Redbox, known best for its quick-and-easy rentals of new and classic movies, has also launched its own free streaming platform: Redbox Free On Demand. Following the strategy of its rental offerings (the best of which you can find here), the commercial-driven streamer has plenty on offer—spanning everything from indie fare to the kind of horror and action films that’ll please hardcore genre devotees. Now that the service has launched desktop support (it was mobile-only at launch), it’ll be even easier to check out.
Supplementing our larger free and On Demand lists, the former of which collects plenty of other AVOD (ad-based video on demand) services, this Redbox streaming list highlights the best of what the streamer has to offer if sitting through a few advertisements is more worth it to you than paying a rental fee. And it couldn’t be easier to start watching, with no account sign-up necessary. You can access Redbox Free On Demand on Roku, iOS, Android mobile and TVs, and Vizio devices—with LG, Xbox, Samsung, and Google Chromecast support on the way.
In addition to Redbox Free On Demand content, you can also check out our guides to the best movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Hulu, and Disney+. Or visit all our Paste Movie Guides.
Here are the 15 best movies on Redbox Free On Demand:
1. The Void
Year: 2016
Directors: Steven Kostanski, Jeremy Gillespie
Stars: Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh, Daniel Fathers, Kathleen Munroe, Ellen Wong
Rating: NR
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
Viewers should grade writer-directors Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie’s The Void on a curve: While the low-budget Canadian production earns an “A” for ambition, its mélange of The Thing-inspired body horror, ‘80s nostalgia and Lovecraftian cosmic terror doesn’t quite cohere into a satisfying whole by the time its chief antagonist peels away his skin to reveal a bodysuit that looks like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ Lord Zedd. The first half of the film demonstrates much more restraint, building tension as triangle-branded cultists isolate a mismatched group of (mostly) innocent people—led by Aaron Poole as an out-of-his-depth small-town cop—in a (mostly) vacant hospital. Kotanski and Gillespie build in too many potentially conflicting twists—who, exactly, is impregnated with what?—but the grotesque practical effects and descent-into-Hell structure at times pass for a solid Silent Hill adaptation. Some of horror’s most recent, popularly memorable features (say: It Follows, The Babadook) have wisely employed relatively narrow scopes. Instead, The Void attempts to push audiences into another dimension, but manages at least a few successful frights along the way. —Steve Foxe
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Year: 2009
Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Coolidge, Xzibit, Brad Dourif
Rating: R
Runtime: 122 minutes
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
Shot with wild-eyed lenses to truly capture the narcotic- and power-fueled cop at the heart of Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, this non-sequel is a staggering display of Nicolas Cage’s charisma in a workmanlike procedural. Initially, it seems like a bit of an odd bird: Herzog’s playfully dour direction and veteran TV writer William M. Finkelstein’s police drama script fizz and sparkle thanks to one of Cage’s best displays of mania, a few possibly-hallucinated iguanas and a pair of gators—one of which has already been turned into roadkill. But it all meshes together in a satisfyingly reptilian way, the cold-blooded and scaly id now physical and roaming the bayou. Cage smokes crack with Xzibit, busts the balls of Val Kilmer and watches football with a zonked-out Jennifer Coolidge. It’s a world of vice, as familiar yet inscrutable as the film’s bizarre title. The key players all make sense to your brain separately, but together, it’s a spiked cocktail and a bump in the bathroom—conflicting chemicals working in chaotic harmony. It can veer into stretches of unrefined silliness, but that’s part of the pitch-black fun. When you watch Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, you’re watching a cop drama with the saturation turned all the way up—where imagined lizards haunt coffee tables and souls breakdance until more bullets finally end the show. Maybe it’s no coincidence that Finkelstein co-created Cop Rock.—Jacob Oller
3. Prom Night
Year: 1980
Director: Paul Lynch
Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Leslie Nielsen, Casey Stevens, Anne-Marie Martin, Antoinette Bower
Rating: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
It is perhaps odd to think, in the post-Jason Voorhees era of slasher villains, that slasher killers of the early ’80s were often weirdly justified in their slayings. Sure, there are some “escaped maniacs on the loose,” but many are basically avenging angels, punishing groups of young people for a terrible crime they tried to sweep under the rug, with Prom Night standing as one of the classic examples. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis in her first slasher role after Halloween, Prom Night knows it’s trying to cash in on that earlier film’s success, but it also manages to stand on its own, inspiring imitations all the way to I Know What You Did Last Summer. Portions of the film are kind of rote, and even the best-looking versions you can find today have a soft, gauzy quality that makes the picture look a little strange, but when Prom Night is good, it’s great. Oddly, it’s not really Curtis who gets the best sequences, but actress Eddie Benton as Wendy, who participates in one half of what is maybe the best (and certainly most formative) chase sequence in the history of the horror genre. Stalked by an axe-wielding killer in a ski mask, the frenzied, eight-minute scene spools out for an eternity as Wendy is chased through the locked, echoing halls of the high school, illuminated in impressionistic, Argento-esque shafts of red light. Not all of Prom Night can live up to it (the disco dance sequences are dreadful), but the chase alone makes it a classic. —Jim Vorel
4. Ginger Snaps
Year: 2000
Director: John Fawcett
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Ginger Snaps is a high school werewolf story, but before you go making any Twilight comparisons, let me state for the record: Where Twilight is maudlin, Ginger Snaps is vicious. A pair of death-obsessed, outsider sisters, Ginger and Brigitte, are faced with issues of maturation and sexual awakening when Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) is bitten by a werewolf. As she begins to become bolder and more animalistic in her desires, the second, meeker sister (Emily Perkins) searches for a way to reverse the damages before Ginger carves a path of destruction through their community. Reflecting the influence of Cronenberg-style body horror and especially John Landis’s American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps is a surprisingly effective horror movie and mix of drama/black comedy that brought the werewolf mythos into suburbia in the same sort of way Fright Night managed to do so with vampires. It also made a genre star of Isabelle, who has since appeared in several sequels and above average horror flicks such as American Mary. Even if the condition of lycanthropism is an obvious parallel to the struggles of adolescence and puberty, Ginger Snaps is the one film that has taken that rich vein of source material and imbued it with the same kind of punk spirit as Heathers. – —Jim Vorel
5. Black Christmas
Year: 1974
Director: Bob Clark
Stars: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon, Art Hindle, Andrea Martin, Marian Waldman
Rating: R
Runtime: 98 minutes
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Fun fact: Nine years before he directed holiday classic A Christmas Story, Bob Clark created the first true, unassailable “slasher movie” in Black Christmas. Yes, the same person who gave TBS its annual Christmas Eve marathon fodder was also responsible for the first major cinematic application of the phrase “The calls are coming from inside the house!” Black Christmas, which was insipidly remade in 2006, predates John Carpenter’s Halloween by four years and features many of the same elements, especially visually. Like Halloween, it lingers heavily on POV shots from the killer’s eyes as he prowls through a dimly lit sorority house and spies on his future victims. As the mentally deranged killer calls the house and engages in obscene phone calls with the female residents, one can’t help but also be reminded of the scene in Carpenter’s film where Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) calls her friend Lynda, only to hear her strangled with the telephone cord. Black Christmas is also instrumental, and practically archetypal, in solidifying the slasher trope of the so-called “final girl.” Jessica Bradford (Olivia Hussey) is actually among the better-realized of these final girls in the history of the genre, a remarkably strong and resourceful young woman who can take care of herself in both her relationships and deadly scenarios. It’s questionable how many subsequent slashers have been able to create protagonists who are such a believable combination of capable and realistic. —Jim Vorel
6. Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Year: 2016
Director: Taika Waititi
Stars: Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, Rhys Darby
Rating: NR
Runtime: 101 minutes
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
Bella’s (Rima Te Wiata) first encounter with Ricky (Julian Dennison), the new foster child she’s agreed to take on, doesn’t inspire confidence, especially with her clumsy jokes at the expense of his weight. In turn, with child-services representative Paula (Rachel House) painting Ricky as an unruly wild child, one dreads the prospect of seeing the kid walk all over this possibly in-over-her-head mother. But Bella wears him down with kindness. And Ricky ends up less of a tough cookie than he—with his fondness for gangsta rap and all that implies—initially tried to project. An adaptation of Barry Crump’s novel Wild Pork and Watercress, Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople thrives on upending preconceived notions. The director shows sympathy for Ricky’s innocence, which is reflected in the film’s grand-adventure style. Cinematographer Lachlan Milne’s sweeping, colorful panoramas and a chapter-based narrative structure gives Hunt for the Wilderpeople the feel of a storybook fable, but thanks to the warm-hearted dynamic between Ricky and Hec (Sam Neill), even the film’s most whimsical moments carry a sense of real underlying pain: Both of these characters are outsiders ultimately looking for a home to call their own. —Kenji Fujishima
7. The Proposition
Year: 2005
Director: John Hillcoat
Stars: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, John Hurt
Rating: R
Runtime: 104 minutes
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
If you’ve ever sat and wondered what Hell might look like, check out John Hillcoat’s The Proposition, in which Hell happens to look an awful lot like the Australian outback. You may not anticipate that shifting locales from one arid and unforgiving ecosystem to another would lend that much impact to a film’s visual texture, but The Proposition feels like a distinctly Aussie production even before you hear the accents. Nationality isn’t what makes the picture feel so utterly accursed, though; it’s the sheer unrelenting brutality. There’s a thematic nugget at The Proposition’s core that links it to John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a movie about lawful men trying against all good sense to tame wild lands and civilize lawless men. But Ford’s film never even tries to ascend the peaks of barbarity that The Proposition comes to rest upon through its final moments, where blood is answered with more blood and violent action can only be stopped by a violent response. —Andy Crump
8. Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
Year: 2021
Director: Marilyn Agrelo
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In director Marilyn Agrelo’s documentary Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, past cast members, puppeteers, show developers and more come together to talk about the show’s origins and the global influence of the PBS children’s education program—growing from the 2008 book of the same name by former TV Guide editor Michael Davis. In an opening sequence, a man sings the praises of Sesame Street co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney saying, “What she is doing is what TV would do if it loved people instead of trying to sell to people and there’s all the difference in the world.” The documentary is tonally propelled by these sentiments and by the palpable affinity and pride that Sesame Street’s creators have in the legacy of the show, but also by a series of compelling, well-recounted personal narratives and anecdotes about the show’s history. Editor Ben Gold elegantly splices behind-the-scenes footage of renowned puppeteers like Frank Oz (Bert, Grover) and, of course, Jim Henson (Ernie, Kermit) together to shed light on the art of puppetry and the show’s early days. But through Agrelo’s direction, the film showcases the humans who imbued so much humanity into some of our favorite monster characters. For example, Big Bird, who was operated and voiced by Carol Spinney, is supposed to be a child-like monster compared to the more palpable maturity of Kermit the Frog. Big Bird was written to be a peer to the audience. Similarly, Oscar the Grouch (also operated by Spinney) was written to show that curmudgeons like him, or at least “people with a different point of view could be your friend.” Street Gang strategically incorporates older interviews with late contributors like Jon Stone, Sesame Street’s long-time director, and Joe Raposo, one of the show’s musical titans, to ensure that their influence and presence are equally honored in this cinematic ode to the show’s early days. One of the greatest strengths of Street Gang is its insistence that you know the faces, names and impact of the show’s creators and early cast. Street Gang becomes a thoughtfully crafted documentary about the creation of Sesame Street and the social repercussions of developing an educational cultural institution—a reliable, televised environment “where the air is sweet.” I recommend a box of tissues for an especially stirring sequence in which former Sesame Street head writer Norman Stiles discusses what it was like to write a scene in which Big Bird processes Mr. Hooper’s death for the first time. Otherwise, the documentary’s abundance of archival footage and personal yarns will immerse viewers in the wonderful world of Sesame Street and remind them how powerful, influential art grows from bright ideas and enthusiastic, collaborative minds.—Adesola Thomas
9. The Love Witch
Year: 2016
Director: Anna Biller
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If you watch The Love Witch with no knowledge of its production or point of origin, you might assume it’s a lost gem of 1960s or 1970s supernatural filmmaking that’s only recently been recovered, restored and released to the public for niche consumption. This isn’t the case, of course, but nobody would fault your logic. Biller’s style is set in the bygone days of B-movie camp, though unlike similar faux-retro productions, à la 2012’s disingenuously nostalgic The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, there’s unabashed joy to her mimicry that reminds us how much fun the flicks The Love Witch emulates can be in spite of, or maybe because of, their badness. The film’s cheese factor is its single most obvious element next to Biller’s enthusiasm for kitsch and her emphasis on superb production design. Samantha Robinson’s ravishing (but equally deluded) witch in search of “true love” never stops to consider whether she has any idea of what those words truly mean, or what personal freedoms are okay to trample in the process. Unsurprisingly, there’s a horror element present in giving so much magical power to a person with such an infantile grasp of right and wrong–like the little boy in The Twilight Zone’s “It’s a Good Life,” you’d be wise not to upset her. —Andy Crump
10. We Need to Talk About Kevin
Year: 2017
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Stars: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller
Rating: R
Runtime: 111 minutes
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
A pitch-black drama from writer/director Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a fascinating study of a sociopath, a family, and the former’s effect on the latter. While it allows Ezra Miller to showcase his alienesque abilities as a problem child, the film’s richest element is the evolving relationship between his parents (John C. Reilly and Tilda Swinton). Reilly and Swinton construct a fractured window into a marriage, with one (possibly evil) rock thrown square through it. Gripping and disturbing, Ramsay’s effort (co-written by Rory Stewart Kinnear) strikes at a vague yet central parental fear through its horrifying specificity: what happens if I screw this up? —Jacob Oller
11. Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Year: 2016
Director: Taika Waititi
Stars: Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, Rhys Darby
Rating: NR
Runtime: 101 minutes
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
Bella’s (Rima Te Wiata) first encounter with Ricky (Julian Dennison), the new foster child she’s agreed to take on, doesn’t inspire confidence, especially with her clumsy jokes at the expense of his weight. In turn, with child-services representative Paula (Rachel House) painting Ricky as an unruly wild child, one dreads the prospect of seeing the kid walk all over this possibly in-over-her-head mother. But Bella wears him down with kindness. And Ricky ends up less of a tough cookie than he—with his fondness for gangsta rap and all that implies—initially tried to project. An adaptation of Barry Crump’s novel Wild Pork and Watercress, Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople thrives on upending preconceived notions. The director shows sympathy for Ricky’s innocence, which is reflected in the film’s grand-adventure style. Cinematographer Lachlan Milne’s sweeping, colorful panoramas and a chapter-based narrative structure gives Hunt for the Wilderpeople the feel of a storybook fable, but thanks to the warm-hearted dynamic between Ricky and Hec (Sam Neill), even the film’s most whimsical moments carry a sense of real underlying pain: Both of these characters are outsiders ultimately looking for a home to call their own. —Kenji Fujishima
12. Smiley Face
Year: 2007
Director: Gregg Araki
Stars: Anna Faris, John Krasinski, Adam Brody
Rating: R
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
We here at Paste are big fans of Anna Faris, and one of her most underrated roles is as the happy-go-lucky stoner Jane, who meanders her way through the delightfully directionless Smiley Face. Scratch that—you can follow the alphabet throughout the film, which appears as an Easter egg of sorts. Aspiring actor Jane accidentally consumes her weird roommate’s cannabis cupcakes at the beginning of Smiley Face, thwarting her plans to go to a big audition later that day. Her misadventures are peppered with now-famous faces: Jane Lynch, Adam Brody, John Krasinksi, Jim Rash, and John Cho, to name a few. We stay for Faris, though, who anchors the film with her ditzy-yet-endearing demeanor. And hooray for one of the few female-led stoner movies!—Clare Martin
13. Sator
Year: 2021
Director: Jordan Graham
Starring: Michael Daniel, Rachel Johnson, Aurora Lowe, Gabriel Nicholson, June Peterson
Rating: NR
Runtime: 86 minutes
Watch on Redbox Free On Demand
There’s something in the forest. But at the same time, there’s nothing much at all. A man, a cabin and maybe—maybe–something more. Sator, a mumblecore horror somewhere between a modern-day The Witch, The Blair Witch Project and Lovecraft, is a striking second feature from Jordan Graham. It’s the kind of horror that trades jump scares for negative space, one that opens with imagery your typical A24 beast saves for its finale. Sator’s dedication to its own nuanced premise, location and tense pace make it the rare horror that’s so aesthetically well-realized you feel like you could crawl inside and live there–if it wasn’t so goddamn scary. Sator is a name, an evocation, an entity. He’s first described, by Nani (the late June Peterson, excellent), as a guardian. Nani’s known Sator (whatever he may be) for a long time. The film represents shifts in time, and the physical transportation to places soaked in memories, with an aspect ratio change and a black-and-white palette. Nani’s lovely longhand script is practiced well from a lifetime of automatic writing, with the words–including some of the opening company credits, which is a great little joke–pouring from her pen and claiming a headwater not of this world. That same paranormal river flows to her grandson Adam (Gabriel Nicholson), that aforementioned man in the woods, whose relationship with the voices in his head is a bit less comfortable. It’s a stark, bold, even compassionate film–which offers imperfectly planted details of a battered and bruised family at its core–with plenty to comprehend (or at least theorize about) for those brave enough to venture back into the forest for a rewatch. As scary as it is, Sator is an experience with enough layers and craftsmanship that its alluring call will rattle in your head long after you’ve turned it off.–Jacob Oller
14. Day Of The Dead
Year: 1985
Director: George A. Romero
Stars: Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato
Rating: R
Runtime: 96 minutes
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It’s not really necessary to delve into how influential George Romero’s first zombie film has been to the genre and horror itself—it’s one of the most important horror movies ever made, and one of the most important independent films as well. The question is more accurately, “how does it hold up today?”, and the answer is “okay.” Unlike, say Dawn of the Dead (not on Shudder), Night is pretty placid most of the time. The story conventions are classic and the black-and-white cinematography still looks excellent, but some of the performances are downright irritating, particularly that of Judith O’Dea as Barbara. Duane Jones more than makes up for that as the heroic Ben, however, in a story that is very self-sufficient and provincial—just one small group of people in a house, with no real thought to the wider world. It’s a horror film that is a MUST SEE for every student of the genre, which is easy, considering that the film actually remains in the public domain. But in terms of entertainment value, Romero would perfect the genre in his next few efforts. Also recommended: The 1990 remake of this film by Tom Savini, which is unfairly derided just for being faithful to its source. —Jim Vorel
15. Sleepaway Camp
Year: 1983
Director: Robert Hiltzik
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Of all the camp-based Friday the 13th rip-offs, Sleepaway Camp is probably the best one that isn’t The Burning. Our main character is Angela, a troubled girl who absolutely everyone picks on for no good reason. Seriously—it’s one of those ’80s era movies with a main character who is an “outsider” constantly harassed by dozens of people, but without any impetus or explanation—it’s just Angela’s lot in life. Everyone who meets her immediately hates her guts and subjects her to cruel taunting. But soon, the people at the camp who were mean to Angela start getting knocked off. The movie seems calculated to come off as a straight horror film, but the death scenes are often so outlandish that it veers pleasurably into horror comedy, as well. Highlights include the lecherous camp cook, who gets a giant vat of boiling water dumped on his face, or the kid who gets a beehive dropped into the outhouse with him. If you love classic slashers, it’s a must-see, especially for the ending. I won’t spoil anything, but Sleepaway Camp can proudly lay claim to one of the most shocking, WTF endings in slasher movie history. —Jim Vorel