How to Watch Movies on YouTube

YouTube is well known as a video-sharing site with music videos and live broadcasting, but it also offers free online movies in their original full length, some even with closed captions. There are TV shows, too.

The great thing about watching free movies on YouTube is that even though there are millions of videos you could sift through, finding only the full-length, free movies is easy because they're put together by the people at YouTube. This means they're 100% legal to stream. And although they change sometimes as they refresh the catalog, these are often high-quality and well-known titles.

Unless you have YouTube Premium, you'll see ads before and during the video. This, however, is a small price to pay for free movies!

YouTube’s Free Streaming Movies

YouTube's movies are in various genres, so you can watch comedies, adventure and action movies, animated films, documentaries, classics, and horror movies. There are several ways to find these movies, but the best way is through YouTube's curated list.

Movies & TV Page

YouTube's Movies & TV page (the link below) takes you to a well-organized list of all the movies you can watch on the platform. One part of this page is dedicated to just the free movies, making is super simple to start streaming something in seconds.

Primetime Movies List

Unlike other movie sites, YouTube doesn't provide an easy way to browse movies by genre. You'll see what I mean when you visit the link above. A few of the titles are organized by genre, but it's not everything.

To find comedies, dramas, and movies in other genres, I recommend visiting the Primetime movies list. This shows all the YouTube-curated movies you can stream. On that page, do a search for the genre you're interested in.

For example, when I do this for comedy, I see well over 100. Some other ones you can do this with include Western, science fiction, and independent.

Movie Channels

Another way to find films is through specific channels like Cinedigm (formerly Viewster), Maverick Movies, Timeless Classic Movies, Korean Classic Film, and Popcornflix. Go to the Videos tab and sort the movies by popularity or date to find a free film to stream.

Filtered Search

You can also see all the full-length movies on YouTube through the Filters option when searching. You can filter the results to show movies only or change the duration to show only long videos, which should help you find free movies. Some results, however, will be movies you can buy or rent, so it's not the best way to locate just the free titles.

Free Streaming TV Shows at YouTube

There are also free TV shows on YouTube, but they're not easily searchable. The best way to find shows on YouTube that you don't have to rent or buy is to do a manual search, just like you would for any other video. We also keep a list of the best free shows on YouTube. Another way is to browse YouTube's curated list of free Primetime shows.

YouTube’s Video Quality

Videos on YouTube are available from 144p up to high resolutions like 1080p and 4K.

Selecting the small settings icon on the bottom of a video lets you switch between the available quality settings. You can find movies on YouTube in 4K or another resolution through the Features filter when searching.

Benefits of Registering With YouTube

Registering is completely free, and anyone can join. If you have a Google account, like a Gmail email address, you can sign in that way. However, registering isn’t required, so you can watch many free movies without creating an account.

Some videos are rated at a particular maturity level that requires YouTube to verify your age. If this is the case, registering will let you watch even more movies.

Where YouTube Gets Its Movies

Businesses can show free movies on their registered YouTube accounts. Then, those free movies are gathered in one place for easy viewing.

Some movies are from Crackle, Starz, and Cinedigm, to name just a few sources.

You might find a movie one day and then find that it's been removed shortly after. This happens if the agreement YouTube has with the movie studio changes or expires.

Also, because anyone can upload videos, movies you find on an individual's channel might by copyrighted and thus removed for that reason. These types of movies and TV shows are regularly removed to clean up the video collection.

System Requirements for YouTube

It’s necessary to have a web browser like Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Opera to watch videos. And while it's ideal to have an updated operating system like Windows 11 or Windows 10, older versions of Windows and other operating systems are suitable too.

You can also watch movies from your phone or tablet through the YouTube app. It's not as movie-focused as other movie streaming apps, but it works if you don't mind doing some digging.

It’s also important to have at least a 1 Mbps internet connection to ensure a steady stream of good viewing quality (but more is better). Some YouTube content can cause buffering when viewing the videos, but that's usually only a problem on slower connections.