The Bizarre Cult Sci-fi Classic ‘Donnie Darko’ Is Now Free to Watch

Jake Gyllenhaal's strange trip through time, fate and alternate realities is streaming free ahead of a sequel

A cult classic isn't necessarily a movie everyone loved when it came out. Sometimes it's the movie that found its audience years later — passed around between friends, endlessly quoted, rediscovered on late-night cable, and eventually embraced by a devoted group of fans.

Some are straightforward genre favorites, like The Evil Dead or The Warriors. Others are considerably stranger. Heathers, Napoleon Dynamite, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show all have wildly different sensibilities, but they share that same ability to inspire the kind of devotion that turns a movie into something bigger than its original release.

One of the best examples is now free to watch on YouTube.

Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko is now available to watch for free on YouTube, giving anyone who somehow missed the 2001 cult classic a chance to see one of the strangest and most enduring movies of its era without paying for a rental or subscription.

What is Donnie Darko about?

Donnie Darko follows Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), a troubled teenager living with his family in suburban Virginia. One night, Donnie is visited by a mysterious figure named Frank wearing a creepy rabbit costume. Frank tells him that the world will end in 28 days, setting Donnie on a bizarre path involving time travel, alternate realities and an increasingly complicated series of events that may or may not be connected.

The movie features an unusually stacked cast for an offbeat sci-fi drama, including Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Seth Rogen, and Mary McDonnell.

It's also famously difficult to explain without making it sound completely insane, which is part of the appeal. Donnie Darko invites viewers to debate what actually happened while still working as a story about adolescence, grief, family, and the fear that something is wrong with the world around you.

A Donnie Darko sequel is coming this fall

As Donnie Darko approaches its 25th anniversary, Kelly is preparing to release a sequel novel called The Philosophy of Time Travel later this year. The book picks up 14 months after Donnie's death and is told through a collection of found documents, including material from Donnie's parents, Rose and Eddie.

Kelly has reportedly spent years developing the story after abandoning plans for a traditional sequel movie. His long-term ambitions go even further: He hopes the book could eventually lead to an animated or motion-capture adaptation, followed by a live-action film set 28 years after the original.

It's not the first attempt to continue the story. S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale, released directly to video in 2009, followed Donnie's younger sister Samantha but was made without Kelly's involvement. The movie was poorly received, earning just a 13% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.