Meet Tubi, the free streamer with 40,000 shows on offer

Correction (6 June 2024): The Tubi apps are not currently available in the NZ Apple App Store. Content from Tubi is freely available in New Zealand via their website. We have reached out to Tubi for comment on future plans. 

If you're cutting down on paid subscription services to save cash but still need stuff to watch, here's some good news: free streamer Tubi has 40,000 films and TV shows available at the click of a button.

Here’s a quick guide to some of the wonders you can find at tubitv.com – all free of charge and supported by advertising.

These selections are by no means representative of all that the site offers. These are the ones that caught my eye as I scrolled the seeming endless list of straight-to-video knock-offs, Spanish-language soaps and Euro-thrillers. They align with my tastes and interests and yours will, of course, be different. Trust me, you will find something eventually.

One of the ways you can narrow down the upwards of 40,000 films and shows to something more manageable is to make good use of the many categories that Tubi uses to define its content. I tried “Award Winners & Nominees” and got an excellent list to sample from – also “Modern Classics”, “Art-house Films” and “Music & Concerts” (where I found Without Getting Killed or Caught, an excellent documentary about the country singer/songwriter Guy Clark.

But if you just want to wallow in long seasons of shows about people building and renovating houses then there’s a huge “House & Garden” section just for you. There’s also a large, dedicated kids section where you’ll find big brands like Garfield and Barney among the Disney and Pixar copycats.

Free streamers don’t make their money from showing us the latest and greatest but Tubi does have some exclusive titles (again, in that direct-to-video knock-off vein) and will also occasionally headline recent blockbusters (like The Host).

Before I tell you my selections, I should also point out that after spending most of the weekend with Tubi I can’t recall seeing any commercials. That’s not to say they weren’t there – it is how the thing gets paid for after all – but they were far from obtrusive.

Howards End

The 1992 Merchant-Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster’s classic novel was nominated for nine Oscars and won three – for Luciana Arrighi’s design, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s screenplay and Emma Thompson’s leading performance.

Thompson plays Margaret Schlegel, oldest sibling of three living in Edwardian London. Progressive and Euro-centric, they find themselves involved with the wealthy and conservative Wilcoxes (led by businessman Henry, Anthony Hopkins). Their well-meaning attempts to assist a poor clerk (Samuel West) backfire and end in tragedy.

Howards End is a delicious portrait of the English class-system and the way it subtly resists any attempt at reform and it could only have been made by the band of outsiders that were American director James Ivory, Indian producer Ismail Merchant and German/Indian writer Jhabvala.

The French Chef (Seasons 6-10)

We’ve been enjoying Julia on Neon, a light-hearted show about the rise to fame of the author and chef Julia Child. The show does a good job of recreating the early days of cooking television when they were literally making it up as they went along and it’s a delight to find several seasons of Child’s actual show, The French Chef, online.

I’m not sure whether you would go to the trouble of actually making these recipes today – you’d be putting your cardiovascular system at some risk – but Child was a warm and engaging screen presence and the time just flies by.

Late last year I wrote an article here asking what happened to all the classic television that isn’t online. Tubi doesn’t exactly fill that gap. Among the many ancient and forgettable TV Westerns, though, you will find a huge collection of highlights from the Dick Cavett Show, one of the greatest interview programmes every made. There are dozens of guests, many of them absolute legends: Fred Astaire, Bette Davis, Groucho Marx, blimey even Salvador Dalí. 

Gloomy Sunday

Christchurch readers may recall the film that became the longest running theatrical release in New Zealand cinema history. Playing daily at the Academy for almost a decade, Gloomy Sunday became a tourist attraction in its own right, its run only interrupted by the February 2011 earthquake.

Never released on home video – to preserve that local exclusivity – I had given up on ever seeing it online.

A tragic romance set in Budapest leading up to and during World War II, in which beautiful waitress Ilona (Erika Marozsán) inspires restaurant pianist András (Stefano Dionisi) to write the haunting song “Gloomy Sunday”, a tune so sad that it breaks the heart of anyone that hears it.

As Europe falls into chaos, Ilona becomes the focus of young German Hans (Ben Becker) who, after his attentions are spurned, returns as an SS officer, determined to get what he wants this time.

Gloomy Sunday (also known as Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod) is a rich and emotional melodrama about doomed lovers in a time of unimaginable tragedy. It’s great that more people can see it now.

Tubi is available on the web or via free apps for all the usual devices. Like all streaming services, titles come and go so these may not be available next time you log on. Rest assured, though, you’ll probably find something else. Tubi doesn’t appear on any of the normal aggregator sites (like JustWatch) so you’ll have to log in every now and then to see what’s new.