Warner Bros. is streaming full movies for free on YouTube

Warner Bros. has made it easier to watch some of its movies online for once, bucking a trend of wiping them from existence. As spotted by Gizmodo, the official Warner Bros. Entertainment YouTube channel has quietly added more than 30 full movies to a playlist over the past month that you can watch here for free.

It’s a fairly wild selection. Some are dated but well-received hits like Michael Collins (1996), Waiting for Guffman (1996), The Mission (1986), and Deathtrap (1982). There’s also a decent selection of dreadful flops like 2000’s Dungeons & Dragons movie, Bobcat Goldthwait’s Hot to Trot (1988), and Eddie Murphy’s The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002). 

Most of these offerings aren’t available on the Warner Bros. streaming platform, Max. There’s no explanation as to why the entertainment giant has made these movies free to watch on YouTube, or why this perplexing set of films was selected, but it’s one less barrier to accessing some (admittedly obscure) content without a subscription or paywall.

It’s even more bewildering when you consider how many shows and movies Warner Bros. Discovery has culled under the helm of CEO David Zaslav. Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme were axed before they could even be released or made available to stream, despite production on both being finalized or near completion. Perhaps this is a sort of peace offering from the company, having announced in January 2023 that it was ready to get back into creating new things instead of eviscerating its established catalog of content.