Countless streaming services are now available to viewers in America, most of which charge a monthly fee. The array of movies such services make available may be well worth the money if you’re a film-lover. But it’s also possible to stream a wide range of movies on services that won’t cost you a penny. At that price, what’s not to like?

To determine the best movies to stream for free this July, 24/7 Tempo developed an index using average ratings on IMDb, an online movie database owned by Amazon, and a combination of audience scores and Tomatometer scores on Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie and TV review aggregator, as of June 2022, weighting all ratings equally. 

We considered only movies with at least 5,000 audience votes on either IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes that are streaming on Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, Amazon Freevee, Peacock, Vudu, and/or Crackle, and did not include documentaries. Data on streaming availability, current as of this month, comes from the streaming guide Reelgood.   

Free does not mean bad – not by a long shot. Some 35 of the films on our list have a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critics score of 90% or higher, and four of them had a 100%.

This month, as usual, film aficionados or even casual movie fans can luxuriate in any genre they chose. There is plenty of starpower this month, featuring such blue-chip names as Robert Mitchum, Bruce Lee, Frank Sinatra, Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise, William Holden, Grace Kelly, Henry Fonda, and Wynona Ryder. (These are the hardest working actors in Hollywood.)

For the science-fiction/futuristic flick fan, the offerings include “Logan,” “The Matrix,” and “The Edge of Tomorrow.” There are four war-themed movies on tap, and they don’t pull any punches on the horrors of war and its aftermath – “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “The Great Escape,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and “1917.”

If your taste is more toward thrillers, check out “The Sixth Sense” and “The Manchurian Candidate.” And corporate irresponsibility gets examined in the films “Dark Waters” and “The Insider.”

These are the 50 best movies to stream for free this month

It’s not all serious stuff, however. Charlie Chaplin, one of filmdom’s greatest stars, appears in two silent movies, “The Kid” and “The Gold Rush,” considered among the high points of the moviemaker’s art. Both hold a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 100%. (These are the best comedy movies available to stream right now.)