YouTube isn’t just for watching content made by your favorite creators and streamers. It also features heaps of legal movies and TV shows—and you don’t even need YouTube Premium to benefit!
How to Browse YouTube’s Movie Library
Rather than risk watching a movie illegally on YouTube, it has an entire library of movies and TV shows available. It’s the official way, in other words.
- Visit YouTube through a browser or launch the YouTube app.
- Using a browser, select Your Movies & TV on the left-hand side. In the YouTube app, select your profile icon, then select Movies & TV.
- From there, you can browse movies to buy, rent, or watch for free.
Now, if you watch a free movie, it will have ads, similar to Netflix’s ad-supported tier. However, if you have YouTube Premium, you can enjoy movies and TV shows without interruption. Whether that makes YouTube Premium worth the cost is still up for debate, though.
The selection is decent enough, especially under the primetime movies and TV shows section. That’s where you’ll find content you’ve actually heard of. However, you’ll quickly notice, like I did, that many newer releases are only available to rent or buy.
How to Find YouTube Channels With Free Movies
Other than YouTube, plenty of channels host movies and TV shows legally, and it all comes down to licensing. You can quickly check if a channel is legitimate by checking a few key characteristics:
- The movie or TV show’s official licensing is listed in the information, such as “Licensed from [Company Name].”
- Doubly so if said channel also mentions official licensing and contracts on its About page.
- Movies and TV shows in the public domain are fair game.
That’s not to say every channel with these characteristics is legitimate, but it does add credibility. You really want to avoid channels that host movies with no credits or licensing, poor quality, and ads. Those are almost always YouTube channels committing copyright infringement.
However, even with those tips, finding free movies and shows on YouTube is often difficult. There are several YouTube channels featuring heaps of free movies and shows, including Movie Central, Horror Central, and PizzaFlix. Furthermore, you’re not limited by YouTube; there are many other sites where you can find free legal films to watch.
How to Find Movies You Purchased on YouTube
With Google and YouTube being linked, any movie or TV show you buy (or rent) on Google Play is also available for streaming on YouTube. It’s pretty handy if you’re using a device that doesn’t support Google Play but supports the YouTube app.
- Visit YouTube through a browser or launch the YouTube app.
- Using a browser, select Your Movies & TV on the left-hand side; using the YouTube app, select your profile icon, then select Movies & TV.
- Along the top, under the Explore section, select the Purchased tab.
Anything you own will be available right there for you to watch—free of ads.
Overall, YouTube is a handy way to watch entire movies and TV shows, completely legal and even for free. It’s not a bad option if you need to cancel your subscriptions for a month or two and need some entertainment to keep you sane. And if you want a change of pace, there are plenty of radio stations on YouTube to vibe to.
