The year 2020 has been a difficult challenge for many of us. There were job losses, family losses, and more that came as the result of the pandemic. Many people seem to be struggling financially, even if they were able to hang onto their jobs or small businesses.
Many individuals during these trying times are still trying to find ways to be budget minded with their entertainment. One of these areas of entertainment is streaming movies online and finding free movies online. Free movie streaming is something that can take a while to figure out where the truly free movies are online.
There are plenty of organizations that offer “free movies” when they are really just offering a free trial for a period of time. These can easily eat into your already limited budget. And unsubscribing from these can often be a massive mess.
This begs the question of where to find these and how to get started on freeing up funds for your budget. With a little digging, you can readily find plenty of sites that you can use towards consuming free content.
In the rest of this post, we’ll be discussing places that you can stream online movies free of charge and reduce your entertainment budget.
This over-the-top streaming service is available in 21 countries and for a variety of devices ranging from mobile to smart TVs to desktops and many other things. You might find it in a few select hotels and flights.
It was originally an independent company but is now owned by the Chicken Soup for the Soul (was briefly owned by Sony). This is a great site for finding free movies online and can be good for free movie streaming at home.
You might be able to find a variety of different movies and programming here. These include pictures from Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, and more. There are also several originals that are available raning from On The Ropes, Going from Broke, and Hidden Heroes.
You won’t disappointed with other available original programming:
1) Trenches
2) Angel Of Death
3) The Bannen Way
4) The Oath
5) StartUp
6) JailBait
7) Road To Raceday
8) Mad Families
9) Dead Rising: Endgame
10) Office Uprising
YouTube was a brainchild of 3 former PayPal employees. Acquired by Google, this media sharing platform is great for finding movies to TV shows to videos from independent creators. Several hundred hours of content gets uploaded daily to this platform, so there are plenty of things for just about anyone.
What makes this platform interesting is that it originally started as an attempt to create a dating site but eventually developed into a video-sharing site of all sorts. It’s growth since Google’s acquisition has been amazing!
The site now hosts plenty of content from networks such as ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. Several other organizations offers some of their content on the platform as well-the likes of Disney and Turner Broadcasting Corporation can be among the few that provide direct programming for viewers.
If those corporations don’t have things that are up in your alley, then maybe plenty of other independent creators can provide that scratch. You’ll be able to have plenty of choices that you can select on a budget.
Popcornflix is another OTT (over-the-top) streaming service that is also owned by the Chicken Soup for the Soul organization. It’s parent organization, Screen Media Ventures, LLC, tends to screen the content and provide the services. It offers webisodes and full length movies that you might enjoy consuming.
It is currently available on the following platforms:
1) Web
2) Roku
3) Amazon Fire Stick
4) Xbox
5) iDevices such as iPhone and iPad
6) PS3
Additionally, this service is only available in the US and Canada at the moment with plans to expand abroad. For Americans and Canadians, this is a great resource for being able to stream movies online free of charge.
Crunchyroll is popular for those interested in things such as anime and manga. This site was established by Berkeley graduates that delivers content to several million users worldwide. It is a subsidiary of Otter Media (which is owned by AT&T). Sony’s Funimation will acquire this site in 2020.
Available on iDevices, Android, Xbox, desktop, and other platforms, you can find over 30,000 episodes of some of the more popular anime series. Content like Attack on Titan, Overlord, and Grand Summoners x Goblin Slayer Flash should tickle the fancies of a lot of different people.
This site is perfect for those that are massively interested in Japanese style entertainment.
Yidio, short for Your Internet Video, is an aggregator. It collects videos from several different providers and centralizes them in a singular place for easier viewing. The site has raised several hundred thousand dollars in funding and has mobile apps for easier viewing on the go.
Yidio utilizes robots to aggregate then personalizes the content to you as a person. This may be it’s best feature for those that are wanting very tailored experiences to their movie viewing.
IMDb TV is an ad supported version of the videos from Amazon’s Prime video database. It is available on Fire devices and is a good site to participate in free movie streaming from home. Having signed deals with companies such as Warner Bros. and MGM Studios, there are wider pieces of content becoming available.
This allowed the platform to take brand new opportunities in terms in advertising revenue.
Shows like Leverage and Corner Gas are a part of this particular site’s free movie streaming content. Additional content came to the platform such as the Eleventh Hour Films and the Alex Rider espionage series. For the older generations, there may be things that they like, such as the Star Trek series.
Vudu is a streaming service by Fandago entertainment and can be a locker for media and serve as a way to stream copies of videos that people have purchased. Established in 2004, there have been several pieces of growth finally being acquired by Fandago in 2020.
The platform has also been integrated in things such as smart TVs.
There was a brief stint in trying to sell a Vudu box (similar to Roku or other competitors) but this was discounted for online only streaming for people to consume. Eventually, Vudu was purchased by Walmart and now Fandago (which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros.).
According to a variety of different sources, Vudu claims to have 24,000+ movies and 8000+ television shows. You might enjoy the selection of documentaries, anime, musicals, cartoons and more. You can find that the content is available in a variety of different resolutions ranging from standard definition to as high as HDR10.
(HDR10 and HDR10+ are ways to make a video more vibrant).
Perhaps one of the more interesting pieces of content becoming available for the platform is a series based off of the movie of a similar name-Mr. Mom. This perhaps would be a nice way to relive some of those memories.
Hoopla is a web and mobile platform that allows users to take advantage of free movie streaming. It offers a lot of content ranging from books to comics to music and more. This would be ideal for those parents that have younger children to find a variety of resources in one consolidated place.
Only available in the US and Canada, this service is a child of Midwest Tape. The revenue model is paid for by libraries and offers a very similar method of generating revenue.
There is a claim that the organization has over 500,000 pieces of content in 6 distribution formats. Recently, there has been a massive rise in audio, though there are plenty of television and movies that are available for streaming movie online free of charge for those that participate in the service.
Vimeo is an alternative to YouTube and can offer different content than what you are used to finding on other media. It’s primary revenue source is subscription plans for creators and offers a Software as a Service approach towards offering content.
It has gone through several changes and now serves as an independent company seeking to compete with other organizations.
Vimeo offers similar content resolution and streaming services that you might find from YouTube and has even acquired organizations such as VHX. Some of the content may include things from independent creators to larger organizations.
It is a great resource for finding free movies online if you want to get away from having to watch advertising that is common on other platforms.
Roku, a company that offers a variety of devices for viewing content, has their own streaming channel that you can use to stream movies online free. This service offers plenty of things from Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount. The service also offers a web based version that is available for free movie streaming for personal viewing at home.
There are other channels that you can look at and use, those these might charge you for that. Much like Yidio, there is a lot of this content that gets aggregated from a lot of other VODs (Video On Demand).
These can be good additional pieces of content for those that have the funds to spend at each of these alternative VODs.
Plex is a site that has a lot of options for free movie streaming. It has free movies and shows from Lionsgate and MGM as well as Crackle (yes, the one mentioned earlier in this post) that you consume. You might enjoy videos and movies such as Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and St. Vincent.
These are ones that are just readily available-and the library is huge for those that might have more eclectic tastes with their video prefences (hey some people thoroughly enjoy those classic foreign films!).
For those of you that like TV, you might find things like the Jerry Springer Show and Deal or No Deal to be of your taste. These are just alternatives of what you have available to watch on the platform.
These other pieces of content might lead you to find a movie or two that you enjoy watching time and time again!
The service is also available on the typical devices-Apple, Android, Roku, Chromecast, Fire devices and Windows devices. This allows just about anyone to take advantage of streaming movies online freely wherever they are!
Pluto TV is owned by ViacomCBS and is one of the many internet television service providers. This is a free movie streaming service supported by advertising. There is the claim that there are 250 channels and upwards of 100,000 hours of unique content that people can readily consume on their own.
There are some pieces of content that are aggregated from other sites and other pieces from major corporations such as Fox and Universal Music Group. You might even find some of the recent and classic television series from NBC and Fox on the platform as well.
Content can be featured or belong to any plethora of other categories. These can be movies (comedy, horror, etc) to news + opinion to sports and other categories of content. There are even movies and content that are in Spanish for those that prefer that for their free movie streaming.
Availability is on most common devices such as Android, iDevices, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Windows, macOS, Chromecast, PS4/5 and Xbox. This means that a wide variety of people are able to get access to the materials that the organization has for them.
Operating in several countries, the organization is looking resolve issues in others that may have copyrights or program rights that prevent them from opening up in their countries.
Tubi TV is one of the ad-supported video on demand services from the Fox Corporation. Starting in 2014, the service has been streaming out of San Francisco, California. They recently expanded their licensed content that they have access to provide and claim that they currently have around 400 TV episodes and movies.
Besides having content from Fox, they have content available from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, Warner Bros and more.
Kanopy is an on-demand service for libraries and universities. These predominantly focus on films and documentaries. The service allows features such as captions and transcripts to help users to share videos.
The service offers a customizable website for the libraries or universities that allow them to develop their own YouTube in a sense.
Users are able to stream the content for free as the institutions are the ones that absorb the cost. The content is available online, or through mobile apps (also Roku). This can be a great alternative to help encourage younger kids to get involved with reading.
One that might not necessarily get mentioned much is Viki. Viki often specializes in Asian Dramas out of China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan. This is much like Crunchyroll and can be a way to get involved with the latest shows out of Asia-perfect for those Chinese or Japanese language learners!
There are subscription options available for those that want to get access to more content than what would be freely available.
In conclusion, there are several places to get the opportunity to stream movies online. These sites can offer a variety of different content and can be tailored to individual preferences.
Different tastes for different people. Additionally, each site has content that might not necessarily be available on other sites.
