Tim Robbins has made his directorial debut, Bob Roberts, free to watch online

With indie films disappearing, Tim Robbins has the rights to his first feature as director – Bob Roberts – and has made it available for free. This is interesting. At a point where film distribution of smaller, independent films is one fo the not talked about enough problems in the modern day, Tim Robbins appears ... Tim Robbins has made his directorial debut, Bob Roberts, free to watch online

With indie films disappearing, Tim Robbins has the rights to his first feature as director – Bob Roberts – and has made it available for free.

This is interesting. At a point where film distribution of smaller, independent films is one fo the not talked about enough problems in the modern day, Tim Robbins appears to have taken matters into his own hands.

In 1992, he directed for the first time, the political satire Bob Roberts. It’s a biting, really good film, that also includes a terrific turn from Alan Rickman (who apparently came in quite late as a favour to Robbins, too.) I have a vague memory of Columbia Tristar once upon a time putting the VHS out in the UK around the time. There was also a DVD release back in 2000, but the movie’s never troubled Blu-ray anywhere in the world to my knowledge.

Thus, it’s fallen out of distribution. It’s not alone either, with films made as recently as the 1990s and 2000s neither available on any streaming platform, and with physical media releases falling out of print.

There’s a growing number of directors who are getting the rights back to their films though, determined to do something about this. The Fugitive director Andrew Davis has started selling Steal Big Steal Little, starring Andy Garcia, via his own website (which you can find here.)

And now Robbins has made Bob Roberts available for streaming on his website, absolutely free of charge. All you need to do to watch it is go to Tim Robbins’ website – www.timrobbins.com – and you can find Bob Roberts in the menu bar at the top of the website.

Do check it out, too. It runs to just over 100 minutes, and even by 1990s political standards, it had a degree of bite. See what you reckon to it now.

While you pop off and watch it, I’ll drop a note to Robbins and see if he’ll come on the podcast to talk about it…