What's on Roku - Frontline documentary, free hit movies, and popular TV series

February 14, 2020 - 17:17 -- RokuGuide

What's on RokuWhat's on Roku helps you find free entertainment on Roku. This week we have recommendations for five channels loaded with free content, including a new Frontline documentary on PBS, free movies on Tubi, multiple seasons of popular TV shows on Pluto TV, and free episodes of TV series on NBC and Fox Now.

PBSPBS is premiering a new FRONTLINE documentary on Tuesday, February 18th. "Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos" examines the company's ascent and asks tough questions about the consequences, and also investigates how Amazon's founder and CEO built a business empire that is unprecedented in the history of American capitalism. According to PBS, "[a]s Amazon comes under scrutiny for aggressive tactics, treatment of workers and concerns about its market dominance, Amazon Empire traces how Bezos transformed a tiny company run out of a garage into a staple of American consumerism that critics contend seeks to dominate the market at all costs. In the documentary, FRONTLINE speaks with former employees at Amazon fulfillment centers who describe intense working conditions, and who say they struggled to keep up with the rate at which Amazon expected them to pick and pack items."

TubiTubi, which claims to be the world's largest free ad-supported video on demand service, recently announced record growth for 2019, with 25 million monthly active users and a total view time of over 163 million hours in December. If you aren't a Tubi viewer, this Roku channel is worth visiting for its large collection of free movies. Among the currently featured titles are Be Cool, a 2005 crime-comedy film (and sequel to the 1995 film Get Shorty) in which John Travolta reprises his role as Chili Palmer, who is disenchanted with the movie industry and so tries the music industry, meeting and romancing a widow of a music executive on the way; The Mexican, a 2001 comedy starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts that follows an American as he travels through Mexico to find a valuable antique gun, called "The Mexican," and smuggle it into the United States; and What Lies Beneath, a 2000 supernatural horror film starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as a couple who experience a strange haunting of their home.

FOX NOWFox Now requires authentication through a participating pay TV service for full access, but this Roku channel does allow free viewing of a good number of episodes of popular Fox shows. Currently unlocked are episodes of LEGO Masters, 9-1-1: Lone Star, Outmatched, and many more. You may not be able to catch full seasons of every show, but there is still plenty to enjoy. When you launch Fox Now, just skip through the prompts to log on, and then look for videos that don't display the locked symbol.

Pluto TVYou may know Pluto TV for its multitude of linear (live stream) channels in every conceivable genre, but Pluto also offers a large on-demand library of free movies and TV shows. Among the top on-demand TV series are Leverage (5 seasons available), a drama series that follows a five-person team (a thief, a grifter, a hacker, and a retrieval specialist, led by a former insurance investigator) who use their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens; Hell's Kitchen (17 seasons available), an American reality competition television series based on the British series of the same name and hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay; and the original Roseanne (9 seasons available), an American television sitcom starring Roseanne Barr that revolved around the fictional Conner family. Other top series include 3rd Rock from the Sun, Mountain Men, 48 Hours, Duck Dynasty, The Jerry Springer Show, Dog The Bounty Hunter, and many others.

NBCNBC provides free access to select seasons and episodes from several NBCUniversal channels. You will need to authenticate through a participating pay TV provider for full access, but you can still find lots of unlocked content, such as the latest episode of Bravo's newest series Below Deck: Sailing Yacht, the daytime soap Days of our Lives, and some past episodes of the drama series Chicago P.D.

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