Sources Used to Create This List
- Public domain collection of film noir at Archive.org – Boing Boing
- The Best: Movies in the Public Domain – Wired
- Films in the Public Domain – Wikipedia
- Fimoculous list of Hulu Movies
- About.com: Download the Classics
- Salon: The Future is Almost Now
- Future Tense: Public Radio
For more Free Culture, see our other major collections:
Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites
Free Movie Sites
Internet Archive – Feature Films: When you’re looking for free movies online, the Internet Archive should be your first stop. It features large collections of classic comedies, film noir and sci-fi/horror flix. Many films listed above come from the Internet Archive.
Google Video: For some time now, major classics have appeared on Google’s site. You will find many such films above.
Australian Screen Archive: The Australian National Film and Sound Archive provides free and worldwide access to over 1,000 film and television titles – a treasure chest of down-under video 100 years in the making.
B Minus Movies: AMC is your new go-to site for B-movies by the likes of John Carpenter (Dark Star) and Roger Corman (Saga of the Viking Women). Want to see international icons before they made it big? Check out Raquel Welch in A Swingin’ Summer or kung fu king Sonny Chiba inTerror Beneath the Sea. Looking for the unexpected? How about The Ruthless Four, a spaghetti Western starring Klaus Kinski.
Babelgum Films: Babelgum’s goal is to act as an international ‘glue’, bringing a huge range of professional and semi-professional films to a global audience – like a modern-day Tower of Babel. They’re also making an effort to get their content to smartphones. They have an iPhone app now and apps for other phones on the horizon. Get more detail on the mobile apps here.
BestOnlineDocumentaries: As one reader previously told us, “This site is a bit out of date and some of the links are broken, but it’s still a great compilation of online documentaries.” For more documentaries, you should also see Snagfilms mentioned below.
Classic Cinema Online: This site nicely pulls together hundreds of classic films, ranging from Action to Westerns and even old cinema shorts and news reels.
ClearBits: This new site provides hosting and distribution for open licensed (Creative Commons) media and datasets. They have a section devoted just to movies, and all their content can be downloaded without cost.
Crackle.com: If you’re looking for more mainstream movies, here you go. This is Sony’s online movie play. Note: there’s probably some geo-blocking that comes with this. Also, one of our readers has also suggested the UK-based Blinkbox, which seems to offer another platform for more mainstream films.
Creative Commons: The folks who gave us the Creative Commons license host a wiki where you can find a good number of freely available films. Handy and worth keeping an eye on. I’d also suggest keeping tabs onCC’s Video blog.
Daily Motion Movies: This YouTube-style video site features a section that offers short films in HD. The collection is small, and you won’t find well known films here. But some movies get decent reviews. This looks to be part of a beta project that could expand.
Documentary Film Network: This site has been archiving documentaries for the past 4 years and serving them free of charge. Among the 181 films, you can find some of the Nixon-Frost interviews and a Che Guevara Biography.
Europa Film Treasures: Thanks to Europa Film Treasures, you can spend hours looking back through an archive of European film. Theses films range from “comedy to science fiction, from westerns to animation, from erotic to ethnological movies.” Highly recommended by our readers.
Fancast: This Comcast-owned site features a long list of free movies.
Film Annex: This site has one of the largest selections of online films for you to watch or download. You can find free classic movies and television shows right here. And you’ll also find at the Film Annex many films from independent filmmakers and directors. The site gives you the ability to download or stream films to your PC, laptop or iPhone. The films are ad-supported.
FMO: FreeMoviesOnline features a large selection of public domain films.
Free Documentaries Online: The name says it all.
Free Documentaries.Org: Specializes in showing provocative documentaries for free.
Free Movies Cinema: A mixture of yet more free films, which includes Quentin Tarantino’s early film, My Best Friend’s Birthday.
Hulu: Unfortunately Hulu limits its programming to a US audience (a policy that really needs to change), but it’s the 800 pound gorilla in the US, and there are some decent films here. You will find some Hulu titles sprinkled in above.
IMDB: This is perhaps a little redundant, but the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) also hosts some free online films (as well as TV shows) on its site. From what I can tell, it’s done in partnership with Hulu. But this collection has the advantage of pointing you to some decent films. Click here and scroll down. You can also find another re-packager of Hulu flix over atVeoh.com.
Indie Movies Online: Just as it sounds. A good place to watch full-fledged indie films on the web. Right now, you can find Peter Greenaway’s film, Rembrandt’s J’accuse and The Future We Will Create – Inside the World of TED. The site seems to be available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, but perhaps also beyond.
Jaman: Jaman is mainly a pay-per-download site that focuses on indie-style films, but they do host some free movies. Even though they have a page devoted to their free films, it’s actually not that easy to find the freebies. You have to fish around a little.
Legal Torrents: Pretty much what the name says. Legaltorrents.com hosts high quality open-licensed (Creative Commons) digital media and art. This link takes you to their movie section.
NFB.ca: NFB.ca is a web site where you can watch films produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It offers access to 100s of documentaries, animated films and trailers. You can also access this collection via a free iPhone app. (p.s. You should also check out our own free iPhone app, which will let you download free audio books, free courses, free language lessons, and other types of intelligent media.)
OVGuide: If you’re looking for more free films, you should pay this site a visit. OVGuide is an up-to-date guide to online video, including TV shows, movies, and video games. It offers another way to find free movies online.
PBS Video: PBS hosts online a new film based on Michael Pollan’s bestseller, Botany of Desire. Other PBS productions are also housed here.
QuickSilverScreen: This site essentially puts torrents online and lets you watch films posted by other users, including many new films. It’s hard to believe that this site is entirely kosher, but it’s very popular (one of the top 3,000 sites on the web) and hardly a closely held secret.
Sling.com: This collection contains some dreck, but also some decentdocumentaries and classic films. So it gets on the list.
SnagFilms: SnagFilms “finds the world’s most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and makes them available to a wide audience.” You can watch full-length documentary films for free. Currently includes over 550 films.
Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive: This online catalog “provides access to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive. The Archive serves as a comprehensive informational and archival resource worldwide for moving image materials pertaining to the Holocaust and related aspects of World War II. ”
The Auteurs.com: Though this site typically offers arts films on a pay-per-view basis, it does feature a series of free films. Each month, a free film is featured (see example here). The site also hosts free international films restored by Martin Scorsese’s Word Cinema Foundation, mentioned below. And you can find another set of free films here.
UbuWeb: Presents dozens of avant-garde films & videos for your viewing pleasure.
Veoh.com: Tends to redistribute films from Hulu but some other gems one can be found here.
Video on Demand at Amazon.com: Ok, it’s not the most enriching collection of films. But if you’re looking for something light…
World Cinema Foundation: The WCF, created by Martin Scorsese in 2007, has restored a series of classic international films. You can watch them for free online.
YouTube Movies: YouTube hosts a series of full-length movies (that are likely geo-restricted).
YouTube Screening Room: The Screening Room presents high quality, short independent films to YouTube users and promises to roll out four new films every two weeks. The collection includes some Academy-Award winners and other quality films. More info here.
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