As Netflix continues to hike up its prices, it can be frustrating to find footing in the streaming wars. Luckily for fans, one of the best dramas ever made requires no subscription. Now on Tubi, Rob Reiner’s R-rated drama, A Few Good Men, is free to watch.
The movie was written by Aaron Sorkin, adapted from his own stage play of the same name. Released in 1992, A Few Good Men follows Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), a Navy lawyer tasked with the harrowing case of a Marine hazing gone wrong. The film was a career-best performance for Cruise and also boasted Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, and Kiefer Sutherland in starring roles. What starts as a case that could just be another plea deal turns into a battle of wits in the final act. A Few Good Menisn’t typical military propaganda, but instead a story that delves into the complexities of its characters.
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‘A Few Good Men’ Is the Height of the Courtroom Drama
At the outset, Kaffee is a talented, if arrogant, lawyer looking forward to getting out of the Navy. He is known for his plea deals, which is perhaps why, only a year after graduating from law school, he is assigned a murder case. This case has many implications for the Marine Corps after two accidentally kill another Marine after being ordered to carry out a “code red.”
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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
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🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
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What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
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Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
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How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
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What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
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What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
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Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
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What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
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What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
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How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
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What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
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Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
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You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
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You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
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You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
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You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
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You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
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Code reds are not expressly condoned, but happen when a Marine receives harsh discipline as punishment. Lance Corporal Howard Dawson and Private First Class Louden Downey carry out a code red against Private William Santiago, who dies from the assault. Though they only meant to shave his head, the two Marines are on the line for murder and a possible court-martial.
Kaffee understands that the Marines’ best chance is to plead out to serve minimal prison time. It is through his interactions with the persistent Internal Affairs officer, Joanne Galloway (Demi Moore), and continued time with the Marines that Kaffee realizes the code red is a systemic issue that the Marines were aware of. A Few Good Men charts Kaffee’s character progression from a cocky lawyer only out for himself, weighed down by the expectations of his lawyer father, to becoming a prominent lawyer in his own right.
A Few Good Men discusses themes of honor and duty while stressing that these things are not excuses for murder. Dawson’s character is particularly moving as his motivations are uncovered. The corps is all he knows as he stresses: “unit, corps, god, country.” Having already been punished for assisting someone being reprimanded, he was under immense pressure to take on this code red, even though he had affection for Santiago.
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All of these stressors come to a head as Kaffee refuses to back down from questioning Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) and puts everything on the line. Dawson was forced into a terrible situation, but still has to take responsibility for it. Though the court orders Jessup’s arrest for ordering the code red, Dawson understands what he does is wrong and is court-martialed.
These little complexities make Sorkin an esteemed writer, and they are accentuated by Rob Reiner’s direction and the powerful performances of the film. A Few Good Men is always a must-watch, and viewers can catch it for free on Tubi.
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