Best free courses · MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare courses on YouTube, ranked by total hours
Updated 2026-10-13 · 16 courses · totals are live
MIT OpenCourseWare puts whole MIT semesters on YouTube: the lectures as they were given, from 8.01 mechanics to 14.13 psychology and economics, with the problem sets and exams free on ocw.mit.edu. A course is listed by its MIT number, which is how most people search for it, and what neither the number nor the playlist tells you is how long the course takes to watch. A semester at MIT is about thirteen weeks of lectures, and on YouTube that is usually 20 to 35 hours of video.
This page covers MIT's physics, economics, chemistry, biology and psychology courses. MIT's computer science courses are in the university computer science hub, and its calculus and linear algebra in college math. The numbers next to each course are live totals from the playlist itself, ranked longest first. Click one to see every lecture, tick off what you've watched, and get a finish date.
From 6h 32m (MIT 8.20 Introduction to Special Relativity, January IAP 2021) to 1d 11h 54m (MIT 8.333 Statistical Mechanics I: Statistical Mechanics of Particles, Fall 2013).
| # | Course | Videos | Total | At 1.5× |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MIT 8.333 Statistical Mechanics I: Statistical Mechanics of Particles, Fall 2013 · MIT 8.333 Statistical Mechanics I (Fall 2013) — Mehran Kardar The graduate course on the statistical mechanics of particles: thermodynamics, kinetic theory and ensembles. Long lectures, and the longest course here. |
26 | 1d 11h 54m | 23h 56m |
| 2 | MIT 14.12 Economic Applications of Game Theory, Fall 2025 · MIT 14.12 Economic Applications of Game Theory (Fall 2025) Strategic thinking with the maths written out: equilibrium, repeated games, auctions and bargaining. The newest course here. |
25 | 1d 7h 49m | 21h 13m |
| 3 | MIT 3.091 Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry, Fall 2018 · MIT 3.091 Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry (Fall 2018) — Jeffrey Grossman Chemistry through materials: bonding, crystals, defects and why solids behave as they do. MIT's other first-year chemistry. |
47 | 1d 6h 59m | 20h 39m |
| 4 | MIT 8.03SC Physics III: Vibrations and Waves, Fall 2016 · MIT 8.03SC Physics III: Vibrations and Waves (Fall 2016) — Yen-Jie Lee Oscillators, coupled systems, waves, Fourier analysis and optics: the course after mechanics and electromagnetism. A few short "how we teach" clips sit among the lectures. |
36 | 1d 6h 45m | 20h 30m |
| 5 | MIT 9.00 Introduction to Psychology (Fall 2004) — John Gabrieli Perception, memory, emotion, development, personality and mental illness, in long lectures from 2004 that hold up. |
23 | 1d 5h 59m | 20h |
| 6 | MIT 14.13 Psychology and Economics, Spring 2020 · MIT 14.13 Psychology and Economics (Spring 2020) — Frank Schilbach Behavioural economics: why people procrastinate, misjudge risk and care about others, and what that means for policy and poverty. |
24 | 1d 4h 36m | 19h 4m |
| 7 | MIT 8.04 Quantum Physics I (Spring 2016) — Barton Zwiebach Wave functions, the Schrödinger equation, the harmonic oscillator and scattering, in short segments that make a long course easier to start and stop. |
115 | 1d 4h 19m | 18h 52m |
| 8 | MIT 7.016 Introductory Biology (Fall 2018) — Barbara Imperiali, Adam Martin Biochemistry, genetics, molecular and cell biology, up to neurobiology and cancer. MIT's first-year biology requirement. |
35 | 1d 3h 52m | 18h 35m |
| 9 | MIT 5.111 Principles of Chemical Science, Fall 2014 · MIT 5.111 Principles of Chemical Science (Fall 2014) — Catherine Drennan, Elizabeth Vogel Taylor First-year general chemistry: atomic structure, bonding, thermodynamics, equilibrium, acids and bases, and kinetics. |
35 | 1d 1h 25m | 16h 57m |
| 10 | MIT 15.401 Finance Theory I, Fall 2008 · MIT 15.401 Finance Theory I (Fall 2008) — Andrew Lo Present value, bonds, stocks, risk and return, and the CAPM, from MIT Sloan. |
20 | 1d 59m | 16h 39m |
| 11 | MIT 14.01 Principles of Microeconomics, Fall 2023 · MIT 14.01 Principles of Microeconomics (Fall 2023) — Jonathan Gruber Supply and demand, consumers and firms, market failures and policy, from the author of a widely used public finance textbook. |
26 | 20h 26m | 13h 37m |
| 12 | MIT 9.13 The Human Brain (Spring 2019) — Nancy Kanwisher How the brain is organised for faces, language, navigation and more, taught by the scientist who found the face area. |
17 | 20h 9m | 13h 26m |
| 13 | MIT 14.02 Principles of Macroeconomics, Spring 2023 · MIT 14.02 Principles of Macroeconomics (Spring 2023) — Ricardo Caballero Growth, inflation, unemployment, interest rates and financial crises, and what central banks do about them. |
25 | 19h 55m | 13h 17m |
| 14 | MIT 8.01SC Classical Mechanics, Fall 2016 · MIT 8.01SC Classical Mechanics (Fall 2016) — Deepto Chakrabarty, Peter Dourmashkin, Michelle Tomasik, Anna Frebel, Vladan Vuletic First-year mechanics cut into short lessons, one idea per video, from vectors to rigid-body rotation. Many videos, few hours. |
215 | 18h 22m | 12h 15m |
| 15 | MIT 16.687 Private Pilot Ground School (IAP 2019) — Philip Greenspun, Tina Srivastava The ground-school knowledge for a US private pilot licence: aerodynamics, weather, navigation and regulations. |
24 | 16h 22m | 10h 54m |
| 16 | MIT 8.20 Introduction to Special Relativity, January IAP 2021 · MIT 8.20 Introduction to Special Relativity (IAP 2021) — Markus Klute Einstein's special relativity in MIT's January term: time dilation, Lorentz transformations and relativistic energy. The shortest course here. |
52 | 6h 32m | 4h 21m |
Totals count available videos only and update as the playlists change. Private or deleted videos are excluded. Compare the top 5 side by side →
How to take an MIT course from YouTube
- Do the problem sets: the lectures are half the course. Each course's page on ocw.mit.edu has the problem sets, and usually the exams with solutions, so plan an hour or two of problems for every hour of lectures.
- Pick by the number: the first digits are the department (8 physics, 14 economics, 5 chemistry, 7 biology, 9 brain and cognitive sciences, 15 management), and low numbers like 8.01 or 14.01 are first-year courses with nothing assumed.
- At speed: lectures recorded in a hall have pauses and board work, so most people can watch them at 1.25× or 1.5×. The guide to watching at 1.5× and 2× has the numbers.
Finishing one
Open a course here, tick lectures as you watch them, and the remaining time updates. The planner turns the total into a dated schedule you can put on your calendar, and the guide to finishing before an exam has the method. For a lighter first pass at the same subjects, Crash Course covers physics, chemistry, economics and psychology in short episodes.