Frank Sinatra's Legendary '60s Political Thriller Is One Of The Best Movies Streaming On Tubi

There are some outstanding films in the Tubi catalog, making it one of the best streaming services available today. The Tubi archives are surprisingly expansive, and it's worth perusing them whenever you get a chance. Of course, finding good stuff amid the dreck is one of the biggest challenges us streaming-age viewers face today, which is why it's always nice to get a solid recommendation. And you can't get more solid than the Frank Sinatra-led "The Manchurian Candidate," which is available to stream entirely free on Tubi right now.

It's strange to think that by the time Sinatra was releasing his best work, he'd already gone through a career crisis. In the early 1950s, following a decade of major success, the singer's popularity was beginning to wane. Repeated accusations of being a communist sympathizer didn't help in that regard. But his portrayal of Private Angelo Maggio in 1953's "From Here to Eternity," for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, helped turn things around.

At the same time he was shooting his celebrated war drama, Sinatra signed with Capitol Records. He then teamed up with arranger Nelson Riddle, and beginning with 1954's "Songs for Young Lovers" delivered some of the finest records of the 20th Century. Meanwhile, he was building on his "From Here to Eternity" success, appearing alongside Alan Hale Jr. of "Gilligan's Island" fame in 1954's "Young At Heart" before leading 1955's "The Man with the Golden Arm" and "Guys and Dolls." He then toplined "High Society" in 1956 and "Pal Joey" the following year. "Ocean's 11" came in 1960, and by that point his acting bonafides were undeniable. But his finest post-"From Here to Eternity" project was arguably yet to come.

1962's "The Manchurian Candidate" is one of the greatest psychological thrillers ever made, reckoning with decades' worth of McCarthyist-propelled societal paranoia. By 1962, this paranoia had evolved beyond its Red Scare origins into something even more sinister and pervasive: an ambient level of mistrust in institutions and authorities, and a deep-seated fear of the loss of personal autonomy. This was crystallized in George Axelrod's adaptation of Richard Condon's 1959 novel. Under director John Frankenheimer, the final film became a masterpiece.

Sinatra, who had once been dubbed a "fellow traveler on the road to red fascism," and was mentioned no fewer than 12 times in eight years of House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, was perfect for the role of U.S. Army Major Bennett Marco. The film sees Marco and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Lawrence Harvey) captured by Soviet and Chinese soldiers during the Korean War. The pair are then brainwashed, with Shaw transforming into a sleeper agent who can be activated by playing solitaire and being shown the Queen of Diamonds. After he and Marco return to the United States, Shaw is hailed as a war hero while Marco is plagued by nightmares of his Sergeant murdering fellow soldiers before a gathering of Communist leaders.

Meanwhile, as Shaw's mother, Eleanor Shaw Iselin, Angela Lansbury plays the most evil movie matriarch ever. She's determined to install her husband, Senator John Yerkes Iselin (James Gregory), as President and ultimately uses her son as a pawn to get the job done, despite not initially realizing that he is the American chosen for the brainwashing operation. At the same time, Sinatra's soldier races to try to deprogram Shaw before he commits an act too heinous to undo.

"The Manchurian Candidate" debuted during the Cuban Missile Crisis and a year before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. With its communist conspiracy and presidential assassination plot, this classic political thriller proved unsettlingly prescient, and a certain dark aura has surrounded it ever since. But while this tale of political paranoia and loss of personal autonomy was unavoidably dark and remains tragically relevant even today, it was also supposed to be funny. As George Axelrod told the Los Angeles Times around the time of the film's 1988 re-release, "It is, of course, black comedy. But in those days, black comedy wasn't fully understood, and people didn't realize it was okay to laugh. But when I saw it at last year's New York Film Festival, it was a smash."

Even with the comedic aspect going over audiences' heads, "The Manchurian Candidate" was a big success. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, with Angela Lansbury landing a Best Supporting Actress nom alongside a nod for Best Editing. It also made $3.3 million on a $2.2 million budget, before the 1988 re-release brought the total gross to $7.7 million. Critics loved it, too, with Roger Ebert eventually adding it to his "great movies" list and praising the way in which it "takes enormous chances with the audience, and plays not like a 'classic' but as a work as alive and smart as when it was first released." Today, it maintains a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 68 reviews. 

As such, "The Manchurian Candidate" is a must-see regardless of where you can find it. The fact that it's streaming for free on Tubi should be your Queen of Diamonds cue to drop what you're doing and hit play.