Paramount Launches a YouTube Vault Where You Can Watch Great Movies For Free

Do you like to stream movies for free online? You can find plenty of them on YouTube, though not all are legitimate. Fortunately for those of us wishing to respect copyrights, Paramount has a channel featuring tons of its titles in full at no cost.

The Paramount Vault, as this new channel is called, has been tested for a few months now, but it’s finally going wide. A recently posted “sizzle reel” draws attention to its content, which includes a plethora of clips of favorite movie moments. 

The catalog seems pretty random, representing dramas, comedies, Westerns, horror, action, sci-fi, documentary, “classics,” etc., a lot of them lesser-quality works like Masters of the Universe, Serving Sara and the first three American Ninja movies, but there are gems to be found. Here are some highlights of the full-length offerings:

The Loved Ones – The feature debut of Sean Byrne, whose highly anticipated follow-up, The Devil’s Candy, recently debuted at the Toronto Film Festival. Our own Pete Hall called it “one of the best horror movies in years.” 

Bound – The Wachowskis made their debut with this sexy neo-noir starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon as lovers who plot to steal from the mob. (And in case you’re wondering, yes these movies are streaming uncensored.)

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek – Preston Sturges’s 1944 screwball comedy masterpiece stars Betty Hutton as a woman who blacks out during a big send-off to the troops and wakes up married to and pregnant by a soldier she can’t recall. 

Love Streams – One of the last films by John Cassavetes, it stars him and wife Gena Rowlands as siblings with a bond greater than any they’ve shared with anyone else. 

Get Real – A landmark film for LGBT culture, this 1998 British coming-of-age drama is also just a great high school movie that happens to focus on gay teens.  

Ironweed – Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson both received Oscar nominations for their performances as a homeless couple in this Depression-set drama.

The Devil and Miss Jones – Charles Coburn earned an Oscar nomination for his performance in this classic comedy, in which he plays a wealthy jerk who goes undercover in his own department store to spy on his unionizing employees. On the job, he befriends the wonderful Jean Arthur, falls in love with Spring Byington and becomes a better man. 

Dark City – In his first major movie role, Charlton Heston stars in this film-noir classic as the leader of a gambling ring who begin to die one by one by the vengeful brother of a guy they ruined. 

The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers – Another classic film noir with another major movie debut, this one for Kirk Douglas. He plays a D.A. married to the titular heiress played by Barbara Stanwyck.

No Man of Her Own – Barbara Stanwyck again in another classic film noir, this one with the actress playing a mother to be posing as a recently deceased pregnant woman in order to get some money out of the woman’s in-laws. 

Margot at the Wedding – Nicole Kidman is unlikable but terrific, as is Jennifer Jason-Leigh as her bride-to-be sister, in this Noah Baumbah drama, which also co-stars Jack Black.

The World of Suzie Wong – In this 1960 drama, William Holden stars as an American artist in Hong Kong who falls in love with a prostitute (Golden Globe-winning newcomer Nanzy Kwan) he’s hired as a model.

Paris When It Sizzles – William Holden again, this time paired with Audrey Hepburn for a romantic story of an American screenwriter in Paris who falls in love with the woman hired to be his typist. 

Hamlet – Mel Gibson is actually pretty good as the Prince of Denmark in this 1990 take on Hamlet by regular Shakespeare adapter Franco Zeffirelli. 

1900 – Bernado Bertolucci’s epic drama stars Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu as two Italian men from different social classes whose lives play out during the first half of the 20th century. At more than five hours in length, it’s the best deal in the vault. 

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