The Roku Channel has emerged as a hidden gem of the modern streaming era. The free-to-use streaming platform has a wide array of great movies, including some classics and some impressive-but-underrated flicks that you might have never heard of before. Even better, they are all available to watch for free with ads, regardless of whether you’re trying to check out a film that flew completely under your radar a few years ago or an iconic movie that you just have not had the chance to check off your watchlist yet.
Here are the seven best movies you stream on the Roku Channel right now.
“No One Will Save You” (2023)
Writer-director Brian Duffield’s “No One Will Save You” is one of the most underrated science fiction films of the last five years. Originally a straight-to-streaming Hulu exclusive, the film is a lean, almost completely dialogue-free thriller about a young seamstress (Kaitlyn Dever) who lives alone and finds herself fighting for her life when her small town is invaded by identity-snatching gray aliens. Clocking in at just 93 minutes long, “No One Will Save You” keeps you on the edge of your seat for nearly its entire runtime.
It hits you with one breath-stealing set piece after another, all while building toward emotional revelations and moments of catharsis that hit harder than you will expect. There are few movies on the Roku Channel that offer as entertaining and rewarding of an experience in as short an amount of time as “No One Will Save You” does.
“The Fog” (1980)
“The Fog,” director John Carpenter‘s follow-up to 1978’s “Halloween,” is not as well-known or widely beloved as that seminal horror classic. But “The Fog” crackles with the same sinister sense of invention that makes “Halloween” — and all of Carpenter’s best films, for that matter — seem so revelatory. The movie follows the inhabitants of a sleepy seaside town who find themselves laid siege by a strange, supernatural fog that brings with it vengeful ghosts of the town’s past.
Thick with dread-inducing atmosphere, “The Fog” patiently builds to a third act that is as engaging as it is stomach-churning, and that is to say nothing of the film’s iconic, gasp-worthy final shot. The latter moment ensures that “The Fog” goes out exactly how it should: with brutal, macabre finality.
“Legally Blonde” (2001)
American comedies just do not get much more iconic than this. 2001’s “Legally Blonde” is the endlessly quotable, entertaining comedy that launched Reese Witherspoon into superstardom. Directed by Robert Luketic and written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the film follows Elle Woods (Witherspoon), a seemingly superficial sorority girl who decides to win back her dismissive ex-boyfriend by getting a degree from Harvard Law School.
Unlike many of its lesser imitators, “Legally Blonde” finds the perfect balance between good-natured humor and acidic, tongue-in-cheek snark. It loves its protagonist and yet it skillfully mines all the humor it can out of the cultural clashes presented by her fish-out-of-water story. The resulting film is one of the most enduring big-screen comedies of the 21st century.
“Starman” (1984)
“Starman” is the second John Carpenter film on this list. Like “The Fog,” this 1984 sci-fi romance is one of the filmmaker’s most underappreciated gems. Written by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon, the film follows the relationship that grows between a grieving widow (Karen Allen) and the alien who travels to Earth and takes the form of her deceased human husband (Jeff Bridges). “Starman” is more romantic and tender than many of Carpenter’s other films, and that only makes it stand out more in his filmography.
It is a miraculous genre experiment — a sci-fi film that should not work and yet does. Together, Carpenter, Allen and Bridges ground “Starman” at every turn in real, relatable human emotions of wonder, connection, love and loss. Despite Carpenter’s reputation as one of the more cynical and ruthless filmmakers of his generation, “Starman” stands proudly as a cousin to the other, more optimistic sci-fi blockbusters of its time, namely “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” It does not ever quite reach that film’s memorable heights… but it comes closer than you might expect.
“She’s Funny That Way” (2015)
Here is a film you likely have never heard of before. “She’s Funny That Way” is a contemporary screwball comedy directed by one of the masters of the genre, Peter Bogdanovich. An ensemble comedy, the film follows a well-meaning playwright (Owen Wilson) whose extra-marital affair with an aspiring actress and call girl (Imogen Poots) throws him into the center of a hilarious, awkward web of romance, longing and jealousy involving his wife (Kathryn Hahn), her ex-lover (Rhys Ifans) and other eccentric characters.
It is ridiculous, and knowingly so, and the film pulls that off with incredible, astonishing ease. A hidden gem if there’s ever been one, “She’s Funny That Way” is a bubbly, infectious fun that is almost too cute and absurd for its own good. Almost.
“Point Break” (1991)
Kathryn Bigelow’s “Point Break” finds the perfect line between ridiculous and grounded. Written by W. Peter Iliff, the film follows an undercover FBI agent (Keanu Reeves) who is tasked with infiltrating a group of California surfers (led by Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi) who have been leading double lives as merciless, masked bank robbers. A difficult, morally complex relationship eventually forms between Reeves’ Johnny Utah and Swayze’s ambitious thief, which brings a thorny edge to all of the film’s masterfully staged, thrilling set pieces.
“Point Break” is a movie that plays decidedly by its own rules. It embraces all of its many idiosyncrasies with an energy and a punk-rock spirit that completely sweeps you away, all while both it and its characters hurtle past multiple points of no return and toward increasingly startling moments of violence and action.
“Nightcrawler” (2014)
Speaking of movies that follow their own rules, “Nightcrawler” is both a striking, cinematic portrait of an anti-hero and one of the most cynical explorations of the mechanics of capitalism that has ever been put to screen. Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, this unforgettable, engrossing neo-noir follows a broke, ruthless man (Jake Gyllenhaal) who finds unlikely success as a freelance videographer for a local Los Angeles news station.
Desperate to find the respect he has long desired, “Nightcrawler” follows its protagonist as he resorts to increasingly violent and morally abhorrent means to reach the level of success he wants. Shot with slick, ice-cold style by Gilroy, “Nightcrawler” doubles as simultaneously a rousing underdog story and a chilling portrait of cold-hearted American ambition. It’s not always easy to watch, but you can’t ever look away, either.
