It depends on the country and the individual factors can be complicated. But the easiest way is to check if it already appears on a list of public domain films.
For example, Wikipedia's "List of films in the public domain in the United States" has plenty of information about determining public domain status, including:
If a film appears on the list below, there is a high probability it has lost some or all of its United States copyright protection (or in the case of U.S. government films, was never protected by copyright).
There is no single method for determining if a film, or parts of it, is in the public domain. There are several methods that can be used to document a film’s public domain status.
The Internet Archive has feature films for download and streaming, and have a FAQ to help determine whether a film is in the public domain.
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