Warner Bros. classic movies appear on YouTube, giving free viewing access to all US users.
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Summary
Warner Bros. has confounded the market by releasing old movies free onto YouTube. With no obvious logic behind the choice of movies, the act of generosity may have deeper motives but may also be just that—a generous act.
Quietly does it
In January 2025, Warner Bros. quietly dropped several old movies onto YouTube in what seemed a random act of generosity. More have appeared since that first drop, and they now number 40. The movies were not housed in YouTube Movies—a dedicated area for movie rental or purchase with 187 million subscribers at the latest count—they were just on YouTube. This factor is intriguing as a method of release: free, drip fed onto YouTube with open access for viewing, no gatekeeper, no charge, no marketing quid pro quo, and seemingly no criteria for inclusion on the list of movies to appear. The movies are available in the US but are locked in the UK. Searching titles for availability in the UK, brings up a few available free on streaming platforms, although many are available to rent or buy.
Figure 1: Warner Bros. movies on YouTube, average Rotten Tomatoes score by genre
Source: Omdia
The oldest is from 1962 and the most recent from 2007. They cover a range of genres (although the most frequent is comedy, with action, adventure, and comedy drama all well represented), and they also represent a range of quality. The lowest Rotten Tomatoes score is 0 (quite hard to achieve) and the highest is 100 (ditto). One film (Mutiny on the Bounty) racked up seven Oscar nominations in 1963’s Academy Awards, another (The Mission) won an Oscar in 1987 for Best Cinematography. There are a smattering of further quality nominations and a good number of Razzle Awards too (think the opposite of Oscars), but most of the movies sit somewhere in between. The majority (24) of the movies come from the 1980s and 1990s, which may explain why Warner is putting them on YouTube: major streaming platforms don’t tend to focus on old catalog content. They are investing enough money into new content, original or acquired, not to need it.
Putting the movies on YouTube is obviously a deliberate strategy, even without any major fanfare, and may be a way to exploit some half-forgotten movies that don’t necessarily add value to the library on Max and Turner Classics. The fact they are available free suggests that Warner Bros. sees little actual monetary value in these films in any other release format, and releasing on YouTube involves no fees for hosting: no one is making much money, but no one is losing it either, which makes the move a neutral rather than an altruistic one. However, it could also be a way to recreate value in these titles. Most have largely been forgotten, but Warner Bros. would like to see if there is still life in them in the current market. The choice of YouTube is also interesting as a new way of consuming content. Linear TV and even streamers such as Netflix are curated environments, but much of YouTube is uncurated and highly explorable. YouTube Movies has a subscription base of 187 million, and many distributors already use it for trailers and entire movies alike, while YouTube itself has around 246 million users in the US. Warner Bros. is essentially putting these movies out, without fanfare, for users to find them organically. If you think that YouTube is the future of entertainment for younger generations to develop in their way, then what Warner has done will provide learnings for them.
Personally, I applaud this move and lament that I cannot watch the movies on YouTube in the UK, but I will probably rent at least one of them on another platform, which is already a £4.99 win for Warner’s strategy.
Appendix
Author
David Hancock, Chief Analyst, Media & Entertainment
