Horror. Western. Romance. Action. Thriller. YouTube has some of the best films each genre has to offer, streaming entirely free in June. Plus, you can watch one of Steven Spielberg’s most celebrated movies in time for “Disclosure Day” or check out a Sandra Bullock classic.
Here are the seven best movies free on YouTube in June.
“Children of Men”
In Alfonso Cuarón’s “Children of Men,” based on P. D. James’ novel “The Children of Men,” nearly two decades of global infertility come to an end as a civil servant and a pregnant woman attempt to survive dystopia. It’s a gripping film, brilliantly directed by Cuarón and expertly shot by Emmanuel Lubezki. “Children of Men” is one of the century’s best.
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
Classic isn’t a strong enough word for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” Sergio Leone’s 1966 western to end all westerns. The film, penned by Leone, Luciano Vincenzoni and the screenwriting duo of Age and Scarpelli, is a true epic, a story of bounty hunters and scoundrels in the Wild West. These three hours will fly right by.
“It Happened One Night”
“It Happened One Night” made Academy Awards history in 1935 — not just for delivering Frank Capra his first Oscar, but also for becoming the first of three films to win the “Big Five” prizes of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and “Best Adaptation” (now Best Adapted Screenplay). The movie is worthy of all that and more, a funny and energetic rom-com that could give many of the genre’s modern entries a run for their money.
“The Matrix”
It’s almost impossible to think of a world without “The Matrix” — or at least the vernacular of it. In their 1999 sci-fi action film, The Wachowskis created an evergreen piece of art about feeling that your life is not your own, that the world you live in is a fabrication. It’s a landmark entry into the queer cinematic canon and one of the strongest films ever made in the action and sci-fi genres. Simply put, it’s one of the best movies ever — and one of the most important.
“Miss Congeniality”
Being an FBI agent can take you to a lot of strange places. Like a Miss United States beauty pageant. That’s the situation Sandra Bullock’s Gracie Hart finds herself in in Donald Petrie’s “Miss Congeniality” (written by Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford and Caryn Lucas), going undercover as Miss New Jersey to stop a domestic terrorist threat at the Texas-set pageant. This is like that time FBI Agent Keanu Reeves had to hang out with those surfers.
“Saving Private Ryan”
Steven Spielberg returned to theaters in June with “Disclosure Day,” a film that feels like the closing statement on his sci-fi filmography. But Spielberg was never confined to one genre. Just as he mastered the action movie, the horror film, the science fiction flick, the biopic, Spielberg too delivered one of the definitive war movies in “Saving Private Ryan.” To this day, the opening sequence of this film is the gold standard reference point for intense on-the-ground action — even for sci-fi films like the upcoming “Dune: Part Three.“
“Split”
M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split” is a solid horror movie kept afloat by a masterful performance from James McAvoy. It is credited, alongside “The Visit,” as the film that pulled Shyamalan, once a celebrated filmmaker, out of the muck of a string of consecutive flops like “The Happening,” “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth.” It was an invigorating moment for fans of Shyamalan’s career, made all the more exciting by the film’s massive surprise of an ending. As “Trap” fans know, Shyamalan is officially “so back.”
