Invite your friends to join AARP. Earn money when they do. Sign Up

Content starts here

The 10 Best Movies and Shows to Stream for Free in September

Save money by catching these free offerings on streaming platforms including YouTube, Tubi and Kanopy

Thom Geier,

AARP

Published August 28, 2026

Erika Alexander and Jeffrey Wright in a scene from American Fiction

Erika Alexander and Jeffrey Wright costar in the 2023 film "American Fiction," streaming for free in September on Pluto, Roku Channel, Tubi and YouTube.

MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

While the monthly costs of major streaming services like Netflix and HBO Max continue to climb, a host of streamers like YouTube, Tubi, Pluto and Plex offer first-rate content at a more affordable price: free. Most of these services are supported by ads, so expect a longer runtime and the occasional untimely interruption midscene. Some services, like Kanopy and Hoopla, are available through your local public library, while others ask you to sign up for a free account. Here are some of the choicest offerings you can stream for free in September.

More Ways to Benefit

View All

Related Benefit 1
Related Benefit 2
Related Benefit 3
Related Benefit 4
Related Benefit 5

American Fiction (2023, R)

Jeffrey Wright, 60, delivers a career-best performance as a widely praised but just as widely unread novelist, frustrated that popular Black entertainment relies on offensive stereotypes. So he decides to write a deliberately outrageous, cliché-riddled book about an inner city gangster — and is horrified when it becomes a giant bestseller. Cord Jefferson earned an Oscar for his script, adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, Erasure, and exhibits firm control of the tricky satirical elements in his directorial debut.

Watch it: American Fiction on Pluto, Roku Channel, Tubi, YouTube

Big Fish (2003, PG-13)

There are few father-son reconciliation stories quite like this fable from Tim Burton, in which a skeptical journalist (Ewan McGregor) tries to fact-check his dying father’s many tall tales about his youth. Turns out all those fantastical yarns about giants, witches and even a mermaid have a grain of truth in them. What’s more, embellishing the dark chapters of our past may be the best coping mechanism. This is a memorable story full of both whimsy and heartache.

Watch it: Big Fish on Tubi

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: London Calling Live in Hyde Park (2010, NR)

Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band storm London’s Hyde Park in a memorable three-hour concert performance from 2009 that begins in daylight and ends at night. Age 60 at the time and complaining about mounting the stairs to the stage, the Boss is nevertheless in full voice and energy, cranking out hits like “Glory Days” and “Rosalita” as well as rarities such as “Seeds” and “Johnny 99.”

Watch it: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: London Calling on Kanopy, YouTube

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Seasons 1–4

In this deliciously daffy rom-com TV series that ran from 2015 to 2019, Rachel Bloom stars as an accomplished Manhattan lawyer who bumps into a boyfriend from her summer camp days and impulsively decides to uproot her life for the modest charms of West Covina, California. Bonus: The show is also a musical, featuring addictively catchy original songs by the late tunesmith Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne.

Watch it: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Pluto

Eighth Grade (2018, R)

Comedian Bo Burnham’s debut film, a masterpiece of observational humor, centers on a shy preteen named Kayla (played by the remarkable Elsie Fisher) who channels her anxiety into a YouTube vlog with an audience of zero. But how else can a young girl process her feelings about her battles with acne, active-shooter drills in school, her well-meaning single dad (Josh Hamilton) and the need to Google information about sex just to keep up with her peers? The movie is both timeless and particular, a window into the plight of modern kids.

Watch it: Eighth Grade on Plex, Roku Channel

The Great American Baking Show, Seasons 1–4

Who knew there was an American cousin of The Great British Bakeoff? Here, amateur bakers travel from the U.S. to the U.K.’s fabled cooking tent and have their creations judged by Paul Hollywood, 60, and Prue Leith, 86. Hosted by Andrew Rannells and Casey Wilson, the show also includes a few special episodes, like “Celebrity Summer” in 2025, featuring Modern Family alum Jesse Tyler Ferguson, 50, and black-ish’s Yara Shahidi.

Watch it: The Great American Baking Show on Roku Channel

Layer Cake (2004, R)

Two years before he gained international fame as a grittier James Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, Daniel Craig gave a memorable star turn as a suave London cocaine dealer hoping to get out of the game — until his boss hands him one last task: rescuing the kidnapped socialite daughter of a powerful construction tycoon. Naturally, nothing goes smoothly in this early, stylish thriller from director Matthew Vaughn (who went on to direct the Elton John biopic Rocketman and the Kingsman spy series).

Watch it: Layer Cake on Xumo

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2022, PG)

Voiced by comedian Jenny Slate, Marcel is an inch-tall mollusk who sounds like a little boy and navigates the scary-big world in search of his long-lost family with a forthright manner. Marcel, who first appeared in a popular series of online shorts, more than earns the feature-length film treatment: There’s plenty of charm in this Oscar-nominated stop-motion animated adventure. The hero may be wee, but never twee.

Watch it: Marcel the Shell With Shoes On on Fandango, Kanopy, Plex, Pluto, Roku Channel, Tubi, YouTube

Three Days of the Condor (1975, R)

Paranoia runs deep in Sydney Pollack’s post-Watergate thriller starring the late Robert Redford as a bookish CIA analyst who gets drawn into actual life-and-death field work when everyone else in his office is gunned down. It’s a suspenseful cat-and-mouse yarn that plays into our suspicion that there are deep-state forces bent on maintaining the status quo.

Watch it: Three Days of the Condor on Pluto

Yojimbo (1961, NR)

Sometimes it takes an outsider to transform a great American art form. Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa did just this to the modern Western with his classic film about a nameless, masterless ronin (Toshiro Mifune) in feudal Japan who pits two rival gangs against each other to ensure their mutual destruction. The film’s savvy blend of noirish cynicism and propulsive action influenced spaghetti Westerns like Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and later action films built around taciturn but clever antiheroes.

Watch it: Yojimbo on Kanopy

Thom Geier is an AARP contributor and the award-winning former executive editor of TheWrap, senior editor at Entertainment Weekly, film reporter at The Hollywood Reporter and associate editor at U.S. News & World Report.

AARP Membership

Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.

Join