Streaming plays such a vital role in movie watching, and with so many options out there on a multitude of competing platforms, it can feel overwhelming when it comes time to pick the flick for you. Here are five movies to watch currently streaming for free on Tubi:

SHOWGIRLS (1995) 

Now here’s a movie that doesn’t need me to defend it, but I will anyway. A notorious critical and commercial disaster upon release, the cult following for Paul Verhoeven’s glamour epic Showgirls has only blossomed since, reclaimed originally as a so-bad-it’s-good camp classic prior to a less condescending reassessment as an intentionally garish satire boldly constructed by an essential foreign-born satirist of modern American culture. Elizabeth Berkeley (whose career never recovered from the film’s initial backlash) stars as Nomi Malone, a young drifter with a sketchy past who hitchhikes to Las Vegas in the hopes of stardom, finds a job dancing at the local strip joint, and eventually catches the eye of Sin City’s queen bee of burlesque. From there, Nomi gets a first-hand look at the grotesque, male-dominated world of showbiz, where women are constantly exploited and forced to fight amongst themselves like rabid dogs to protect their status within capitalism’s artificial oasis. Verhoeven is widely respected in cineaste circles for his ability to use taste-shattering low art as a Trojan horse for his provocative critiques of the right-wing ideologies embedded in mainstream society, whether it be the relationship between privatization and the police state in Robocop or fascist military propaganda in Starship Troopers (which has its own history as a misinterpreted text), and this “Rated NC-17 for nudity and erotic sexuality throughout” film is no different in its end-goal. But there’s nothing wrong with laughing at Showgirls and its gaudy portrait of excess; it wants you to (in its most hysterical moments, you can sense Verhoeven grinning from ear to ear in the director’s chair), but try to keep in mind that everything’s of a piece. It’s also just a pure cinema spectacle; the way the camera moves around a scene is objectively masterful, whether you’re in on the joke or not. So, in summary, the cool kids love Showgirls unironically now; don’t you want to be cool?

LONE STAR (1996)

“Skeletal remains are unearthed in Frontera, Texas, revealing long-held secrets of the town elders.” You could call it a murder mystery or a neo-western and you’d be on the right track, but more importantly than any genre tag, Lone Star is a mosaic of American (and specifically, Texan) history, with writer/director/editor John Sayles using a small southern border town and its many ghosts as a microcosm for our shared past, present, and potential future. The indie auteur’s base in literature is obvious; his exceptionally rich script is loaded with a diverse population of dimensional characters and their own seemingly disparate storylines, and every scene is treated with such vibrancy and detail while maintaining a constant narrative and thematic momentum that each transition feels like the next chapter in a Great American Novel. The stacked cast includes Oscar winners Chris Cooper, Frances McDormand, and Matthew McConaughey (in a brief but crucial role), character actor standouts Joe Morton and Elizabeth Peña, and outlaw country legend Kris Kristofferson as a corrupt sheriff. 

CITY OF HOPE (1991)

Another Sayles picture, this one has never been given a proper home video release, making its presence on streaming platforms a moral act of film preservation at this point. Like his later masterwork I’ve already mentioned, City of Hope is an ensemble piece about the trials and tribulations of a multicultural community in flux, except here, Sayles is tackling the densely populated urban setting centered around a shady local real estate deal with far-reaching consequences. While actually filmed in Cincinnati, the name of the titular city of hope is never explicitly mentioned (it certainly reads as East Coast), which tracks with Sayles’ idea for his fictional metropolis to act as a symbol for all municipalities struggling with poverty, racism, gentrification, dirty politics, police brutality, and an underfunded education system (sound familiar?). You can definitely see its DNA in something like HBO’s The Wire, so if you’re a fan of that show’s inside-baseball depiction of institutional decay, give this one a shot. And stay for the end credits song, which features a breathtakingly beautiful vocal performance while doubling as Sayles’ final plea for collective perseverance.

OUT OF BOUNDS (1986)

We all remember Anthony Michael Hall, right? The nerdy kid in all those John Hughes movies. Well, what if I told you there was an earnest effort made post-Breakfast Club to reboot his image as a legit action star with Out of Bounds, an extremely 80’s hidden gem about a corn-eating, yes ma’am-saying Iowa farm boy named Daryl who moves to LA and immediately gets in deep water with a violent drug smuggler after a bag mix-up at the airport, forcing Daryl to go on the run with ten kilos of heroin and the alt-girl of his dreams. Once the novelty of the geek from Sixteen Candles playing against type wears off, you’re still left with a solid, economical neon-noir jam heavy on atmosphere, equal parts True Romance, No Country for Old Men, and a post-punk music video.

PALO ALTO (2013)

Full disclosure: I turned thirty this year, so I can confidently say I have no concept of what it’s like to be a teenager nowadays. I can only imagine it’s still something like Palo Alto, a generation-defining document of high school angst filtered through tumblr-core impressionism. Loosely adapted from a clumsy collection of short stories by would-be Renaissance man James Franco, writer/director Gia Coppola (niece of Sofia, granddaughter of Francis) miraculously finds the delicacy and authenticity in the source material’s superficial prose. Due in part to its problematic origins, narrative cohesion isn’t a strong suit (conventional A-to-B plotting isn’t really the project here either), but what goes a long way is how it captures this specific zillennial milieu honestly through textured mise en scène, a sharp eye for compositions, and a suitably vibey soundtrack (co-authored by indie pop icon Dev Hynes and Robert Schwartzman, another Coppola), all anchored by a couple revelatory performances from Emma Roberts (niece of Julia) and Jack Kilmer (son of Val). So maybe nepo babies aren’t always a bad thing; maybe sometimes artistry is just genetic.