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. The Birdcage
Year: 1996
Director: Mike Nichols
Stars: Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane
Rating: R
You know what’s awkward? When you’re a middle-aged gay Jewish South Beach drag club owner (Armand, played by Robin Williams) and your straight son shows up and asks for your blessing to marry his girlfriend who is the daughter of a Neocon senator (Gene Hackman) who heads something called “The Coalition for Moral Order.” You want to support your kid, but you don’t love being closeted by him, and the dinner meet-up ends up meaning you and your partner, Albert (Nathan Lane), are forced into a whole new level of drag in which you are straight, a cultural attaché to Greece, and married to the one-night stand straight-sexperiment (Katherine, played by Christine Baranski) that led to the conception of your son. Your partner’s offended, the Senator’s being investigated by the tabloids, tensions are running high and your houseboy Agador (Hank Azaria) has agreed to transform into a Greek butler named “Spartacus,” but let’s face it, tensions are running high on all sides-and that’s before your baby-mama gets caught in traffic and Albert sees the opportunity for the drag role of a lifetime. Fully Shakespearean hijinks ensue. The 1996 Mike Nichols remake of Edouard Molinaro’s La Cage Aux Folles was not really blistering social commentary, but beneath its glib feel-good star-vehicle exterior there are some depths you could easily miss while you’re distracted by the batshit-crazy and heavily sequined antics of Williams and Lane. It’s actually not only rambunctious and witty but, as with many of Robin Williams’ film roles, The Birdcage has a serious streak where a genuine investigation of personal identity is underway, and hypocrisy, acceptance, snobbery, and most of all, everyone’s individual style of “drag” (and hey, we all have one, even if we don’t always express it by putting on fake lashes and singing Sondheim) gets taken out for a much-needed exam. —Amy Glynn
2. 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
3. Thelma & Louise
Year: 1991
Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel
Rating: R
Sweet, doll-like Geena Davis and the tough scarlet-lipped matron Susan Sarandon make perfect odd couple besties in this classic feminist road movie. Handling domestic constraints, male condescension, sexual assault and a litany of other women’s issues—without ever seeming heavy-handed or anything less than great fun‚ Thelma & Louise is the perfect girl power introduction for a younger sister. Nearly all the men in the film are intentionally caricatured as foolish or secondary—a clever rejoinder to typical onscreen treatment of women. Besides, you can’t beat Thelma & Louise’s explosive revenge on a catcalling truck driver.–Christina Newland
4. 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
5. Escape From New York
Year: 1981
Director: John Carpenter
Stars: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau
Rating: R
In the far future of 1997, when the president’s Air Force One flight is hijacked and crash-lands in the now-maximum security prison of Manhattan, there’s only one man who can save him, a one-eyed Kurt Russell who goes by the name of Snake. He struggles to thwart The Duke’s plans to use the President as a human shield in his march to freedom, all while maintaining his badass disdain for the US government. Written in the wake of the Watergate scandal, John Carpenter’s view of the future is a decidedly cynical one: Snake may be trying to save the president, but not without his classic sneer. —Sean Doyle
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. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Year: 1989
Director: Stephen Herek
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin
Rating: PG
Not Neo, not Johnny Utah, not John Wick—there will never be a more perfect role for Keanu Reeves than kind-hearted time traveling slacker “Ted” Theodore Logan. Joined by his intrepid best friend Bill (Alex Winter—wearing a surprisingly acceptable muscle shirt sans mid-riff), the two peruse the whole of Western Civilization in their time-skipping phone booth to kidnap historical figures, use them to keep from flunking History and ensure—yaddah yaddah yaddah—the safety of the human race. For many of us, this was a formative film: a conflation of pop culture and History for Dummies; a reason to pay attention in class; the first time we ever tried to figure out what “69” meant. Technical rules don’t much apply here; instead, the message is clear: a good friend will stick with you until the end of time.—Michael Burgin
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
