You might be surprised to learn that Roku doesn’t just offer movies from other places, but has plenty of great films in its own right. Yep, the same device that many of us use to access our myriad streaming services (and the place that brought us the Daniel Radcliffe Weird Al biopic) has a free, ad-supported wing all its own: The Roku Channel. Offering thousands of free TV shows and movies, including its Roku Originals and access to paid add-ons like every other service under the sun, The Roku Channel primarily finds its value in its ease of access. If you’re already using your Roku or Roku TV, hey, those movies are already at your fingertips, on demand. As far as the selection, you can find a surprising amount of horror and Jackie Chan movies, alongside some cheeky categories like “Not on Netflix” and “Knuckle and Chuckles.” Good job, Roku curation team.
Here are the best movies on The Roku Channel:
1. Ghostbusters
Year: 1984
Director: Ivan Reitman
Stars: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis, William Atherton
Rating: PG
As the slew of ’80s merchandise and a cartoon series would prove, Ghostbusters had mass-appeal with kids. The film followed a team of parapsychologists—played by Dan Aykroyd, the late Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray—who tackle big-ghost issues in New York City. Sure some of the effects are dated, but this one has staying power, and near-infinite quotability. And although the bad guys come from beyond the grave, they’re also kid-friendly, with the begging-to-be-a-plush-toy Slimer and a giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Pass this classic comedy along to the next generation, while more or less ignoring the middling remake, which was neither as good or bad as fans or detractors made it out to be. —Tyler Kane
2. Moonstruck
Year: 1987
Director: Norman Jewison
Stars: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia
Rating: PG
Snap out of it! A rom-com with a genuinely romantic sensibility (the hopeless kind), Moonstruck is an undeniably adorable comedy about chance, family and what it means to “settle.” Pragmatic widow Loretta (Cher) agrees to marry a nice sensible guy (Danny Aiello), but soon finds herself in a sitch with his passionate and mercurial younger brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage). Cher’s comedic chops are not insignificant, and the chemistry between her and Cage is great. The film has an incredible wealth of wonderful supporting performers (perhaps most notably Olympia Dukakis, who plays Cher’s mother). Norman Jewison’s directorial sensibility here might not qualify as “high art” but it’s a damn fine rom-com, with crackling dialogue, tons of energy and seductively likable characters: A paean to the joys and inevitable sorrows of dealing with your family, this film has spirit and smarts and soul. And a certain image of Cher in opera garb kicking a beer can up a silent Brooklyn street that one could be forgiven for characterizing as “iconic.” —Amy Glynn
3. 1408
Year: 20007
Director: Mikael Håfström
Stars: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack, Tony Shalhoub
Rating: PG-13
Even at its time of release, 1408 didn’t exactly command the high-profile treatment of top-tier Stephen King adaptations, but it’s a sneaky-good, high-concept ghost story all the same, and one that features one of the only John Cusack performances worth watching in the last 15 years. Cusack is playing a cynical charlatan of sorts here, a paranormal investigator and hack of a writer (a typical King protagonist!) who doesn’t believe a word of anything he’s ever written–until setting foot into Room #1408, that is. It’s a self-contained descent into madness as the evil hotel room sets its reality warping powers against Cusack, tormenting him with specters of the room’s previous victims, as well as taunting him with the demons of his own past. It all builds to a surprisingly poignant conclusion that offers some hope of peace in the afterlife–a rare case where the “theatrical ending” to a film is considerably more effective than the “director’s cut” ending included with the home video release. Breezy, entertaining and even a bit scary at times, 1408 is a well above-average example of big studio, PG-13 horror, and one that deserves credit for perfectly executing a deceptively simple premise. —Jim Vorel
4. A Christmas Carol
Year: 1984
Director: Clive Donner
Stars: George C. Scott, Frank Finlay, David Warner, Susannah York, Edward Woodward, Roger Rees, Liz Smith
Rating: PG
It wasn’t so much a question of whether A Christmas Carol belonged on a “ghost movies” list (the ghosts drive the whole story!), but which version to choose, it being a tale that has been told on screen so many times. There’s innumerable good options to choose from, from the 1951 classic with Alastair Sim, to the Muppets rendition, to the surprisingly good TV version in 1999 with Patrick Stewart. But we decided to go with the George C. Scott version, because really, what other actor seems so perfectly born to play the cantankerous old Ebenezer Scrooge than Scott, he of the perpetual sour face? This Christmas Carol is a happy middle ground between versions–more accessible (and spookier) than the Alastair Sim one, and more serious-minded than The Muppets, although that’s always a good time. True to Dickens’ original story, and with the perfect Ebenezer behind it, this is as close to the definitive version of the tale as we’ve yet come. —Jim Vorel
5. Ip Man
Year: 2008
Director: Wilson Yip
Stars: Donnie Yen, Lynn Hung, Dennis To, Syun-Wong Fen, Simon Yam, Gordon Lam
Rating: R
2008’s Ip Man marked, finally, the moment when the truly excellent but never fairly regarded Donnie Yen came into his own, playing a loosely biographical version of the legendary grandmaster of Wing Chung and teacher of a number of future martial arts masters (one of whom was Bruce Lee). In Foshan (a city famous for martial arts in southern/central China), an unassuming practitioner of Wing Chung tries to weather the 1937 Japanese invasion and occupation of China peacefully, but is eventually forced into action. Limb-breaking, face-pulverizing action fills this semi-historical film, which succeeds gloriously both as compelling drama and martial arts fan-bait. —K. Alexander Smith
6. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Year: 1974
Director: Tobe Hooper
Stars: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen
Rating: R
One of the most brutal mainstream horror films ever released, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, based on notorious Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, resembles art-house verité built on the grainy physicality of its flat Texas setting. Plus, it introduced the superlatively sinister Leatherface, the iconic chainsaw-wielding giant of a man who wears a mask made of human skin, whose freakish sadism is upstaged only by the introduction of his cannibalistic family with whom he resides in a dilapidated house in the middle of the Texas wilderness, together chowing on the meat Leatherface and his brothers harvest, while Grandpa drinks blood and fashions furniture from victims’ bones. Still, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre might not be the goriest horror film ever made, but as an imaginal excavation of the subterranean anxieties of a post-Vietnam rural American populace, it’s pretty much unparalleled. Twisted, dark and beautiful all at once, it careens through a wide variety of tones and techniques without ever losing its singular intensity. (And there are few scenes in this era of horror with more disturbing sound design than the bit where Leatherface ambushes a guy with a single dull hammer strike to the head before slamming the metal door shut behind him.) —Rachel Haas and Brent Ables
7. Red River
Year: 1948
Director: Norman Jewison
Stars: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru
Rating: NR
Broadly considered to be one of the greatest of the genre, Red River is the story of the first cattle drive down the Chisholm Trail and the film that made director Howard Hawks exclaim “I didn’t know the big son of a bitch could act!” The big son of a bitch was John Wayne, who stars as Tom Dunson, a stubborn and conflicted man on a mission to start a cattle ranch in Texas. As one would expect from any Western of the mid-20th century, there are a lot of violent “Indians” to fend off; Dunson’s love interest is slaughtered along with most of a California-bound wagon train, and in one scene where Dunson and his codger-companion Nadine Groot (Walter Brennan) are in retaliatory combat, Dunson finds one of the Indians is wearing a silver bracelet that had belonged to his own mother. A traumatized boy named Matt Garth (Mickey Kuhn as a child; Montgomery Clift as an adult) who survived the attack on the wagons finds Dunson and Groot and joins them; Dunson basically adopts him (along with the cow he’s got with him). Cattle ranch established, along with serious father-son issues. Chaos, stampedes, duels, shifting loyalties-and an unfortunately pat ending in which both men are basically chastened by a woman and forced to remember that they love each other. The other thing that is likely to grate upon the sensibilities of modern viewers is the tacit understanding (whether Hawks deliberately placed it there or whether it happened by default) is the “white guys can take whatever they want” attitude that pervades the minds of the characters. What holds up beautifully is Wayne’s fascinating slow fade from strapping man in the prime of life to defeated old guy, placed against Matt’s ascendancy. And, of course, some of the most beautiful and evocative scenes of endless skies and endless prairies to be found. —A.G.
8. It’s a Wonderful Life
Year: 1946
Director: Frank Capra
Stars: Jimmy Stewart, Henry Travers, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore
Rating: PG
Frank Capra’s Christmas fantasy actually kind of flopped at the box office when it was released, and put Capra on the out-to-pasture list as the studio decided he was no longer capable of scoring a hit. Then it was nominated for five Academy Awards and has become known as one of the most acclaimed films ever made. On Christmas Eve, suicidal George Bailey (the sublime Jimmy Stewart) receives a visit from a sort of junior angel who calls himself Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence is charged with pulling Bailey off the ledge, in return for which he will be granted wings. So he shows Bailey visions of his life, progressing from his childhood, showing Bailey all the times he made someone’s live better (or outright saved it). Ultimately Clarence jumps into the river before George can do it; activating the suicidal man to save Clarence rather than kill himself. It’s not enough, so Clarence shows him what the world would look like if he’d never been born. When George sees that his existence has had and continues to have a positive impact on the world, he goes home to his family, Clarence gets his wings and happiness ensues. Yup, it’s a Christmas story. And it’s one of the most enduring ones for a bunch of reasons, including Stewart’s amazing performance and a beautiful script by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett along with Capra. (Both Stewart and Capra commented that it was their favorite of all the films they’d respectively worked on.) Timeless, big-hearted and disarmingly sincere, this film is one I defy you to have one cynical comment about. Go on: be cynical. You can’t, right? Right. Because it’s not possible. —Amy Glynn
9. Kickboxer
Year: 1989
Director: Mark DiSalle and David Worth
Stars: Jean-Claude van Damme, Dennis Alexio, Dennis Chan, Michel Qissi
Rating: NR
Like an unofficial sequel to 1988’s Bloodsport—but more a refining than a new adventure for that movie’s Frank Dux (Jean-Claude Van Damme)—Kickboxer is meatier, meaner, and sweatier than its comparatively tame predecessor. In the course of two years, Van Damme had starred in four action films, his less dependable two (Black Eagle and the confounding Cyborg) sandwiched between a pair of nearly identical films that pretty much soldered Van Damme’s fully-formed cinematic persona to his blocky, unblemished, well-bred Belgian forehead. It could be said that every Van Damme movie is pretty much one Van Damme movie, but Kickboxer claims that this idea isn’t such a bad one. If time is just a flat circle, let us relish the moment that Van Damme’s mutantly macho Kurt Sloane high-kicks the smarmy grin off the face of psychotic rapist Tong Po (Michel Qissi)—over and over and over again, as if it were only the first time. —Dom Sinacola
10. Terrifier
Year: 2016
Director: Damien Leone
Stars: Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, David Howard Thornton
Rating: NR
It’s really no easy feat to put together a modern slasher movie with retro inspiration, walking the delicate line between genre parody and loving homage. Too many have tried exactly this and ended up with a result that spends all its time winking at genre tropes, rather than simply delivering the goods. Terrifier is one of the few that at least partially works in the spirit in which it was intended, thanks to its depraved attitude, stylish bloodletting and key central performance. This movie hinges entirely around the quality of David Howard Thornton’s performance as “Art the Clown,” elevating it from what could be perceived as simply a riff on Stephen King’s It to a genuine genre effort of merit. Much of that just boils down to Thornton’s terrific facial expressions as Art, and his stellar costuming and design—he is tailor made to be a recurring slasher film character, and had this series first cropped up in 1982, we probably would have seen half a dozen Art the Clown sequels. The rest of the production is on the cheap side—it often feels like they’re going for the degraded film stock look of Tarantino’s Death Proof, but can’t quite pull it off—but there’s more than enough gore to satisfy any horror fan’s hunger. If killer clowns are your thing, it’s essential. —Jim Vorel