[p2p-research] Free Movies Online...

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Film Draft via Open Culture by
Dan Colman on 11/14/09



Where to watch free movies online? Here’s a list that will get you
started. We’ve listed 30 sites that feature a wide range of films, plus
a healthy number of great films. Classics, international, film noir,
documentaries, indies — they’re all here, waiting to be watched. So
please

Free Movies Online

- A Woman (1915) with Charlie Chaplin.
- Adaptation (2002) Directed by Spike Jonze. Nicolas Cage. (US viewers
only)
- A Story of Healing (1997) Won Academy Award for best documentary
short subject.
- Alexander Nevsky (1938) A historical drama film directed by the great
Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein.
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) Directed by the great Russian director,
Sergei Eisenstein.
- Behind the Screen (1916) With Charlie Chaplin.
- Birth a Nation (1915) Directed by DW Griffith. A landmark work in
film history (1915) with racist undertones. Also see his later movie,
Abraham Lincoln
- Beat the Devil (1953) Directed by John Huston with Humphrey Bogart
and Peter Lorre.
- Blackmail (1929) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- Bon Voyage (1944) A French language WWII propaganda film by Alfred
Hitchcock. Also see Aventure Malgache.
- Charade (1963) starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. (US viewers
only)
- Death Mills (1945) Billy Wilder’s documentary for Germans showing
what Allies found when they liberated Nazi extermination camps.
- Death Rides a Horse (1967) Giulio Petroni’s top spaghetti western.
- Detour (1945) Edgar Ulmer’s cult classic noir film shot in 6 days.
- D.O.A. (1950) Rudolph Maté’s classic noir film. You can also watch
the movie here.
- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) Starring Johnny Depp. (US viewers
only)
- Happy Go Lovely (1951) A classic comedy with David Niven and Cesare
Romero.
- Hell’s House (1932) with Bette Davis.
- His Girl Friday (1940) Directed by Howard Hawks. A classic comedy
with Cary Grant.
- Impact (1940) Arthur Lubin’s well reviewed noir flic.
- In Cold Blood (1967) with Robert Blake. (US viewers only)
- It Happened One Night (1934) Directed by Frank Capra with Clark Gable.
- It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Directed by the great Frank Capra.
Starring Jimmy Stewart.
- Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) With Charlie Chaplin.
- La Femme Nikita (1990). Directed by Luc Besson. (US viewers only)
- Lost in Translation (2003) with Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray.
(US viewers only)
- M (1931) Directed by Fritz Lang with Peter Lorre. In German.
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Directed by Frank Capra with
Jimmy Stewart.
- Murder! (1930) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- Night of the Living Dead (1968). A cult horror classic.
- Nosferatu (1922) Classic German silent film.
- Panic in the Streets (1950), Directed by Elia Kazan with Jack Palance.
- Penny Serenade (1941) with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.
- Quicksand (1950) with Mickey Rooney and Peter Lorre.
- Paradise Canyon (1935) Starring John Wayne.
- Rashomon (1950) By the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.
- Romance Sentimentale (1930) Directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
- Rich and Strange (1931) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- Ronin (1998) With Robert DeNiro. (US viewers only)
- Royal Wedding (1951) With Fred Astaire.
- Scarlet Street (1945) Directed by Fritz Lang with Edward G. Robinson.
A film noir great.
- Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- Secret Agent (1936) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- Sita Sings the Blues, new prize-winning animation film by Nina Paley.
- Spartacus (1959) Starring Laurence Olivier and Kirk Douglas. (US
viewers only)
- Suddenly (1954) with Frank Sinatra and James Gleason.
- Taxi Driver (1976) Directed by Martin Scorsese with Robert DeNiro (US
viewers only)
- The 39 Steps (1935) One of Alfred Hitchcock’s first hits.
- The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936) With Cary Grant
- The Battle of Midway (1942) Directed by John Ford. Narrated by Henry
Fonda.
- The Battle of San Pietro (1945) John Huston’s war time documentary.
- The Bell Boy (1918) Featuring Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton.
- The Hitch-Hiker (1953) The first noir film made by a woman noir
director, Ida Lupino.
- The General (1926) with Buster Keaton.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) with Lon Chaney
- The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock with
James Stewart and Doris Day.
- The Outlaw (1943) Directed by Howard Hughes.
- The Ring (1929) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- The Pawnshop (1916) with Charlie Chaplin.
- The Pride of the Yankees (1942) Starring Gary Cooper. (US viewers
only)
- The Phantom of the Opera (1925). A classic featuring Lon Chaney.
- The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) Directed by Billy Wilder.
(US viewers only)
- The Rink (1916) with Charlie Chaplin.
- The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
- The Sheik (1921) Silent film with Rudolph Valentino.
- The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) with Gregory Peck.
- The Skin Game (1931) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- The Stranger (1946) Directed by Orson Welles with Edward G Robinson.
- The Street Fighter (1974) One of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite karate
films.
- The Terror (1963) with Jack Nicholson and partly shot by Francis Ford
Coppola.
- Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914) with Charlie Chaplin.
- Utopia (1951) Laurel & Hardy’s last film.
- White Heat (1949) with James Cagney, a classic gangster film.
- Young and Innocent (1937) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
-

- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Requiem for a Dream(with Jennifer Connelly and Ellen Burstyn)
- (by Whit Stillman)
- Of Mice and Men(with John Malkovich)
- The Fifth Element (by Luc Besson with Bruce Willis)
- 28 Days Later (by Danny Boyle, who later directed Slumdog Millionaire)
- Koyaanisqatsi (by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass)
- Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me
- Naomi Wolf’s The End of America
- The Times of Harvey Milk, an Oscar winner
- The Atheism Tapes: Richard Dawkins
- Un Chien Andalou, Salvador Dali and Louis Bunuel’s short surrealist
film
- Touki Bouki, Senegal, 1973
- Dry Summer, Turkey 1974
- Transes, Morocco, 1981
- The House Maid, South Korea, 1960
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula,
- Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Westerns (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,
A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More)
- His Girl Friday with Cary Grant
- A Farewell to Arms with Gary Cooper, and
- Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s film, Home
General Films/Movies

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. Some important filmed housed here include:

Google Video: For some time now, major classics have appeared on
Google’s site. Here are a few examples:

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.

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. Some notable mentions include:



Crackle.com: If you’re looking for more mainstream movies, here you go.
This is Sony’s online movie play. You get free films here. And right
now it’s actually featuring

(Note: there’s probably some geo-blocking that comes with this. Can
anyone verify?) Meanwhile, 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 on
CC’s Video blog. Some notable films released under a Creative Commons
license include:

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.
Some notable films include

Film Annex: This site has one of the largest selections of online films
for you to watch or download. See films from independent filmmakers and
directors from all over the world, and download or stream to your PC,
laptop or iPhone. The films are ad-supported, and they include:

FMO: FreeMoviesOnline features a large selection of public domain
films. Here, you’ll find films featuring:

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. To name a few:

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 at Veoh.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. (PS 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 decent
documentaries 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. Among
other films, you can find:

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 right below. And you can find another set of free
films here.

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). Right now, some of the free movies include:

- 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.
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
For more Free Culture, see our other major collections:

Free Courses Online

Free Audio Books

Free Language Lessons

Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites

Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to Open Culture using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your
favorite sites
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