak­en legal drug,” a bev­er­age whose intel­lec­tu­al­ly intense die-hard enthu­si­asts give wine’s a run for their mon­ey, from his­tor­i­cal, polit­i­cal, social, and eco­nom­ic angles. (2007)
  • Blitzkrieg Bop - Free — Hour-long TV doc­u­men­tary takes an old school look at CBGB dur­ing the hey­day. Fea­tures The Ramones, Blondie and The Dead Boys. Mix­es live per­for­mance with short inter­view clips. (1978)
  • Bob Geld­of: The MomentFree — In a short doc­u­men­tary by Errol Mor­ris, Bob Geld­of talks about the great­est day in his life–stepping on the stage of Live Aid and rais­ing mon­ey to end the famine in Africa. (2014)
  • Bowl­ing for ColumbineFree — Through his YouTube chan­nel, Michael Moore has made avail­able his Acad­e­my Award win­ning doc­u­men­tary on guns & gun vio­lence in Amer­i­ca. (2002)
  • Bri­an Eno: The Man Who Fell To Earth, 1971–1977 - Free — Explores Eno’s life, career and music between those tit­u­lar years—the peri­od that some view as his gold­en age, and oth­ers as just one great era in a long and very eclec­tic career. (2012)
  • Buck­min­ster Fuller: Think­ing Out LoudFree — Doc­u­men­tary on the inventor/visionary/thinker R. Buck­min­ster Fuller, pro­duced and direct­ed by four time Acad­e­my Award nom­i­nees Karen Good­man and Kirk Simon. (1996)
  • Brus­sels Express Free — Direct­ed by Sander Van­den­broucke, this 20 minute film explores the risks of cycling in mod­ern Brus­sels, one of the most con­gest­ed cities in today’s Europe. (2012)
  • Car­avag­gioFree — A doc­u­men­tary by Robert Hugh­es (cir­ca 1975)
  • Chick Corea: Doc­u­men­tary of Leg­endary Jazz Great, Pianist and Com­pos­erFree — Short doc­u­men­tary fea­tures Sting, Bob­by McFer­rin, Bela Fleck, Her­bie Han­cock, Wayne Short­er and more.
  • Churchill’s Island — Free — WWII pro­pa­gan­da film chron­i­cling the defense of Great Britain. Won the very first Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. (1941)
  • City Sym­phoniesFree — Watch “city sym­phonies” filmed in the 1920s. These poet­ic, exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­taries present a por­trait of the dai­ly of cities like Berlin, Paris, Sao Paulo and New York.
  • Code Rush — Free — Doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing the lives of Netscape engi­neers in Sil­i­con Val­ley. (1998)
  • ColetteFree — 90-year-old Colette Marin-Cather­ine con­fronts her past by vis­it­ing the Ger­man con­cen­tra­tion camp Mit­tel­bau-Dora where her broth­er was killed. Pre­pared to re-open old wounds, Marin-Cather­ine offers impor­tant lessons for us all. The film won the Acad­e­my Award for best doc­u­men­tary short in 2021.
  • Con­fronta­tion: Paris, 1968Free — A doc­u­men­tary by Sey­mour Dresch­er (Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh & for­mer stu­dent of George Mosse), looks at the stu­dent and work­er upheaval in France in May, 1968.
  • Con­ver­sa­tions with Myself — Free — Alan Watts walks in the moun­tains and talks about the lim­i­ta­tions of tech­nol­o­gy and the prob­lem of try­ing to keep track of an infi­nite uni­verse with a sin­gle tracked mind. (1971)
  • Cre­ative Process: Nor­man McLarenFree — This fea­ture length doc­u­men­tary is a jour­ney into Nor­man McLaren’s process of artis­tic cre­ation. (1990)
  • Cry Baby: The Ped­al That Rocks the World — Free — Tells the sto­ry of the wah wah effect ped­al, from its inven­tion in 1966 to the present day. (2011)
  • Curi­ous About Cuba: The Great Muse­ums of Havana — Free — This film shows a side of the island nation that we sel­dom hear about: her art, his­to­ry, and cul­ture. (2008)
  • Cyber­punkFree — Doc­u­men­tary intro­duces the cul­ture of Cyber­punk. Fea­tures vin­tage footage of William Gib­son & Tim­o­thy Leary (1990).
  • David Bowie: Sound and VisionFree — Takes you on a jour­ney through Bowie’s career. Fea­tures inter­views with Bowie, Iman his wife, his musi­cal con­tem­po­raries includ­ing Iggy Pop, Moby and Trent Reznor. (2002)
  • David Bowie: The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dustFree — Film tells the sto­ry of how Bowie arrived at one of the most icon­ic cre­ations in the his­to­ry of pop music. The songs, the hair­styles, the fash­ion, etc. (2012)
  • David Lynch on the His­to­ry of Sur­re­al­ist Cin­e­ma — Free — Pret­ty much what the title said. (1987)
  • Day of the DeadFree — Design­ers Charles and Ray Eames short por­trait of the Mex­i­can fes­ti­val, Day of the Dead. (1957)
  • Death Mills — Free — Bil­ly Wilder’s doc­u­men­tary in Ger­man show­ing what Allies found when they lib­er­at­ed Nazi exter­mi­na­tion camps. (1945)
  • Degen­er­ate ArtFree — Direct­ed by David Gru­bin, this doc­u­men­tary explores the 1937 art exhib­it under the Nazi regime, which fea­tured mod­ern art, or what the Nazis called ‘Entartete Kun­st’ or ‘Degen­er­ate Art. (1993)
  • Diane Arbus: Mas­ters of Pho­tog­ra­phy — Free — The doc­u­men­tary cre­at­ed soon after the pho­tog­ra­pher’s death is based on inter­views with those who knew her best. (1972.)
  • Dis­cov­er­ing Elec­tron­ic Music: RevisedFree —  Direct­ed by Bernard Wilets, the film explores this idea: “We live in an age of tech­nol­o­gy in which machines touch every part of our lives. It is not sur­pris­ing that music has also been influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy.” (1983)
  • Dorothea Lange Part 1: Under The TreesFree — Film explores the Amer­i­can doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er and pho­to­jour­nal­ist, best known for her Depres­­sion-era work for the Farm Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion. View alter­nate ver­sion here. (1965)
  • Dreams Are What We Wake Up FromFree — Doc­u­men­tary about Ray­mond Carv­er was direct­ed by Daisy Good­win and includes con­tri­bu­tions from Richard Ford and Jay McIn­er­ney. (1989)
  • Dream of Life — Free — Direct­ed by Steven Sebring, the film offers an inti­mate por­trait of poet, painter, musi­cian and singer Pat­ti Smith. (2008)
  • Earth­lingsFree — Nar­rat­ed by Joaquin Phoenix, and with a sound­track pro­vid­ed by Moby, Earth­lings “is a fea­­ture-length doc­u­men­tary about our absolute eco­nom­ic depen­dence on ani­mals raised as pets, food, cloth­ing, enter­tain­ment and for sci­en­tif­ic research.” (2005)
  • Ein­stein’s Brain — Free — A strange doc­u­men­tary that fol­lows Japan­ese schol­ar Ken­ji Sug­i­mo­to’s quest to find Ein­stein’s brain. (1994)
  • Eric Hob­s­bawm: The Con­so­la­tions of His­to­ry — Free — Antho­ny Wilks traces the con­nec­tions between the events of Eric Hobsbawm’s life and the his­to­ry he told, from his teenage years in Ger­many and his com­mu­nist mem­ber­ship, to the jazz clubs of 1950s Soho and the mak­ings of New Labour…
  • Europe After the RainFree — Doc­u­men­tary on the two great art move­ments, Dada & Sur­re­al­ism, cre­at­ed by the Arts Coun­cil of Great Britain. (1978)
  • Everything1017: How David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Make Music Togeth­erFree — A short doc­u­men­tary on how David Byrne and Bri­an Eno make music togeth­er. By the late visu­al artist Hill­man Cur­tis. (2012)
  • Every­thing Is a RemixFree — Kir­by Ferguson’s 4‑part video series explores the idea that  “great art doesn’t come out of nowhere. Artists inevitably bor­row from one anoth­er, draw­ing on past ideas and con­ven­tions, and then turn these mate­ri­als into some­thing beau­ti­ful and new.” (2010–14)
  • Eye of the Pan­golinFree — The sto­ry of two men on a mis­sion to share the won­der of all four species of African pan­golin on cam­era for the first time ever. (2019)
  • F. Scott Fitzger­ald: Win­ter Dreams — Free — Peabody award-win­n­ing film chron­i­cles the life of Fitzger­ald, one of America’s great­est nov­el­ists, in images and ideas as lyri­cal and inven­tive as his prose. (2002)
  • Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hol­ly­woodFree — A look at “Gonzo jour­nal­ist”, Hunter S. Thomp­son with his col­lab­o­ra­tor, British illus­tra­tor, Ralph Stead­man. (1978)
  • Felli­ni: A Director’s Note­book Free — Fed­eri­co Felli­ni intro­duces him­self to Amer­i­ca in exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary aired on TV. (1969)
  • Film­ing ‘The Tri­al’ — Free —  An unfin­ished mak­ing-of film by Orson Welles, made in 1981, which focus­es on the pro­duc­tion of his 1962 film The Tri­al. (1981)
  • First Orbit Free — A real time recre­ation of Yuri Gagar­in’s pio­neer­ing first orbit, shot entire­ly in space from on board the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion. (2011)
  • First Per­sonFree — In this TV series, Errol Mor­ris brings his unri­valled tal­ents to the small screen for a styl­ized series of inti­mate inter­views with a unique and fas­ci­nat­ing array of peo­ple. (2000)
  • Fla­men­co at 5:15Free — An Oscar win­ning doc­u­men­tary takes you inside a Fla­men­co dance class. The film is about dance as it is about life. (1983)
  • Flâneur III — Free — An attempt at cap­tur­ing the char­ac­ter of Paris by fol­low­ing the devel­op­ment of the city’s dif­fer­ent forms through­out the 19th and 20th cen­turies, in the spir­it of the Ger­man philoso­pher Wal­ter Ben­jamin. (1998)
  • For Neda — Free — An HBO doc­u­men­tary on the life of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman gunned down dur­ing the crush­ing of Iran’s Green Rev­o­lu­tion. (2010)
  • Found­ing FathersFree — Doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Pub­lic Enemy’s Chuck D presents the true his­to­ry of hip hop.
  • Frac­tals: The Col­ors of Infin­i­ty Free — Arthur C. Clarke brings us inside the world of frac­tal geom­e­try, David Gilmour pro­vides the sound­track. (1995)
  • Frames of Ref­er­enceFree — “Direct­ed by the pio­neer­ing UK doc­u­men­tar­i­an Richard Lea­cock, Frames of Ref­er­ence is a slick and sur­re­al dive into physics fun­da­men­tals and, in par­tic­u­lar, why every­thing is indeed rel­a­tive.” (1960)
  • Frank Zap­paFree — A Dutch doc­u­men­tary for VPRO Tele­vi­sion, direct­ed by Roelof Kiers (1971).
  • From One Sec­ond to the Next — Free — Ger­man direc­tor Wern­er Her­zog presents a har­row­ing 35 minute film on the dan­gers of tex­ting while dri­ving. (2013)
  • Future Shock — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary based on a book writ­ten by futur­ist Alvin Tof­fler in 1970. It’s nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles. (1972)
  • Gau­guin: Sym­bol­is­m’s Prob­lem ChildFree — Art crit­ic and broad­cast­er Walde­mar Januszczak wrote and direct­ed this exam­i­na­tion of a man who was not only a great painter but sculp­tor, wood carv­er, musi­cian, print mak­er, jour­nal­ist and ceram­i­cist. (2020)
  • Gente del Po — Free — Michae­lan­ge­lo Anto­nion­i’s doc­u­men­tary short on the peo­ple of the Po val­ley. (1947)
  • George East­man House: Pic­ture Per­fect Free — The urban estate of George East­man, who made pho­tog­ra­phers of us all, is a trea­sure trove of pho­tographs and one of the world’s pre­mier film archives. (2003)
  • Georges Bataille: À Perte de VuesFree — Doc­u­men­tary on the sub­ver­sive French philoso­pher Georges Bataille. (1997)
  • Geor­gia O’Keeffe: A Life in Art - Free - A short doc­u­men­tary on the painter nar­rat­ed by Gene Hack­man.
  • Gia­comet­tiFree — An inti­mate look at Alber­to Gia­comet­ti in his stu­dio, mak­ing his icon­ic sculp­tures (1965)
  • Glass - Free — Direct­ed by Bert Haanstra, this short doc­u­men­tary about the glass indus­try won the Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject in 1959. (1958)
  • Glenn Gould — Off the Record and Glenn Gould — On the Record- Free — Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor made a pair of gor­geous­ly shot doc­u­men­taries about the Cana­di­an pianist, giv­ing view­ers insight into his life and music. (1959)
  • Great Lakes, Bad LinesFree — The sto­ry of two Michi­gan adven­tur­ers and their 500-mile, fos­­sil-free jour­ney across the Upper Penin­su­la along the route of Line 5 — a 63-year-old pipeline – that threat­ens our inland waters and Great Lakes. Brought to you by Patag­o­nia, Founders, Moose­jaw, and Cher­ry Repub­lic. (2016)
  • Haru­ki Muraka­mi: In Search of this Elu­sive Writer — Free — Alan Yen­tob trav­els through Japan, from the mid­night Tokyo of After Hours to the snowed-in Hokkai­do of A Wild Sheep Chase, in a quest to find arti­facts of the novelist’s imag­i­nary world.
  • Heavy Met­al Park­ing LotFree —  Filmed in 1986 at a Mary­land con­cert are­na park­ing lot before a heavy met­al show, this hilar­i­ous doc­u­men­tary is an unvar­nished anthro­po­log­i­cal study of Amer­i­can met­al­heads in their mid-’80s glo­ry.  You can also see the 2006 fol­lowup, “Heavy Met­al Park­ing Lot Alum­ni: Where Are They Now.” (1986)
  • Hen­ri Car­ti­er-Bres­­son: The Deci­sive Moment — Free — 18-minute film fea­tures a selec­tion of Cartier-Bresson’s icon­ic pho­tographs, along with rare com­men­tary by the pho­tog­ra­ph­er him­self. (1973)
  • Hen­ry Miller Asleep & Awake — Free — Tom Schiller’s 34 minute voy­age into the world of Hen­ry Miller (Trop­ic of Can­cer, Trop­ic of Capri­corn). (1975)
  • His­to­ry of the Leica Cam­eraFree — The film is in Ger­man, but it’s still great to watch.
  • Hof­man­n’s Potion — Free — A bal­anced look at the his­to­ry of LSD by Cana­di­an film­mak­er Con­nie Lit­tle­field. (2002)
  • Hol­ly­wood: A Cel­e­bra­tion of the Amer­i­can Silent Film Free — Epic, 13-part doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cles the ear­ly his­to­ry of cin­e­ma. (1980)
  • Home — Free — Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s film that will make you look at our plan­et in a new way. (2009)
  • Home­made Amer­i­can Music — Free — A his­to­ry of rur­al south­east­ern tra­di­tion­al Amer­i­can music, as told and played by Mike Seeger and Alice Ger­rard. (1980)
  • How Build­ings LearnFree — Stew­art Brand (cre­ator of the icon­ic Whole Earth Cat­a­log) cre­at­ed a 6‑part series on archi­tec­ture, with Bri­an Eno pro­vid­ing the music. (1997)
  • How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made — Free — Dis­ney’s in-house doc­u­men­tary walks you through the stages of Snow White‘s devel­op­ment. (1939)
  • Human, All Too Human — Free — A three part doc­u­men­tary on the life & thought of Niet­zsche, Hei­deg­ger and Sartre. (1999)
  • Idem — Free — A short film by David Lynch on the art of mak­ing lith­o­graphs. Shot at the Idem stu­dio in Paris. (2013)
  • If You Love This Plan­et — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing short film on the need for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. (1982)
  • Iggy Pop and the Stooges - Free — A doc­u­men­tary from the always good South Bank Show. (2004)
  • I’ll Find a Way — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing doc­u­men­tary presents Nadia, a 9‑year-old girl with spina bifi­da. (1977)
  • Images of a Vision­ary World — Free — Avant-garde author Hen­ri Michaux cre­ates film try­ing to demon­strate the expe­ri­ence of tak­ing hal­lu­cino­genic drugs. (1964)
  • In a Bril­liant Light: Van Gogh in ArlesFree — This doc­u­men­tary cov­ers Van Gogh’s stay in Arles where he com­plet­ed over two hun­dred paint­ings and one hun­dred draw­ings. (1984)
  • In Search of Moe­bius — Free — Doc­u­men­tary about French­man Jean Giraud, one of the most influ­en­tial com­ic strip illus­tra­tors and authors of all time.
  • Inside: Dr. Strangelove — Free —  Inter­views with cast mem­bers, crit­ics, edi­tors, pro­duc­ers and oth­ers asso­ci­at­ed with the pic­ture reveal how this Cold War worst-case-sce­­nario devel­oped into some­thing so very… Kubrick­ian.
  • Inside the Rhap­sody — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary on the mak­ing of Queen’s clas­sic song, ‘Bohemi­an Rhap­sody’ (2002)
  • Jack­son Pol­lock 51 Free – Short doc­u­men­tary by Hans Namuth fea­tures the abstract expres­sion­ist painter up close, paint­ing on glass. (1951)
  • Jacques Lacan Speaks — Free — The psy­cho­an­a­lyst gives a packed lec­ture at the Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty of Lou­vain in 1972, fol­lowed by a prob­ing inter­view. One of only 2 known appear­ances by Lacan on film. Shot by Bel­gian doc­u­men­tar­i­an Fran­coise Wolff. (1972)
  • Jazz HotFree — Djan­go Rein­hardt, vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li and their band the Quin­tette du Hot Club de France per­form togeth­er in a short film designed to pro­mote a UK tour. (1938)
  • John Peel’s Record BoxFree — British doc­u­men­tary explores the most prized records in John Peel’s huge record col­lec­tion, which he kept stored in a spe­cial box. (2005)
  • Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on Argenti­na’s most famous and beloved lit­er­ary fig­ure. (2000)
  • Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen Free  — This Cana­di­an doc­u­men­tary cap­tures Leonard Cohen just as he was poised to begin his singer-song­writer career. (1965)
  • Last Days at the Fill­moreFree — Doc­u­ments the final days of Bill Gra­ham’s Fill­more West. (1972)
  • Laugh­ing and Not Being Nor­mal - Free — A doc­u­men­tary about the fem­i­nist music pro­duc­er, Grimes. (2016)
  • Le dinosaure et le bébé, dia­logue en huit par­ties entre Fritz Lang et Jean-Luc Godard — Free — A 1967 TV doc­u­men­tary fea­tur­ing two great film­mak­ers (Jean-Luc Godard and Fritz Lang) in con­ver­sa­tion. (1967)
  • Le Noise — Free —  Direct­ed by Adam Vol­lick, this movie fea­tures a live per­for­mance of Neil Young’s album Le Noise. It was record­ed at the stu­dios of Daniel Lanois in LA. (2010)
  • Life in a Day — Free — Film cap­tures for future gen­er­a­tions what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010. Exec­u­tive pro­duced by Rid­ley Scott and direct­ed by Kevin Mac­don­ald.
  • Live at Pom­peiiFree — David Gilmour makes his Live at Pom­peii con­cert film free to watch online. (2016)
  • Lost Kubrick: The Unfin­ished Films of Stan­ley KubrickFree — Nar­rat­ed by Mal­colm McDow­ell, this short doc­u­men­tary exam­ines the films Stan­ley Kubrick devel­oped but did­n’t live long enough to make. Fea­tures inter­views giv­en by Kubrick­’s long­time pro­duc­er Jan Har­lan, Jack Nichol­son, Syd­ney Pol­lack etc. (2007)
  • Love­craft: Fear of the UnknownFree — Named the Best Doc­u­men­tary at the 2008 Com­ic-Con Inter­na­tion­al Inde­pen­dent Film Fes­ti­val, the film revis­its the life and writ­ings of H.P. Love­craft, the father of mod­ern hor­ror fic­tion. (2008)
  • Man­hat­taFree — A short doc­u­men­tary film direct­ed by painter Charles Sheel­er and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Paul Strand. It’s con­sid­ered Amer­i­ca’s first avant-garde film. (1921)
  • M.C. Esch­er: Adven­tures in Per­cep­tionFree — The first half of the film shows a lot of M.C. Escher’s work accom­pa­nied by a dis­so­nant score by Felix Viss­er. About halfway through, we see shots of Esch­er at work. (1971)
  • Mar­cel Duchamp: Icon­o­claste et Inoxyd­ableFree — Three- part, three-hour doc­u­men­tary with inter­views about Mar­cel Duchamp, direct­ed by Fab­rice Maze. (2009)
  • Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thou­sand Voic­es — Free — Doc­u­men­tary focus­es on voice artist extra­or­di­naire Mel Blanc. (2008)
  • Mem­o­ry of the Camps — Free — An attempt to revive a World War II film meant to doc­u­ment the Holo­caust. Hitch­cock was involved with the orig­i­nal project. (1985)
  • Meta­mor­phose: M.C. Esch­er, 1898–1972 Free —  Reveals the life and work of artist M.C. Esch­er. (1999)
  • Michel Fou­cault: Beyond Good and Evil — Free — Doc­u­men­tary explores the con­tro­ver­sial life and work of Michel Fou­cault. (1993)
  • Min­gus — Free — A close-up of bass play­er and com­pos­er Char­lie Min­gus as he and his five-year-old daugh­ter await evic­tion by the City of New York. (1968)
  • Nanook of the NorthFree — The first fea­ture length doc­u­men­tary. Direct­ed by Robert J. Fla­her­ty, the film, focus­ing on an Inu­it fam­i­ly liv­ing in the Arc­tic Cir­cle, was one of the first films to be select­ed for his­tor­i­cal preser­va­tion by the Library of Con­gress. (1922)
  • Nazi VRFree — A short doc­u­men­tary on how a vir­tu­al real­i­ty mod­el of Auschwitz was cre­at­ed to suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute a Ger­man SS guard sev­en decades after WWII. (2017)
  • Nico-IconFree — Focus­es on Nico, renowned for her asso­ci­a­tions with artist Andy Warhol and the Vel­vet Under­ground. (1995)
  • No Sub­sti­tute for Vic­to­ry — Free — Pro­pa­gan­da, Pro-Viet­­nam doc­u­men­tary host­ed by John Wayne. (1970)
  • No Maps for These Ter­ri­to­riesFree — Brings you on a road trip and into the mind of cyber­space vision­ary William Gib­son. (2000)
  • Novem­ber 22, 1963 — Free — In a short doc­u­men­tary, Errol Mor­ris asks what we can and can­not know about the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion. (2013)
  • One Way Street - Free — Explores the life and work of Ger­man Jew­ish crit­ic and philoso­pher, Wal­ter Ben­jamin. (1993)
  • Oper­a­tion Con­crete (aka Opéra­tion béton) — Free — The first movie by Jean Luc Godard. It’s a short doc­u­men­tary about the build­ing of the dam. (1955)
  • Our Hob­by is Depeche ModeFree — Jere­my Deller’s and Nicholas Abra­hams’ doc­u­men­tary on Depeche Mode fans. (2007)
  • Paul Klee: The Silence of the AngelFree — A visu­al jour­ney into the work of a major painter of the 20th cen­tu­ry by Michael Gaum­nitz, an award-win­n­ing doc­u­men­tar­i­an of artists and sculp­tors. (2005)
  • Paul McCart­ney: Chaos & Cre­ation at Abbey Road — Free — Sir Paul revis­its the Bea­t­les’ record­ing tech­niques and vin­tage instru­ments used by the band. (2005)
  • Pen, Brush and Cam­eraFree — 50-minute doc­u­men­tary about the life and work of Hen­ri Car­ti­er-Bres­­son, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er con­sid­ered to be the father of pho­to­jour­nal­ism. (1998)
  • Phi­los­o­phy: A Guide to Hap­pi­ness Free — With Alain de Bot­ton. A doc­u­men­tary series that shows how Niet­zsche, Socrates and four oth­er philoso­phers can change your life. (2000)
  • Phi­los­o­phy and the Matrix: Return to the Source — Free —  Doc­u­men­tary looks at how The Matrix dealt with ques­tions about reli­gious rev­e­la­tion and author­i­ty, para­psy­chol­o­gy, free will and deter­min­ism, and the nature of per­son­al iden­ti­ty. (2004)
  • Pickin’ & Trim­min’ Free — Award-win­n­ing short doc­u­men­tary fea­tures blue­grass musi­cians in a down-home North Car­oli­na bar­ber­shop. (2008)
  • Plagues & Plea­sures on the Salton SeaFree — Cult movie leg­end John Waters nar­rates an off­beat doc­u­men­tary on the acci­den­tal lake cre­at­ed in the desert of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. (2004)
  • Plas­tic BagFree — Wern­er Her­zog nar­rates the exis­ten­tial jour­ney of a plas­tic bag. Direct­ed by Ramin Bahrani. (2009)
  • Poor KidsFree — Doc­u­men­tary explores what pover­ty means to chil­dren in Amer­i­ca through the sto­ries of three fam­i­lies. (2017)
  • Por­trait of an Artist: Jack­son Pol­lock — Free — Doc­u­men­tary of the abstract expres­sion­ist artist nar­rat­ed by Melvyn Bragg. (1987)
  • Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog — Free — A Ger­man pro­duc­tion direct­ed by Her­zog him­self, Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog shows the direc­tor in his home­land, in Munich. (1986)
  • Pow­ers of Ten — Free — Famous short film depicts the rel­a­tive scale of the Uni­verse in fac­tors of ten. Made by leg­endary design­ers Ray and Charles Eames. (1977)
  • Pro­file of a Writer: Jorge Luis Borges — Free — Are­na doc­u­men­tary the life and writ­ings of Argentina’s favorite son, Jorge Luis Borges. (1983)
  • Queen of CodeFree — Direct by Gillian Jacobs, this short doc looks at the life and career of Grace Hop­per, who worked on the first com­put­er and head­ed the team that cre­at­ed the first com­pil­er. (2015)
  • Ray Brad­bury: Sto­ry of a Writer — Free — A half-hour tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary about Ray Brad­bury. (1963)
  • Red Shirley — Free — Lou Reed’s short doc­u­men­tary on his fas­ci­nat­ing 100-year-old cousin. (2010)
  • Report from the Aleu­tians — Free — John Hus­ton, while a mem­ber of the U.S. Army Sig­nal Corps in 1943, cre­ates an Acad­e­my Award win­ning doc­u­men­tary about the Armed Forces’ effort to pre­vent the fall of the Aleut­ian Islands to Japan­ese troops. (1943)
  • Requiem for the Amer­i­can DreamFree — “Renowned aca­d­e­m­ic and author Noam Chom­sky elu­ci­dates 10 prin­ci­ples of con­cen­tra­tion of wealth and pow­er that have led to unprece­dent­ed inequal­i­ty and the hol­low­ing out of the Amer­i­can mid­dle class,” write IMDB. Streams only free in the Unit­ed States. (2015)
  • Rick Steves EuropeFree — 11 sea­sons of Rick Steves’ pop­u­lar trav­el doc­u­men­taries.
  • Road to the StarsFree — Direct­ed by Pavel Klushant­sev, this Sovi­et doc­u­men­tary com­bines ele­ments of sci­ence edu­ca­tion films and spec­u­la­tive sci­ence fic­tion. It was ground­break­ing for its use of spe­cial effects to depict life in space. (1957)
  • Room to Dream: David Lynch and the Inde­pen­dent Film­mak­erFree — David Lynch explains how he brings his unique vision to the screen with tech­nolo­gies that are now with­in reach for inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers. (2005)
  • Rus­si­a’s Open Book: Writ­ing in the Age of Putin — Free — Stephen Fry hosts a doc­u­men­tary explor­ing the vital lit­er­ary scene in con­tem­po­rary Rus­sia. (2014)
  • Samu­rai Sword: Mak­ing of a Leg­endFree — This sto­ry of the Katana sword pro­vides a unique insight into the Samu­rai mas­ters and the swords they use. (2008)
  • Saul Alin­sky Went to WarFree — In this fea­ture doc­u­men­tary, Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er and writer Saul Alin­sky goes to war against the con­di­tions that keep the poor in pover­ty. (1968)
  • Sea of Faith — Free — In this six-part series, Don Cupitt explores the his­to­ry of Chris­tian­i­ty in the mod­ern world, explor­ing the works of philoso­phers like Blaise Pas­cal, René Descartes, Kierkegaard, Jung, Freud, Schopen­hauer, Niet­zsche, Wittgen­stein and more. (1984)
  • Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spir­it — Free — A kind of video diary of poet Allen Gins­berg’s last days. (1997)
  • Sell & Spin: A His­to­ry of Adver­tis­ingFree — Dick Cavett nar­rates the his­to­ry of adver­tis­ing, from ancient times to mod­ern. (1999)
  • ¿Sería Buenos Aires? — Free — An award-win­n­ing doc­u­men­tary look­ing at Argenti­na’s response to mod­ern crises. (2006)
  • She’s Nobody’s Baby: A His­to­ry of Amer­i­can Women in the 20th Cen­tu­ryFree — Alan Alda and Mar­lo Thomas trace the evo­lu­tion of the roles and lives of women in the 20th cen­tu­ry. (1982)
  • Shen­zhen: The Sil­i­con Val­ley of Hard­wareFree — From Wired comes a doc­u­men­tary look­ing at how Shen­zen, the fre­net­ic heart of Chi­na’s tech indus­try, is becom­ing a city of the future. (2016)
  • Shock of the NewFree — Art crit­ic Robert Hugh­es looks at the the devel­op­ment of mod­ern art since the Impres­sion­ists. (1980)
  • Sketch­es of Frank GehryFree — Syd­ney Pol­lack doc­u­men­tary explores Frank Gehry’s cre­ative process, from sketch­ing to mak­ing the phys­i­cal and 3D mod­els to the con­struc­tion itself. (2005)
  • Soft Self Por­trait of Sal­vador Dali — Free — French direc­tor Jean-Christophe Aver­ty trav­eled to Spain in 1970 and shot a sur­re­al bio­graph­i­cal doc­u­men­tary on the artist. (1970)
  • Some Yo Yo StuffFree — A short film about Cap­tain Beef­heart by Anton Cor­bi­jn. (1993)
  • Stravin­skyFree — This doc­u­men­tary is an infor­mal por­trait of the great mod­ern com­pos­er Igor Stravin­sky. Direct­ed by Wolf Koenig & Roman Kroitor. (1966)
  • Stress, Por­trait of a KillerFree — Sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies in the field and in the lab prove that stress is not just a state of mind, but some­thing mea­sur­able and dan­ger­ous. Fea­tures Stan­ford neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gist Robert Sapol­sky. (2008)
  • Sun Ra: A Joy­ful NoiseFree — Exper­i­men­tal jazz vision­ary Sun Ra was filmed on loca­tion in Philadel­phia, Bal­ti­more, and Wash­ing­ton, D.C. between 1978 and 1980 by direc­tor Robert Mugge. Includes pub­lic and pri­vate per­for­mances, poet­ry read­ings, inter­views and exten­sive impro­vi­sa­tions with Sun Ra and his Arkestra. (1980)
  • Sym­pho­ny in Black: A Rhap­sody of Negro Life — Free — A musi­cal short that fea­tures Duke Ellington’s ear­ly extend­ed piece, “A Rhap­sody of Negro Life.” Stars 19-year-old Bil­lie Hol­i­day. (1935)
  • Ten Days That Shook the World — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly called Oktyabr, Sergei Eisen­stein’s film doc­u­ments the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917. A mas­ter­piece by a pio­neer­ing film­mak­er. (1928)
  • That Far Cor­ner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Ange­lesFree — Chris Hawthorne, archi­tec­ture crit­ic for the Los Ange­les Times, explores the hous­es Frank Lloyd Wright built in Los Ange­les, dur­ing a time when he was recov­er­ing from a vio­lent trag­ic episode in his life. (2018)
  • The ABCs of DadaFree — Explores the ori­gins of and con­trib­u­tors to the Dada move­ment. (2012)
  • The Amer­i­can West of John Ford — Free - A doc­u­men­tary encap­su­lat­ing the career and West­ern films of direc­tor John Ford, fea­tur­ing inter­views with John Wayne, James Stew­art and Hen­ry Fon­da. (1971)
  • The Artist For­mer­ly Known as Cap­tain Beef­heartFree — Elaine Shepherd’s clas­sic BBC doc­u­men­tary, intro­duced and nar­rat­ed by John Peel. (1997)
  • The Bat­mo­bileFree — Direct­ed by Roko Bel­ic, this doc­u­men­tary explores the evo­lu­tion of the Bat­mo­bile. (2012)
  • The Bat­tle of Mid­way — Free — Direct­ed by John Ford. Nar­rat­ed by Hen­ry Fon­da. On June 4–6, 1942, Japan­ese forces attempt­ed to cap­ture Mid­way Island in the North Pacif­ic, but were defeat­ed by U.S. forces. On hand was a crew of naval pho­tog­ra­phers direct­ed by John Ford. (1942)
  • The Bat­tle of San Pietro — Free — John Hus­ton’s war time doc­u­men­tary. (1945)
  • The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearl­man Sto­ryFree — A YouTube Orig­i­nal doc­u­men­tary that tells the sto­ry of famed boy band impre­sario Lou Pearl­man. The film tracks his life from his child­hood in Queens, through dis­cov­er­ing mega-bands *NSYNC and The Back­street Boys, and chron­i­cles his lat­er life. (2019)
  • The Church Of Saint ColtraneFree —  Direct­ed by Gayle Gilman and Jeff Swim­mer, this film looks at The Church of Saint Coltrane in San Fran­cis­co, which has can­on­ized John Coltrane as their patron saint and on Sun­days holds five-hour jam ses­sions inter­spersed with litur­gy and fel­low­ship. (1996)
  • The Com­plete Star Wars Fil­mu­men­tariesFree — Jamie Ben­ning has cre­at­ed a tril­o­gy of doc­u­­men­­tary-com­­men­­taries on the Star Wars tril­o­gy. Fea­tures delet­ed scenes, alter­nate takes and dif­fer­ent angles, bloop­ers, orig­i­nal on set audio record­ings and a huge amount of com­men­tary from cast and crew.
  • The Con­fes­sions of Robert Crumb — Free — A por­trait of the artist script­ed by the under­ground comics leg­end him­self (1987)
  • The Crazy Nev­er DieFree — 30 minute shot-on-video doc­u­men­tary that looks into the more pub­licly wild and per­for­ma­tive side of Hunter S. Thomp­son’s per­son­al­i­ty. (1988)
  • The Cry of Jazz — Free — Con­tro­ver­sial film by Ed Bland explores issues around African-Amer­i­­cans and jazz in the Unit­ed States. Includes inter­views with artists and intel­lec­tu­als and per­for­mances by Sun Ra and John Gilmore. In 2010, the film was select­ed for preser­va­tion in the Unit­ed States Nation­al Film Reg­istry by the Library of Con­gress. (1958)
  • The Dis­tor­tion of SoundFree — A doc­u­men­tary about the decline of sound qual­i­ty and how tech­nol­o­gy has changed the way we lis­ten to music. Fea­tures numer­ous musi­cians. (2014)
  • The Duc­tu­men­taryFree — A short film that explores surfer Joel Tudor’s “life as a surfer, his ulti­mate deci­sion to leave com­pet­i­tive surf­ing and the vision that inspired him to cre­ate the unique Duct Tape con­tests.” (2013)
  • The Ein­stein The­o­ry of Rel­a­tiv­i­tyFree — Einstein’s the­o­ry of rel­a­tiv­i­ty explained in one of the ear­li­est sci­ence films ever made. (1923)
  • The Fight­ing Lady — Free — Direct­ed by William Wyler, this film pro­vides a por­trait of life on a World War II air­craft car­ri­er (1944)
  • The Four Horse­menFree — Direct­ed by Ross Ashcroft, the indie doc­u­men­tary is a “jere­mi­ad against the fol­ly of Neo-clas­si­­cal eco­nom­ics and the threats it rep­re­sents to all we should hold dear.” (2012)
  • The Genius of Charles Dar­win — Free — A three part series pre­sent­ed by Oxford biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins. (2008)
  • The Gift: The Jour­ney of John­ny CashFree — This doc­u­men­tary, cre­at­ed with the full coop­er­a­tion of the Cash estate and rich in recent­ly dis­cov­ered archival mate­ri­als, brings Cash the man out from behind the leg­end. (2019)
  • The God Delu­sionFree — Oxford evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins argues that the world would be bet­ter off with­out reli­gion. The film accom­pa­nied a book by the same title. (2006)
  • The God­moth­er of Rock N Roll: Sis­ter Roset­ta TharpeFree — The life, music & influ­ence of African-Amer­i­­can gospel singer and gui­tar vir­tu­oso Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe. Direct­ed by Mick Csaky. Find film at bot­tom of linked page. (2014)
  • The Grate­ful Dead MovieFree — The film doc­u­ments “a tour-end­ing five night stand at the Win­ter­land Ball­room in Octo­ber 1974. These were their last shows with the Wall of Sound.” (1977)
  • The Hen­ry Miller Odyssey — Free — Robert Sny­der’s doc­u­men­tary, almost entire­ly nar­rat­ed by Miller, fol­lows the author through his ear­ly years, from his child­hood in Brook­lyn to his bliss­ful exile in Paris. See more in the orig­i­nal review by The Har­vard Crim­son. (1969)
  • The His­to­ry of the Type­writer Recit­ed by Michael WinslowFree — Sound effects genius Michael Winslow per­forms the sounds of 32 type­writ­ers made between 1898–1983. (2010)
  • The His­to­ry of Iron Maid­enFree — A two-part doc­u­men­tary moves from the band’s begin­nings in London’s East End in 1975, to the Piece of Mind album and tour in 1983, and then beyond.
  • The HitchFree — Kristof­fer Seland Helles­mark cre­at­ed an 80-minute doc­u­men­tary about the icon­o­clas­tic jour­nal­ist Christo­pher Hitchens, lov­ing­ly enti­tled The Hitch, which fea­tures clips from his speech­es and inter­views. (2014)
  • The House I Live In — Free — A ten-minute short film star­ring Frank Sina­tra made to oppose anti-Semi­­tism and racial prej­u­dice at the end of World War II. (1945)
  • The Joy of StatsFree — Hans Rosling says there’s noth­ing bor­ing about stats, and then proves it in an one-hour long doc­u­men­tary. (2010)
  • The Land Where the Blues Began — Free — Alan Lomax takes you into the Mis­sis­sip­pi Delta, into to the heart of the Blues. (1978)
  • The Last 48 Hours of Kurt CobainFree — British doc­u­men­tary takes a look the final days of Kurt Cobain, the Nir­vana front­man who com­mit­ted sui­cide in 1994. (2007)
  • The James Dean Sto­ry — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on the life and times of James Dean made by the great film­mak­er Robert Alt­man — MASH, The Play­er, Gos­ford Park, etc. (1957)
  • The Japan­ese Sword as the Soul of the Samu­raiFree — Obscure doc­u­men­tary on the mak­ing of Japan­ese swords, nar­rat­ed by George Takei, offers a fas­ci­nat­ing look at the exhaus­tive process of forg­ing samu­rai swords. (1969)
  • The Love for WoodFree — A doc­u­men­tary about well known Dutch chess play­ers, fea­tur­ing Jan Tim­man, Hans Ree, Piet Hein Don­ner, Max Euwe and oth­ers. It’s a beau­ti­ful doc­u­ment of the peri­od and the state of chess at that time. Eng­lish sub­ti­tles. (1979)
  • The Mag­ic SunFree — Artist Phil Niblock cap­tures a brief moment of an inter­stel­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion by Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra in their prime. (1968)
  • The Mak­ing of Dark Side of the MoonFree — A look inside the cre­ation of a famous Pink Floyd album. (2003)
  • The Mak­ing of Koy­aanisqat­si Free — Direc­tor God­frey Reg­gio gives you the back­sto­ry behind his 1982 film, Koy­aanisqat­si.
  • The March — Free — James Blues’s “visu­al­ly stun­ning, mov­ing, and arrest­ing doc­u­men­tary of the hope, deter­mi­na­tion, and cama­raderie” embod­ied by The Great March on Wash­ing­ton. (1964)
  • The Men Who Made the Movies: Hitch­cock — Free — A look at Alfred Hitch­cock­’s films. The Mas­ter of Sus­pense him­self, who is inter­viewed exten­sive­ly here, shares sto­ries about film­mak­ing. (1973)
  • The Mys­tery of Picas­soFree — Pablo Picasso’s art emerges in front of our eyes in this remark­able film by the French mas­ter of sus­pense, Hen­ri-Georges Clouzot. (1956)
  • The New Cin­e­maFree — Nev­er-aired TV doc­u­men­tary takes a look at the new Hol­ly­wood scene emerg­ing in 1967. Fea­tures footage of Dustin Hoff­man, Roman Polan­s­ki, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la and George Lucas. (1968)
  • The Nomi SongFree — Andrew Horn’s doc about the life of singer Klaus Nomi. Debuted at the Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val and won a Ted­dy Award for “Best Doc­u­men­tary Film. (2004)
  • The Out­sider: The Sto­ry of Har­ry PartchFree — A doc­u­men­tary about the avant-garde com­pos­er Har­ry Partch. (2002)
  • The Penul­ti­mate Truth About Philip K. Dick — Free — Doc­u­men­tary about the mys­ti­cal expe­ri­ences of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. (2007)
  • The Pho­tog­ra­ph­er — Free — Reveals the phi­los­o­phy, tech­niques & artistry of Edward West­on (1948)
  • The Pow­er of Night­maresFree — A three-part his­to­ry of how rad­i­cal Islamism in many ways par­al­leled the rise of Neo-Con­ser­­vatism. Though crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed, it nev­er aired in Amer­i­ca. (2004)
  • The Real Bruce LeeFree — This mar­tial arts doc­u­men­tary begins with a brief biog­ra­phy of Bruce Lee, and shows scenes from four of his child­hood films, Bad Boy, Orphan Sam, Kid Che­ung, and The Car­ni­val, each sepia-toned and dubbed to Eng­lish. (1979)
  • The Queen of TreesFree — The remark­able sto­ry of an African fig tree and the spe­cial rela­tion­ship it has with the ani­mals who depend on it. A Peabody award-win­n­ing nat­ur­al his­to­ry doc­u­men­tary. (2005)
  • The Respon­sive Eye Free — Bri­an DePal­ma’s short film doc­u­ment­ing the open­ing night of an OP ART exhi­bi­tion at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in New York in 1966.
  • The Secret Life of Adolf Hitler — Free — 1950’s tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary that includes inter­views with Hitler’s sis­ter Paula Wolf and footage from Eva Braun’s rare home movies.
  • The Sim­u­la­tion Hypoth­e­sisFree — Are we liv­ing in a vir­tu­al real­i­ty? And if so, could we ever tell? Fea­tures Appear­ances by Max Tegmark, Neil degrasse Tyson, Paul Davies and James Gates (2015).
  • The Sto­ry of Fas­cismFree — In an eye-open­ing doc­u­men­tary, Rick trav­els back a cen­tu­ry to learn how fas­cism rose and then fell in Europe — tak­ing mil­lions of peo­ple with it. (2018)
  • The Space Shut­tle Free — His­to­ry of the US Space Shut­tle pro­gram nar­rat­ed by William Shat­ner. (2011)
  • The Span­ish Earth — Free — A Span­ish Civ­il War pro­pa­gan­da film writ­ten and nar­rat­ed by Ernest Hem­ing­way. (1937)
  • The Strange Case of the Cos­mic RaysFree — Pup­pets of Dos­to­evsky, Dick­ens and Poe star in an edu­ca­tion­al sci­ence film cre­at­ed by Frank Capra. (1957)
  • The Sto­ry of Fas­cismFree — Rick Steves presents a thought-pro­­vok­ing doc­u­men­tary that revis­its the rise of fas­cism in Europe, remind­ing us of how charis­mat­ic fig­ures like Ben­i­to Mus­soli­ni and Adolf Hitler came to pow­er by promis­ing to cre­ate a bet­ter future for their frus­trat­ed, eco­nom­i­­cal­­ly-depressed coun­tries. (2018)
  • The Sto­ry of the Gui­tar — Free — A three part doc­u­men­tary reveals how the gui­tar came to “dom­i­nate the sound­track of our lives.” (2008)
  • The Sto­ry of Wish You Were Here — Free — Takes you inside the mak­ing of Pink Floy­d’s 1975 album. (2012)
  • The Tibetan Book of the Dead — Free — Nar­rat­ed by Leonard Cohen and fea­tur­ing the Dalai Lama, the film explores an essen­tial teach­ing in the Bud­dhist cul­tures of the Himalayas. (1994)
  • The Tony Alva Sto­ryFree — A doc­u­men­tary that cov­ers the rise, fall and rise of the leg­endary skate­board­er. (2019)
  • The Unchained God­dessFree — After win­ning three Oscars for best direc­tor, Frank Capra pro­duced a sci­ence edu­ca­tion film on the weath­er that made one of the first argu­ments for tak­ing action against cli­mate change. (1958)
  • The World of Buck­min­ster FullerFree — Direct­ed by Robert Sny­der, this doc­u­men­tary trans­ports you into Fuller’s mind and soul. It’s told entire­ly in his own words. (1974)
  • Tri­umph of the Will — Free — (1935) The major Nazi pro­pa­gan­da work by Leni Riefen­stahl. With sub­ti­tles.
  • The Ten-Year Lunch — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing film about the writ­ers who sat at the Algo­nquin Round Table in New York dur­ing the 1920s. (1986)
  • The True Glo­ry — Free — War time pro­pa­gan­da doc­u­men­tary direct­ed by Car­ol Reed, with Gen­er­al Dwight D. Eisen­how­er and Gen­er­al George S. Pat­ton. (1945)
  • The True His­to­ry Of The Trav­el­ing WilburysFree —  A short doc­u­men­tary on the mak­ing of the 1980s super group. (2007)
  • The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans Free — 1966 doc­u­men­tary takes you inside the cre­ative process/world of jazz pianist Bill Evans.
  • The Vel­vet Under­ground: A Sym­pho­ny of Sound — Free - Pro­duced by Andy Warhol, the film shows VU per­form­ing a 67-minute instru­men­tal impro­vi­sa­tion. (1966)
  • The Way of the FleshFree — Direct­ed by Adam Cur­tis this doc­u­men­tary on Hen­ri­et­ta Lacks won the Best Sci­ence and Nature Doc­u­men­tary at the San Fran­cis­co Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. Find an alter­nate ver­sion on Archive.org. (1998)
  • The Weight of a NationFree — The Emmy-nom­i­­nat­ed HBO Doc­u­men­tary Films series on obe­si­ty, cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the NIH (2012).
  • The World At WarFree — Acclaimed 26-episode WWII doc­u­men­tary “The World at War” was pro­duced by Thames Tele­vi­sion and aired in 1973–1974.
  • The Wreck­ing CrewFree — A doc­u­men­tary film direct­ed by Den­ny Tedesco, son of gui­tarist Tom­my Tedesco, cov­ers the sto­ry of the Los Angeles–based group of ses­sion musi­cians known as The Wreck­ing Crew. (2008)
  • There is No Author­i­ty But Your­selfFree — Fea­ture doc­u­men­tary about sem­i­nal anar­­cho-punk band Crass, direct­ed by Dutch film­mak­er Alexan­der Oey. (2006)
  • They Were ThereFree — Errol Mor­ris, the acclaimed direc­tor, was hired to make a film for an “in house” con­fer­ence of IBM employ­ees. The 30-minute film notably fea­tures music by Philip Glass.
  • This is Mar­shall McLuhan: The Medi­um is the Mes­sageFree — “Mar­shall McLuhan dis­cuss­es his con­tro­ver­sial com­mu­ni­ca­tions the­o­ries in this exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary pro­duced by Oscar-win­n­er Ernest Pintoff and Guy Frau­meni.” Came out the same year as his book: The Medi­um is the Mas­sage. (1967)
  • This is SkaFree — Filmed on loca­tion in Kingston, Jamaica, this doc­u­men­tary fea­tures per­for­mances by a who’s who of up-and-com­ing ska artists, includ­ing Prince Buster, Jim­my Cliff and The May­tals. (1964)
  • Thomas Pyn­chon: A Jour­ney Into the Mind of P. — Free — A doc­u­men­tary, writ­ten & direct­ed by Donatel­lo Dubi­ni & Fos­co Dubi­ni, on the reclu­sive nov­el­ist. (2008)
  • To Hear Your Ban­jo Play — Free — 16-minute intro­duc­tion to Amer­i­can folk music, writ­ten & nar­rat­ed by Alan Lomax and fea­tur­ing rare per­for­mances by Woody Guthrie, Bald­win Hawes, Son­ny Ter­ry. (1946)
  • Tokyo GirlsFree — A can­did jour­ney into the world of 4 young Cana­di­an women who work as well-paid host­esses in exclu­sive Japan­ese night­clubs. These mod­­ern-day geisha find them­selves caught up in the mizu shobai — the com­plex “float­ing water world” of Tokyo clubs and bars. (2000)
  • Tol­stoy Remem­bered — Free —  Doc­u­men­tary fea­tures Tol­stoy’s daugh­ter. Direct­ed by Michael Rabiger. (1970)
  • Tom Pet­ty, Some­where You Feel Free – The Mak­ing of Wild­flow­ersFree — The film was shot while Tom was on a pro­lif­ic song­writ­ing streak for years mak­ing what he intend­ed to be a dou­ble album called Wild­flow­ers. (2021)
  • Tom Waits: A Day in Vien­na — Free — Tom Waits sings and tells sto­ries in film that orig­i­nal­ly aired on Aus­tri­an TV. (1979)
  • Toute la mémoire du monde (All the World’s Mem­o­ries) — Free — Alain Resnais’s short doc­u­men­tary looks at the inner work­ings of the Bib­lio­thèque nationale de France in Paris. It’s “a med­i­ta­tive piece about the fragili­ty of human mem­o­ry and the ways in which we try to shore it up.” (1956)
  • Trapped: Andy Warhol’s Ami­ga Exper­i­mentsFree — Short film doc­u­ments how Carnegie Mel­lon experts recov­ered lost paint­ings that Andy Warhol made on the Com­modore Ami­ga com­put­er dur­ing the 1980s.
  • Tunisian Vic­to­ry — Free — World War II doc­u­men­tary direct­ed by Frank Capra and nar­rat­ed by Burgess Mered­ith. (1944)
  • UFOs: It Has Begun Free — Doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Rod Ser­ling explores the exis­tence of UFOs and extra-ter­res­tri­al beings. (1979)
  • Uni­verseFree — A 1960 doc­u­men­tary that inspired the visu­al Effects of Stan­ley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and gave the HAL 9000 com­put­er its voice (1960)
  • Unguid­ed Tour AKA Let­ter from Venice — Free — Susan Son­tag adapt­ed the Ital­ian-lan­guage fea­ture from her sto­ry of the same name, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 1977 in the New York­er. (1983)
  • Urban Strug­gle: The Bat­tle Of The Cuck­oos NestFree — Doc­u­ments the hard­core punk scene at the Cuck­oo’s Nest night­club. Fea­tures per­for­mances by T.S.O.L., Cir­cle Jerks and Black Flag, and shows ear­ly slam danc­ing. (1981)
  • Van Gogh: Paint­ed with WordsFree — Writ­ten and direct­ed by Andrew Hut­ton, this dra­­ma-doc­u­­men­­tary about Vin­cent Van Gogh fea­tures Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch in the lead role. (2010)
  • Veg­e­tar­i­an WorldFree — “William Shat­ner walks us through the his­to­ry, ben­e­fits, and mis­con­cep­tions of adher­ing to a veg­e­tar­i­an diet.” (1982)
  • Ver­meer: Mas­ter of LightFree — Explores Ver­meer’s com­po­si­tion­al meth­ods and tech­niques. Nar­rat­ed by Meryl Streep. (2001)
  • Vic­to­ry at SeaFree —  Award-win­n­ing, 26 episode TV series chron­i­cling naval war­fare dur­ing WWII. (1953)
  • Viet­nam! Viet­nam! Free — The last film pro­duced by the leg­endary John Ford was a work of pro­pa­gan­da com­mis­sioned by the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment in sup­port of the Viet­nam War. (1971)
  • Vir­ginia Woolf: A Nov­el­ist - Free — Draws on old maps, con­tem­po­rary draw­ings and paint­ings, por­traits and oth­er archive mate­r­i­al to present an out­line of Vir­ginia Woolf’s life and to con­vey a pic­ture of the social and his­tor­i­cal back­ground to her writ­ing.
  • Vis­it to Picas­so Free Part 1Free Part 2 — Bel­gian film­mak­er Paul Hae­saerts cap­tures Picas­so’s cre­ative process. (1949)
  • Viva Joe Strum­mer — Free — A doc­u­men­tary look at the great front­man of The Clash. (2005)
  • Wait­ing for Beck­ett — Free — Rare fea­­ture-length doc­u­men­tary on the Nobel Prize-win­n­ing writer Samuel Beck­ett. (1993)
  • Warhol’s Cin­e­ma — A Mir­ror for the Six­ties — Free ‑This 64 minute doc­u­men­tary from 1989 exam­ines Andy Warhol’s films from the 1960s. (You can view sev­er­al of these films — EatSleep, and Kiss — here.)
    (1989)
  • Watch­ing My Name Go ByFree — A short doc­u­men­tary about the ear­ly days of graf­fi­ti cul­ture in New York City. (1976)
  • WattstaxFree — Doc­u­ments the “Black Wood­stock” con­cert held 7 years after the Watts Riots. (1973)
  • We Were There to Be ThereFree — A doc­u­men­tary revis­its The Cramps famous punk con­cert at the Napa State psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal. (2021)
  • Wern­er Her­zog Eats His Shoe Free — Her­zog los­es a bet to Errol Mor­ris and eats a shoe with the help of chef Alice Waters. (1980)
  • Who’s Out There?Free — Orson Welles nar­rates a doc­u­men­tary ask­ing whether there’s extrater­res­tri­al life in the Uni­verse. (1975)
  • Who is Afraid of Ai Wei­wei?Free — A short PBS Front­line doc­u­men­tary on the dis­si­dent Chi­nese artist. (2011)
  • Who’s Afraid Of Machi­avel­liFree — This doc­u­men­tary asks how rel­e­vant Machi­avel­li’s book, The Prince, is 500 years after its pub­li­ca­tion. (2013)
  • Why We Fight — Free — A sev­en part series of WWII pro­pa­gan­da films direct­ed by Frank Capra. (1943)
  • What the Future Sound­ed Like? -Free — From Dr Who to The Dark Side of the Moon, “the pio­neer­ing mem­bers of the Elec­tron­ic Music Stu­dios rad­i­cal­ly changed the sound-scape of the 20th Cen­tu­ry. What the Future Sound­ed Like tells this fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of British elec­tron­ic music.” (2007)
  • Will Self­’s Kaf­ka Jour­ney: A Prague Walk­ing TourFree — Will Self vis­its Prague for a walk­ing tour in search of Franz Kafka’s genius loci. (2015)
  • William S. Bur­roughs: 100 YearsFree — A short fea­ture on the life of writer William S. Bur­roughs by the LA Review of Books. (2014)
  • William S. Bur­roughs & LawrenceFree — William S. Bur­roughs and his years in Lawrence, Kansas. He lived in Lawrence longer than in any oth­er place and chose to spend the last sev­er­al years of his life here. (2014)
  • WikiRebels — Free — Doc­u­men­tary by Swedish pub­lic tele­vi­sion chron­i­cles his­to­ry of Wik­ileaks. (2010)
  • Wittgen­stein: A Won­der­ful LifeFree — About the remark­able life of the Aus­tri­an philoso­pher Lud­wig Wittgen­stein. (1989)
  • Woody Guthrie - Free — Cov­ers the life of Woody Guthrie, Amer­i­ca’s great trav­el­ling singer-song­writer. (1988)
  • You Don’t Know Jack — Free — Mor­gan Spurlock’s short doc­u­men­tary on the 15-year-old who invent­ed a new way to detect ear­ly stage pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. (2013)

Free Animated Films Online

  • 66 Oscar-Nom­i­­nat­ed-and-Award-Win­n­ing Ani­mat­ed Shorts Online, Cour­tesy of the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­daFree — A big col­lec­tion of prize-win­n­ing ani­mat­ed short films.
  • 6 Ani­ma­tions of Sto­ries & Poems by Shel Sil­ver­steinFree — Includes “Ick­le Me, Pick­le Me, Tick­le Me Too” from Where the Side­walk Ends.
  • 13 Exper­i­men­tal Short Films by Tezu­ka Osamu Free — Ear­ly ani­ma­tions by Tezu­ka Osamau, often called the Walt Dis­ney of Japan.
  • 30 Films from the 1970s by Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion Pio­neer Lil­lian F. SchwartzFree — Watch films by one of the first women artists notable for bas­ing almost her entire body of work on com­pu­ta­tion­al media.
  • A Coun­try Doc­tor Free — A Franz Kaka sto­ry retold in an award-win­n­ing ani­ma­tion by Japan­ese ani­ma­tor Koji Yama­mu­ra. (2007)
  • A Herb Alpert & the Tijua­na Brass Dou­ble Fea­tureFree — A pre­cur­sor to mod­ern music videos, this Oscar-win­n­ing ani­mat­ed film by John & Faith Hub­ley is set to the music of two pop­u­lar songs record­ed by Herb Alpert. (1966)
  • A Short VisionFree — Ani­mat­ed film direct­ed by Peter and Joan Foldes depicts the com­plete anni­hi­la­tion of the Earth and all life on it, pre­sum­ably after an atom­ic blast. The film became a sen­sa­tion after it was aired on The Ed Sul­li­van Show. (1956)
  • Ah Pook is Here - Free — A stop motion ani­ma­tion based on audio record­ings by William S. Bur­roughs, with music by John Cale. (1994)
  • Aller­gy to Orig­i­nal­i­tyFree — In the short, ani­mat­ed New York Times Op-Doc by Drew Christie, an offi­cial Sun­dance selec­tion in 2014, “two men dis­cuss whether any­thing is tru­ly orig­i­nal — espe­cial­ly in movies and books.”
  • Amer­i­can His­to­ryFree — An off-kil­ter stu­dent film from South Park cre­ator Trey Park­er. (1992)
  • Anémic Ciné­ma — Free — Mar­cel Ducham­p’s avant-garde film com­bines whirling opti­cal illu­sions, known as Rotore­liefs, with spi­ral­ing puns and com­plex word play. (1926)
  • Astro Boy: Birth of Astro BoyFree — The first episode of the ani­mat­ed series, Astro Boy, cre­at­ed by famed Japan­ese ani­ma­tor Osamu Tezu­ka. (1963)
  • Bat­tleFree — Sovi­et ani­mat­ed adap­ta­tion of Stephen King’s short sto­ry, “Bat­tle­ground.” (1986)
  • Breathdeath Free — Cutout ani­ma­tion film that inspired Ter­ry Gilliam and end­ed up on his list of The 10 Best Ani­mat­ed Films of All Time. (1963)
  • Cin­derel­laFree — One of the first films by the sil­hou­ette ani­ma­tor Lotte Reiniger (1922).
  • Cold War Pro-Cap­i­­tal­ism Ani­ma­tionsFree — A series of Cold War ani­ma­tions that explain why Amer­i­can cap­i­tal­ism is the best way to go. Films were fund­ed by the CEO of Gen­er­al Motors.
  • Con­fi­denceFree — Clas­sic ani­ma­tion from the Great Depres­sion shows how ani­ma­tors tried to get Amer­i­ca through a dark time. (1933)
  • Crime and Pun­ish­ment Free — Dos­to­evsky’s clas­sic work won­der­ful­ly ani­mat­ed by Piotr Dumala (2000)
  • Curi­ous AliceFree — In this film intend­ed for young kids, Alice falls asleep while read­ing a book. She encoun­ters cig­a­rettes, liquor, and med­i­cines, and real­izes that they are all types of drugs. (1971)
  • De Arti­fi­ciali Per­spec­ti­va, or Anamor­pho­sisFree — In this daz­zling short ani­ma­tion by the Broth­ers Quay, learn about the Renais­sance illu­sion­is­tic tech­nique known as anamor­pho­sis, in which a hid­den image only becomes vis­i­ble when viewed from a dif­fer­ent angle or in a curved mir­ror. (1991)
  • Der Erlk­ing — Free — A visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Goethe’s poem, The ErlK­ing, that uses sand-on-glass ani­ma­tion set to the music of Franz Schu­bert. (2002)
  • Der Fuehrer’s Face — Free — Dis­ney’s anti-Nazi pro­pa­gan­da movie fea­tur­ing Don­ald Duck. Won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (1942)
  • Des­ti­no Free — Walt Dis­ney and Sal­vador Dalí began work­ing togeth­er in 1946 on a project that was tabled, then final­ly revived and fin­ished in 2003.
  • Dimen­sions of Dia­logue Free — Jan Svankma­jer, a sur­re­al­ist Czech ani­ma­tor, influ­enced Tim Bur­ton, The Broth­ers Quay, and Ter­ry Gilliam him­self.  Gilliam puts this clay­ma­tion short on his list of The Ten Best Ani­mat­ed Films. (1982)
  • Drums WestFree — Cut-paper ani­ma­tion by Jim Hen­son. It is one of sev­er­al exper­i­men­tal shorts inspired by the music of jazz great Chico Hamil­ton. (1961)
  • Dum­b­landFree — A series of crude, Beav­is and Butthead-style ani­ma­tions by David Lynch (2002)
  • Ear­ly Japan­ese Ani­ma­tionsFree — A col­lec­tion of ear­ly Japan­ese ani­ma­tions that show where the Japan­ese ani­me tra­di­tion began. (1917 to 1931)
  • Edu­ca­tion for Death: The Mak­ing of the Nazi Free — Dis­ney’s WW II pro­pa­gan­da film looks at how the Nazi machine cor­rupts youth. (1943)
  • Every Child — Free — Eugene Fedorenko’s ani­mat­ed short about an unwant­ed baby cared for by home­less men. 1979 Oscar-win­n­er for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • Fan­tas­magorie — Free — The first ful­ly ani­mat­ed film ever made. 700 draw­ings in 2 min­utes by Emile Cohl. (1908)
  • Father and Daugh­ter — Free — Michaël Dudok De Wit’s heart­break­ing short won the 2000 Acad­e­my Award for Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • Franz Kaf­ka — Free — Piotr Dumala’s won­der­ful 16 minute ani­mat­ed film based on Kafka’s diaries. (1992)
  • Free­dom Riv­er — Free — A short ani­mat­ed film nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles. A para­ble about mankind get­ting along. (1971)
  • Glass Har­mon­i­caFree — The only ani­mat­ed film ever banned by Sovi­et cen­sors. (1968)
  • Granny O’Grim­m’s Sleep­ing Beau­tyFree — 6 minute ani­mat­ed black com­e­dy. Short­list­ed for the 2010 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • Gul­liv­er’s Trav­els — Free — Amer­i­can cel-ani­­mat­ed Tech­ni­col­or fea­ture film, direct­ed by Dave Fleis­ch­er. (1939)
  • Gum­ba­siaFree — First clay ani­ma­tion pro­duced by Art Clokey, who went on to cre­ate the clas­sic series, Gum­by. (1955)
  • Here There be Tygers — Free — A Sovi­et ani­ma­tion of a short sto­ry by Ray Brad­bury. Direct­ed by Vladimir Sam­sonov (1989).
  • How a Mos­qui­to Oper­ates — Free — One of the sur­viv­ing works by famed ani­ma­tor Win­sor McCay. (1912)
  • How Ani­mat­ed Car­toons Are Made — Free — One of the ear­li­est, truest looks at how car­toons were made in the ear­li­est 20th cen­tu­ry. Fea­tures ani­ma­tion pio­neer Wal­lace Carl­son. (1919)
  • Humor­ous Phas­es of Fun­ny Faces - Free —  Made by James Stu­art Black­ton, this short film is con­sid­ered the first ani­ma­tion ever made. (1906)
  • HungerFree — Direct­ed by Peter Foldes, Hunger is one of the first com­put­er ani­ma­tion films. It won a Spe­cial Jury Prize at the 1974 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and was nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (1974)
  • I Touch a Red But­ton Man — Free — A short film by David Lynch and Inter­pol. Orig­i­nal­ly shown at the Coachel­la 2011 Fes­ti­val.
  • Is It Right to Be Always Right?Free — Nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles, this Oscar-win­n­ing film direct­ed by Lee Mishkin is a para­ble that com­ments on divi­sions in the Unit­ed States. (1970)
  • Jazzmos­phereFree — An ani­mat­ed film on the rela­tion­ship between images and sound, cre­at­ed by Michel Gondry and Jean-Louis Bom­point. (1988)
  • King and Octo­pusFree — Tim Bur­ton’s short ani­ma­tion made dur­ing film school at CalArts. (1978)
  • Licht­spiel Opus 1Free —  The first avant garde ani­ma­tion shown in pub­lic, by Ger­man artist Wal­ter Ruttmann. (1921)
  • Logo­ra­ma — Free — François Alaux and Herve de Crecy’s 17 minute film, Logo­ra­ma, won the Oscar for Short Film (Ani­mat­ed) in 2009.
  • Madame Tut­li-Put­li — Free — Oscar-nom­i­­nat­ed ani­mat­ed short film by Mon­tre­al film­mak­ers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczer­bows­ki. (2010)
  • Mal­ice in Won­der­landFree — An acid trip adap­ta­tion of Lewis Car­rol­l’s Alice in Won­der­land. Vince Collins did the ani­ma­tion with graph­ic design by Miwako. (1982)
  • Math­mag­ic LandFree — A 27-minute edu­ca­tion­al fea­turette by Dis­ney was nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar and wide­ly shown in Amer­i­can schools. “We have recent­ly explained math­e­mat­ics in a film,” said Walt Dis­ney “and in that way excit­ed pub­lic inter­est in this very impor­tant sub­ject. (1959)
  • Mick­ey Mouse in Viet­namFree — An under­ground, anti-war ani­ma­tion co-cre­at­ed by Mil­ton Glaser. (1968)
  • Mona Lisa Descend­ing a Stair­caseFree — Joan Gratz’ 1992 Oscar-win­n­ing ani­ma­tion pro­vides a chrono­log­i­cal trip through the his­to­ry of mod­ern art, begin­ning with Impres­sion­ism and pass­ing through Cubism and Sur­re­al­ism en route to Pop art and hyper-real­ism. (1992)
  • Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side) — Free — Spike Jonze col­lab­o­rates with Olivia Le-Tan and Simon Cahn to pro­duce stop motion film set in Shake­speare and Com­pa­ny in Paris (2011)
  • Neigh­bors — Free — Nor­man McLaren ani­mates live actors with tech­niques nor­mal­ly used to put drawings/puppets into motion. Oscar win­ner. (1952)
  • Night on Bald Moun­tainFree — An eery, avant-garde pin­screen ani­ma­tion by Alexan­der Alex­eieff and Claire Park­er, based on Mussorgsky’s mas­ter­piece. (1933)
  • Opti­cal PoemsFree — Avant-garde short ani­ma­tion by Oskar Fischinger. Fea­tures hand­made shapes, sus­pend­ed by fish­ing line, mov­ing in sync with Franz Liszt’s “2nd Hun­gar­i­an Rhap­sody.”
  • Princess Iron FanFree — The first ani­mat­ed Chi­nese fea­ture film. Made dur­ing WW II, when Chi­na was under Japan­ese occu­pa­tion. (1941)
  • Pri­vate Sna­fuFree — World War II pro­pa­gan­da car­toons cre­at­ed by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc. (1943)
  • PurlFree — Direct­ed by Kris­ten Lester, this Pixar short fea­tures an earnest ball of yarn named Purl who gets a job in a fast-paced, high ener­gy, bro-tas­tic start-up. (2019)
  • Qua­si at the Quack­aderoFree — A trip­py ani­mat­ed film by Sal­ly Cruik­shank. Vot­ed one of the 50 Great­est Car­toons of All Time. (1975)
  • Rea­son and Emo­tion Free — Walt Dis­ney uses some neu­ro­science to explain the forces behind World War II. (1943)
  • Red Hot Rid­ing Hood Free — A rebel­lious ver­sion of Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood cre­at­ed by Tex Avery. Ranked 7th on list of The 50 Great­est Car­toons. (1943)
  • Ryan — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing ani­mat­ed short from Chris Lan­dreth based on the life of Ryan Larkin, the influ­en­tial Cana­di­an ani­ma­tor. (2004)
  • Seder MasochismFree — Direct­ed by Nina Paley, and loose­ly fol­low­ing a tra­di­tion­al Passover Seder, the events of Exo­dus are retold by Moses, Aharon, the Angel of Death, Jesus, and the director’s own father. But there’s anoth­er side to this sto­ry: that of the God­dess, humankind’s orig­i­nal deity. (2018)
  • Sher­lock HoundFree — Hayao Miyaza­ki direct­ed six episodes of the ani­mat­ed series that fea­tured a cor­gi Sher­lock Hound and ter­ri­er Doc­tor Wat­son going on adven­tures across a steam­punk Lon­don. (1984)
  • Sisy­phusFree — An Oscar-nom­i­­nat­ed Hun­gar­i­an short film direct­ed by Mar­cell Jankovics, based on the myth of Sisy­phus. (1974)
  • Sita Sings the Blues — Free — New prize-win­n­ing ani­mat­ed film by Nina Paley. (2008)
  • Snow WhiteFree — Snow-White, also known as Bet­ty Boop in Snow-White, comes from Max Fleis­cher’s Fleis­ch­er Stu­dios. An inno­v­a­tive film that fea­tures scenes roto­scoped over footage by Cab Cal­loway, it was vot­ed #19 of the 50 Great­est Car­toons of all time by mem­bers of the ani­ma­tion field. (1933)
  • So Much for So Lit­tleFree — Leg­endary ani­ma­tor Chuck Jones cre­ates a car­toon tout­ing the virtues of uni­ver­sal health­care. (1949)
  • Sovi­et Toys — Free — Dzi­ga Ver­tov, best known for his land­mark film A Man with a Movie Cam­era, also made the Sovi­et Union’s first ever ani­mat­ed movie. (1924)
  • Spe­cial Deliv­ery — Free — Hilar­i­ous sto­ry won 1978 Oscar for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • Stalk of the Cel­ery Mon­sterFree — A short ani­ma­tion Tim Bur­ton made while in film school at CalArts. (1979)
  • Steam­boat Willie — Free — The first Dis­ney car­toon that intro­duced sound ani­ma­tion and Mick­ey Mouse to the larg­er world. (1928)
  • Sto­ry of One Crime — Free — The direc­to­r­i­al debut of Fyo­dor Khitruk, the ani­ma­tor of some of the great­est ani­ma­tion ever pro­duced in Rus­sia. (1962)
  • Sto­ry­time — Free — The debut ani­ma­tion film by Mon­ty Python leg­end Ter­ry Gilliam. (1968)
  • Street Musique — Free — Influ­en­tial ani­mat­ed film by Ryan Larkin. (1972)
  • Super­man — Free — Max Fleis­cher’s short ani­mat­ed movie. Nom­i­nat­ed for the 1942 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject: Car­toons. Oth­er shorts that fol­lowed can be viewed here. (1941)
  • Super­man: The Mechan­i­cal Mon­sters — Free — Film cap­tures the era’s char­ac­ter­is­tic ambiva­lence in rec­on­cil­ing the need for progress with the fear of tech­nol­o­gy. Find more episodes in this series here. (1941)
  • Thank You, Mask ManFree — Lenny Bruce com­e­dy rou­tine about the Lone Ranger gets turned into an out­landish ani­mat­ed film. (1968)
  • The Ant and the Grasshop­per — Free — Ear­ly stop ani­ma­tion film by the great Russ­ian ani­ma­tor Ladis­las Stare­vich. (1911)
  • The Cam­era­man’s Revenge Free — This very ear­ly silent era stop-motion film was made by Ladis­las Stare­vich in impe­r­i­al Rus­sia in 1912. He used real insects to cre­ate the sto­ry. (1912)
  • The Cathe­dral — Free — “The Cathe­dral” is the title of a sci fi short sto­ry by Jacek Dukaj. It was turned into a short ani­mat­ed movie by Tomasz Bag­ińs­ki and nom­i­nat­ed in 2002 for the Acad­e­my Award for Ani­mat­ed Short Film. (2002)
  • The Cave — Free — A short clay­ma­tion film ani­mat­ing the famous cave alle­go­ry in Pla­to’s Repub­lic. (2008)
  • The Cen­taurs — Free — An incom­plete work by Win­sor McCay. (1921)
  • The Crit­ic Free – Mel Brooks 1963 ani­ma­tion fea­tures an old Yid­dish watch­ing abstract ani­ma­tions. Hilar­i­ous film won Oscar. (1963)
  • The Curi­ous Adven­tures of Mr. Won­der­birdFree — A low bud­get release of the influ­en­tial ani­mat­ed film The King and the Mock­ing­bird, cre­at­ed by Paul Gri­mault and Jaques Prévert. This ver­sion was nar­rat­ed by Peter Usti­nov. (1952)
  • The Dan­ish Poet — Free — Ani­mat­ed short film writ­ten, direct­ed, and ani­mat­ed by Torill Kove and nar­rat­ed by Liv Ull­mann, won the Acad­e­my Award in 2006.
  • The Dot and the Line — Free — Chuck Jones’ ani­mat­ed film cel­e­brates geom­e­try and hard work. (1965)
  • The Dream of a Ridicu­lousFree — Won­der­ful ani­ma­tion of Dos­to­evsky’s sto­ry by Oscar-win­n­ing Russ­ian ani­ma­tor Alexan­der Petrov. (1992)
  • The Employ­mentFree — A prize win­ning com­men­tary on why we’re dis­en­chant­ed by work today.  (2011)
  • The Fan­tas­tic Fly­ing Books of Mr. Mor­ris Less­more — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing film by Moon­bot Stu­dios pays homage to a bygone era when ele­gant­ly print­ed books inhab­it­ed our world. (2011)
  • The Hap­py Prince — Free — A faith­ful ren­der­ing of an Oscar Wilde chil­dren’s sto­ry. Fea­tures the voic­es of Christo­pher Plum­mer and Gly­nis Johns. (1974)
  • The Hob­bitFree — This short ani­ma­tion by Prague-based ani­ma­tor Gene Deitch was the first film adap­ta­tion of Tolkien’s clas­sic. (1966)
  • The Hole — Free — A 15-minute ani­mat­ed film by John Hub­ley and Faith Hub­ley that won an Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film in 1962. Fea­tures the voice of Dizzy Gille­spie. (1962)
  • The Idea — Free — Cre­at­ed by Czech film­mak­er Berthold Bar­tosch, The Idea has been called “the first ani­mat­ed film cre­at­ed as an art­work with seri­ous, even trag­ic, social and philo­soph­i­cal themes.” (1932)
  • The Giv­ing Tree — Free — An ani­mat­ed adap­ta­tion of Shel Sil­ver­stein’s won­der­ful chil­dren’s book. (1973)
  • The John Lennon Sketch­bookFree — Oscar-win­n­ing ani­ma­tor John Cane­mak­er brings to life the draw­ings and doo­dles of John Lennon. (1986)
  • The Junky’s Christ­mas — Free — Short clay­ma­tion film star­ring (and writ­ten by) William S. Bur­roughs. Dan­ny the Car­wiper spends Christ­mas Day try­ing to score a fix, but finds the Christ­mas spir­it instead. Pro­duced by Cop­po­la. (1993)
  • The Leg­end of Robert John­son — Free — Ani­ma­tion of the famous blues­man­’s fabled deal with the dev­il. (2011)
  • The Mas­cot Free — This 1934 film by the Russ­ian ani­ma­tor Wla­dys­law Starewicz pio­neered a num­ber of stop ani­ma­tion tech­niques, mak­ing it a sem­i­nal film in the his­to­ry of ani­ma­tion. (1934)
  • The Meta­mor­pho­sis of Mr. Sam­saFree — A won­der­ful sand ani­ma­tion of the clas­sic Kaf­ka sto­ry, The Meta­mor­pho­sis. Made by Car­o­line Leaf. (1977)
  • The Mir­a­cle of Flight Free — A cutout ani­ma­tion by Ter­ry Gilliam. Made in the style of (but sep­a­rate­ly from) Mon­ty Python. (1974)
  • The Night­mare Before Christ­mas — Free — Christo­pher Lee nar­rates a beau­ti­ful ani­ma­tion of Tim Burton’s poem, Night­mare Before Christ­mas.
  • The NoseFree — Cre­at­ed by Alexan­der Alex­eieff and Claire Park­er, this ani­ma­tion uses an amaz­ing pin­screen tech­nique to adapt Niko­lai Gogol’s clas­sic sto­ry. (1963)
  • The Old Man and the Sea — Free — Alek­san­dr Petrov won the Acad­e­my Award for Short Film for this film that fol­lows the plot of Ernest Hemingway’s clas­sic 1952 novel­la. Made of 29,000 images paint­ed on glass. (1999)
  • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Free — Exper­i­men­tal film cre­at­ed by Lar­ry Jor­dan, an inde­pen­dent film­mak­er who tried to mar­ry “the clas­sic engrav­ings of Gus­tave Doré to the clas­sic poem by Samuel Tay­lor Coleridge through a clas­sic nar­ra­tor: Orson Welles. (1977)
  • The Romance of Trans­porta­tion in Cana­daFree — Cre­at­ed by influ­en­tial Cana­di­an film­mak­er Col­in Low, this ani­ma­tion won a Short Film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. (1952)
  • The Sand Cas­tle — Free — Short ani­mat­ed film about the sand­man and the crea­tures he sculpts out of sand. 1977 Oscar-win­n­er for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
  • The Self­ish Giant — Free — An Oscar-nom­i­­nat­ed ani­mat­ed ver­sion of Oscar Wilde’s chil­dren’s sto­ry by the same title. (1971)
  • The Sin­gle LifeFree — A short Oscar nom­i­nat­ed ani­ma­tion about how music–particularly vinyl records–can trans­port us to mag­i­cal places. (2015)
  • The Sink­ing of the Lusi­ta­nia — Free — Ear­ly ani­ma­tor Win­sor McCay doc­u­ments in 12 min­utes the sink­ing of the RMS Lusi­ta­nia. (1918)
  • The Skele­ton DanceFree — A Sil­ly Sym­pho­ny ani­mat­ed short sub­ject pro­duced and direct­ed by Walt Dis­ney and ani­mat­ed by Ub Iwerks. It was vot­ed #18 of the 50 Great­est Car­toons of all time by mem­bers of the ani­ma­tion field. (1929)
  • The Spir­it of ’43 — Free — Dis­ney pro­pa­gan­da film made for the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment. Fea­tures Don­ald Duck. (1943)
  • The Star of Beth­le­hemFree — Made by leg­endary Ger­man ani­ma­tor Lotte Reiniger, this short uses sil­hou­ette ani­ma­tion to tell the Christ­mas sto­ry. (1956)
  • The Sto­ry Of Men­stru­a­tion Free — Walt Disney’s sex ed film was shown to mil­lions of Amer­i­can stu­dents from the 1940s to the 1960s. (1946)
  • The Sto­ry of Stuff — Free — Ani­mat­ed fact-filled look at the under­side of our pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion pat­terns. (2007)
  • The Tale and the Fox — Free — Ladis­las Starevich’s clas­sic ani­ma­tion of a Ger­man folk­tale adapt­ed by Goethe. (1937)
  • The Tell-Tale Heart — Free — Ani­mat­ed ver­sion of Edgar Allan Poe’s clas­sic from 1953. Nar­rat­ed by James Mason.
  • There Will Come Soft Rain — Free — A Ray Brad­bury sto­ry adapt­ed by Uzbek direc­tor Naz­im Tyuh­ladziev. Sec­ond video down. (1984)
  • The World of Stain­boyFree —  A series of flash ani­ma­tion shorts cre­at­ed by Tim Bur­ton and ani­mat­ed by Flinch Stu­dio. (2000)
  • Tin Toy — Free — John Las­seter cre­at­ed this Oscar-win­n­ing short film in 1988 at Pixar. It was the begin­ning of the com­pa­ny’s tran­si­tion into being a pre­mier ani­ma­tion stu­dio.
  • Tom Waits for No OneFree — A Tom Waits music video made with pio­neer­ing ani­ma­tion. Made with 5,500 roto­scoped frames, the film help John Lamb win an Oscar for Sci­en­tif­ic & Tech­ni­cal Achieve­ment. (1979)
  • Toot, Whis­tle, Plunk and Boom — Free — Dis­ney’s music edu­ca­tion film. First car­toon released in widescreen Cin­e­maS­cope. Wins 1954 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject (Car­toons). (1953)
  • UCLA Silent Ani­ma­tion Archive Free — Col­lec­tion of the ear­li­est ani­ma­tions from the silent era.
  • Vin­cent — Free — Tim Bur­ton’s ear­ly ani­mat­ed film hon­or­ing Vin­cent Price, actor in Amer­i­can hor­ror films. (1982)
  • Voy­age to Next — Free — Direct­ed by John Hub­ley and Faith Hub­ley, this short ani­mat­ed film fea­tures the voic­es of Dizzy Gille­spie and Mau­reen Sta­ple­ton, and the char­ac­ters won­der whether the world can avoid annihilation.(1974)
  • Vin­ni-Pukh — Free — Sovi­et ani­ma­tions of Win­nie the Pooh, cre­at­ed by the inno­v­a­tive ani­ma­tor Fyo­dor Khitruk. (1969–1972)
  • Walk­ing — Free — Oscar-nom­i­­nat­ed ani­mat­ed short film by Ryan Larkin. (1969)
  • Why Man Cre­ates Free — Saul Bass’ Oscar-win­n­ing ani­ma­tion on the nature of cre­ativ­i­ty. (1963)

For more Free Cul­ture, see our oth­er major col­lec­tions: Free Cours­es Online, Free Audio Books, Free Lan­guage Lessons, and Free eBooks.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.