What are the best free shows? With the cost of living crisis continuing, it feels like every single one of us is feeling the pinch and on the hunt for a bargain, which is why we've compiled a list of the best free shows you can stream right now.
With energy bills rising, food prices going up and inflation through the roof, the emphasis on saving money is more pressing than ever, and we want to help you do just that, because, as it turns out, you can watch an awful lot of quality television for nothing at all.
Now, by nothing at all, we mean no money taken from your credit card and given to a broadcaster or streaming service – you will still have to watch commercials and offer up your email address, but then, you're free and clear.
We've spread this list across a number of services: Amazon's new revamp of IMDb TV, Amazon FreeVee, which is ad-supported, Pluto TV, Tubi and the free content you can get via Peacock, which offers a free version of its platform as well as a premium set-up you have to pay extra for.
While you won't get access to the latest dramas without forking out, there is an awful lot of quality television available for free – even some of 2022's best-reviewed shows – so there should be something here for everybody...
Troppo
This Australian crime drama has been a standout hit with critics, who've given it a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The eight-part drama has been adapted from Candice Fox's bestselling novel Crimson Lake and stars Thomas Jane as Ted Conkaffey, a disgraced ex-cop, Ted Conkaffey, who is recruited by Nicole Chamoun's Amanda Pharrell, an eccentric private investigator.
Pharrell has been tasked with helping solve the disappearance of a Korean tech pioneer, a hunt which takes the pair way into the wilds...
All the reviewers have acknowledged that this show isn't reinventing the genre, but they've ended up finding it rather addictive all the same.
Where Can I Stream It?
Amazon FreeVee
Bosch: Legacy
Another drama with a flawless Rotten Tomatoes rating, the power of Michael Connolly's no-nonsense crime-solver Harry Bosch continues to shine.
After seven seasons of playing Bosch as a detective with the LAPD, Titus Welliver has now taken the character into a new era.
In this run, Bosch works as a private investigator and is tasked with investigating businessman Carl Rogers, who previously hired a hitman to kill a lawyer Bosch has long-standing ties to.
A second season of this show has already been confirmed, and you can watch it for free right now. And, as well as that...
Where Can I Stream It?
Amazon FreeVee
Bosch
If you're so inclined, you can chart Bosch's journey from the very beginning, as all seven seasons of his time spent in the LAPD taking down the worst of the worst are on Amazon FreeVee.
Where Can I Stream It?
Amazon FreeVee
Downton Abbey
All 52 episodes of Julian Fellowes' hugely popular drama are currently available to stream via Peacock's ad-supported platform.
Following the lives and travails of aristocrats the Crawley family and their servants, who occupy the titular Downton Abbey, the show touches on love, life, class, death, illness and an awful lot of ballgowns.
With two films now spun out of it, too, Downton Abbey remains as popular as ever, and, for many, is the ultimate bit of comfort viewing.
Peacock, Netflix, Prime Video
Mad Men
One of the original big daddies of the golden age of television, this lavish, cutting and always stylish drama is available to be viewed for free in its entirety.
Told over seven seasons, Mad Men is set in the full swing of the 1960s inside one of the most dynamic advertising firms on New York's Madison Avenue, Sterling Cooper.
The show is largely built around Jon Hamm's Don Draper, an enigmatic, brilliant and often erratic creative director with a complicated personal life, but it also tracks the lives of his colleagues and all those in his orbit.
The series is decidedly period-loyal and can be a little much at times, but it remains a key pillar in the golden age of TV.
Where Can I Stream It?
Amazon FreeVee
Super Pumped
2022 is a year where the story of tech giants and their controversial founders is in vogue on TV, with Hulu's The Dropout and Apple's WeCrashed both released to much fanfare earlier in the year. You can watch this one for free.
Super Pumped, or, to give it its full title, Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber, charts the rise of the ride-hailing app and the fall of its CEO, Travis Kalanick.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Kalanick, with Friday Night Lights' Kyle Chandler as his mentor, Bill Gurley, and Uma Thurman on board as Arianna Huffington.
The show documents Kalanick's relentless drive to succeed, a drive which saw him alienate many of those who supported him and compromise everything to get what he wanted.
Super Pumped is already on for a second run, with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook as the new focus.
Where Can I Stream It?
Pluto TV
Spaced
This quirky but beloved British comedy made stars of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright, and, on rewatching, it's easy to see why.
Spaced follows Tim and Daisy, two penniless 20-somethings who decide to pose as a couple in order to obtain the rental of an apartment on vastly reduced rent. Resolved to remain platonic, the two's lives become intertwined as their collection of madcap friends begin to mix, with hilarious consequences.
The show only ran for two seasons, but it's got real cult status and remains well worth taking in, if only to see where it all began for Pegg, Frost and Wright.
Where Can I Stream It?
Tubi
House
Every moment of Hugh Laurie's grumpy odyssey as Dr. Gregory House is included on Peacock's free platform, giving you eight seasons of joy.
House is a maverick who lives to solve tricky diagnoses, he's basically the Sherlock Holmes of medicine, and every week brings a new mystery.
A comforting procedural with a new case to crack each week, this is kind of show that you can sit down to watch one and before you know it, credits are rolling on your fifth episode.
Where Can I Stream It?
Peacock
Firefly
Joss Whedon's space western was cruelly cut down after a single season when it first launched, but remains a cult classic.
Set in the year 2517, the show follow the adventures of the crew onboard Serenity. The crew are space mercenaries, who move from place to place scraping a living in whatever way they can.
After picking up a mysterious package, the crew find themselves to be wanted men and women, forcing them to enter uncharted territories…
Starring a young Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk and Morena Baccarin, Firefly managed to say more in its 14 episodes than many TV shows do in their entire runs. Well-worth investigating, especially as its free.
Where Can I Stream It?
Tubi
30 Rock
Tina Fey's tour de force comedy is all free on Peacock and still as funny as it was the day it first aired.
Fey plays Liz Lemon, a lead writer trying to wrestle back control of her show, The Girlie Show, amid a meddling producer, temperamental stars and a writing team who need an adult in the room at all times.
With hilarious performances from Tracey Morgan, Alec Baldwin, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer as well as Fey, this is a magnificent, layered comedy that demands repeated viewings.
Where Can I Stream It?
Peacock
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere
For almost all of his career, Neil Gaiman has been a man whose work has gone from book to screen, but this drama is the exception, as it started on screen, before Gaiman converted it into a novel.
Created alongside Lenny Henry, with whom Gaiman is about to reunite with for Anansi Boys, Neverwhere is set in London Below, a magical realm coexisting with the more familiar London.
We follow Richard Mayhew, a young man leading an ordinary life in London, when one day a girl named Door falls, injured, across his path. Compelled to help her, Mayhew finds himself pulled down to London Below and on the run with Door, who is being chased by assassins.
With a cast that includes Peter Capaldi and Tamsin Greig, the visuals are a little dated here, but Gaiman's creativity and gift for mixing the mundane and the magical shines through.
Where Can I Stream It?
Pluto TV
Friday Night Lights
That rare drama that works perfectly for both adults and young adults, Friday Night Lights is a seminal piece of television.
The series, which ran for five seasons, followed the travails of a high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, a small, close-knit community in rural West Texas. The team and its performances define the town and everything in it. It is suffocating and intoxicating all at the same time.
With a whole football team to cast as well as supporting roles, Friday Night Lights was a large ensemble that included the likes of Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Minka Kelly, Adrianne Palicki, Taylor Kitsch, Jesse Plemons, Michael B. Jordan and Jurnee Smollett at one time or another.
Well worth diving into.
Where Can I Stream It?
Peacock
The Inbetweeners
Before we go any further, we're talking about the British original version of The Inbetweeners here, leave the American remake well alone.
Set in the heart of suburban Britain, The Inbetweeners charts the misguided adventures of four school friends who aren't cool enough for the cool crowd, but aren't quite outcasts either. They get up to all manner of no good, including some decidedly NSFW stuff.
Smutty, slapstick and still really, really funny, for the uninitiated, or just those in need of a pick-me-up, The Inbetweeners is still the best in class.
Where Can I Stream It?
Tubi
The Prisoner
This 1967 British dystopian drama has proved to be a key influence on so much of modern television, with the makers of The Matrix, The X-Files and Watchmen all citing it as a key influence.
Created and starring Patrick McGoohan, the drama followed an unnamed man, who dramatically resigns from his high-ranking government job and prepares to leave the country, only to then be abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village.
The Village, despite its idyllic look is, in reality, a prison, and each day the guards demand the man explain why he resigned so abruptly. He gives them nothing and constantly tries to escape.
The show was remade in 2009, but it's not a patch on the original, which was a spooky, science-fiction game-changer.
Where Can I Stream It?
Pluto TV
Freaks and Geeks
Short-lived, but much-loved, Freaks and Geeks brought together Judd Apatow and director Paul Feig for this hilarious comedy-drama.
Freaks and Geeks chronicles the lives of students at McKinley High and made stars of James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Busy Philipps and Linda Cardellini.
Mostly we follow Cardellini's Lindsay Weir, a maths prodigy who decides to start hanging out with a group of burnouts, something her friends can’t understand. Along the way, Weir and her new gang go through all the usual ups and downs and chemical highs and hungover lows.
Though it was cancelled after one short season, the show has gained a cult following and continues to entertain.
Where Can I Stream It?
Pluto TV
