Streaming services are great, but subscriptions are not. Just like every other streaming service, Netflix costs money. While streamers promised to save you money, you might find yourself longing for the days when you could just watch some ads and not have to pay an arm and a leg for content.
If you’re looking for great, free mystery movies that will keep you engaged from the second they start, then we’ve got you covered. We’ve pulled together a list of some great free mystery movies that you can watch without any strings, as long as you’re okay with sitting through some ads.
Need more recommendations? Read our guides for the best free movies, the best free movies on YouTube, and the best new movies to stream.
Memento (2001)
Director Christopher Nolan‘s calling card movie is a neo-noir with an incredibly inventive twist. Its central character has short-term memory loss, and we follow him as he moves both forward and backward in time, resetting his memory at every juncture along the way until the two stories meet in the middle.
Featuring one of the best performances of Guy Pearce’s career, Memento is riveting precisely because it’s so mind-bending. It also signaled the obsession with time that would define much of Nolan’s career.
You can watch Memento on Tubi.
Memories of Murder (2003)
Before having a major breakout with Parasite, Bong Joon-ho (Mickey 17) directed Memories of Murder, which may be the best serial killer movie ever made. Adapted from the true story of South Korea’s first-ever serial killer, the film follows the bumbling local detectives assigned to the case, and the big city cop who joins them in their investigation.
As they work toward identifying a potential suspect, they begin to realize the gravity of the evil they’re dealing with and must work against the clock to stop this killer before they strike again.
You can watch Memories of Murder on Tubi.
No Way Out (1987)
Starring Yellowstone‘s Kevin Costner at the height of his powers, No Way Out sees the actor playing a young Navy lieutenant who has a brief, but passionate affair with a woman. When she winds up dead, he realizes that he might be investigated for his role in her murder.
Costner and Sean Young are both terrific, but as you might expect, Gene Hackman walks away with the movie.
You can watch No Way Out on Tubi.
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
A great detective yarn that doubles as a surprisingly current meditation on race, In the Heat of the Night follows a Black detective from Philadelphia who teams up with a local police chief to investigate a murder in a small Georgia town. The racism of this police chief courses under the entire film, and the uneasy alliance the two men form is deeply complicated.
Sidney Poitier has never been better than he is as Virgil Tibbs, and In the Heat of the Night is brilliant in part because it understands that there are many ways a person can be racist, and some are subtler than others. This movie won Best Picture in 1968, and it remains as relevant in 2025 as it was back then.
You can watch In the Heat of the Night on Tubi.
The Lost City of Z (2016)
A mystery movie of a totally different kind, The Lost City of Z tells the true story of Percy Fawcett, a 20th-century explorer who made groundbreaking discoveries in the Amazon. As he continues venturing out into the vast wilderness of the Amazon, he becomes obsessed with the idea that the natives living in the Amazon once had a vast civilization.
Starring Charlie Hunnam as Fawcett, an explorer addicted to the thrill of the unknown, The Lost City of Z is a sprawling epic about one man who believes he can solve an ancient riddle and is willing to die trying.
You can watch The Lost City of Z on Prime Video.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Donnie Darko might not, on its face, seem like a mystery movie. Underneath, though, the movie is filled with questions that it will eventually answer. Donnie’s belief that the apocalypse is imminent and the plane that crash-lands in his bedroom all create the image of a world in which the real has blended with the imagined.
Part of the reason the movie has become a classic in the decades since its release is that it slowly begins to solidify what’s real and what isn’t, even as it doesn’t resolve every mystery it presents over the course of its running time.
You can watch Donnie Darko on Tubi.
The Usual Suspects (1995)
A story told mostly in retrospect, The Usual Suspects follows a group of five criminals assembled by a mysterious crime boss to conduct a major heist. When most of the crew dies and the heist goes terribly wrong, though, those who survive are left to explain exactly how they wound up in this mess, to begin with.
Featuring a slew of remarkable character performances, some stunning set pieces, and a tense plot twist that will leave you gasping for air the first time you see it, The Usual Suspects is filled with surprises.
You can watch The Usual Suspects on Pluto TV.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quentin Tarantino’s hugely acclaimed second feature tells a fractious story out of chronological order. The film tells the story of two hitmen whose lives become interwoven with several notable characters, including their boss, his wife, and a struggling boxer.
Although Pulp Fiction weaves a complex web, it’s the perfect combination of vulgar and hilarious. You might find yourself speculating for weeks about what’s in the briefcase that everyone seems to be after.
You can watch Pulp Fiction on Pluto TV.
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
Denzel Washington is at his best in Devil in a Blue Dress, which is a classic noir throwback and adapted from a Walter Mosley novel of the same name. The film follows Washington as a private investigator in a segregated Los Angeles in the late 1930s. He’s hired by a mysterious white man to investigate the disappearance of a woman. He discovers that this complex mystery is far more than he might have imagined.
Devil in a Blue Dress is like the noir films of the ’30s and ’40s, but crucially, the specter of race looms over everyone and changes how these characters interact with one another.
You can watch Devil in a Blue Dress on Tubi.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
As scintillating a thriller as the ’90s ever produced, The Thomas Crown Affair stars Pierce Brosnan as the titular Crown and Rene Russo as the insurance agent who’s hot on his heels. Crown is an art thief who is already massively wealthy and seems to steal art for the fun of it.
When he falls in love, we in the audience begin to wonder whether he’s for real or simply playing another game. It all leads up to a genuinely thrilling final sequence, where Crown proves that he’s more clever than all the people who have been sent to try to get one step ahead of him.
You can watch The Thomas Crown Affair on Tubi.
