It's actually insane how many movies are completely absent from streaming services

[CharlesAznable]

I have Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, and Paramount+. Also up until recently I had Prime video, and Peacock.

I'm always finding new movie recs and whenever I try to watch them, 9 times out of 10 they're not on any of the platforms listed above, even if they were produced by their parent company. This ranges from classic movies to modern ones only a few years old. The only to watch them seems to buy them individually off of Amazon and Itunes. Which will get very expensive super quick.

As someone who loves movies I find this super frustrating...

 

[RPGamer92]

The worst are the ones who switch services every month or where some installments are on one and the rest on another.

 

[ScoutDave]

Ive complained a lot about this in the past.

I was born in the 70s. And I like a lot of the movies i grew up with from then to the mid 90s. Even the cheesy B flicks. But there is nowhere to watch them. They are essentially lost to time unless you buy physical. Amazon Prime though seems to have some older flicks from time to time. But there definitely needs to be a place where more are available.

Id LOVE a streaming service that would just focus on older titles. I dunno how popular that would be though.

 

[Mister Ursine]

Do you have time to talk about our obscure movie lord and savior, TUBI?

Tubi and Criterion Channel will cover a lot of must see movie bases.

 

[Tavernade]

I recommend checking Tubi (free) and Kanopy/Hoopla (free with library card). They get some really deep cuts.

I will say that I've noticed a lot of B-Tier films tend to be oddly missing from services. My guess is the companies that own them want more money than the free services will give, but also don't see the benefit of putting them on their dedicated platforms.

 

[TaySan]

I hate how movies constantly switch services too. When you're in the mood to watch something and all of sudden it disappears and tou have to spend more money on another stream :(

 

[CharlesAznable]

Do you have time to talk about our obscure movie lord and savior, TUBI?

Tubi and Criterion Channel will cover a lot of must see movie bases.

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I've heard a lot of good things about Tubi, but the ad thing just kills it for me.

Criterions selection also seems pretty limit, at least for the movies I tend to try to find.

 

[Hello Snake]

I dont expect my services to ever have movies, unless they are originals to that service. On the rare occasion they actually have the movie I wanted, it will be in a lesser quality than what's available elsewhere.

 

[Dice]

There's a bunch of stuff from the 80s that I swear I've seen randomly uploaded by users on YouTube than legit services like iTunes.

 

[Sunster]

the goal now is to make their own original content. Now that they've done that, hosting other movies is not as much a priority.

 

[IDontBeatGames]

I have Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, and Paramount+. Also up until recently I had Prime video, and Peacock.

I'm always finding new movie recs and whenever I try to watch them, 9 times out of 10 they're not on any of the platforms listed above, even if they were produced by their parent company. This ranges from classic movies to modern ones only a few years old. The only to watch them seems to buy them individually off of Amazon and Itunes. Which will get very expensive super quick.

As someone who loves movies I find this super frustrating...

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I hate how movies constantly switch services too. When you're in the mood to watch something and all of sudden it disappears and tou have to spend more money on another stream :(

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These two posts are exactly why physical media will always be my preference. I know getting up to change discs is a bit much for some people but these streaming services constantly swapping movies, removing movies or straight up not having stuff I want to watch is why folks should try to make the effort to buy what they want. If it's this bad now, it's only gonna get worse later for us.

 

[Dead Man Typing]

I'm taking all the old dvds that are in storage in lofts and cupboards and moving them back into easy to access shelves in my office and living room. Streaming is too unreliable.

I listen to the Nextlander podcasts and they have a movie/TV show bookclub style podcast. The number of times the movies they watch aren't on any streaming service I subscribe to - but I do have the dvd - is unbelievable.

 

[Eddman]

Yep, streaming now is basically just regular TV. Series and original content with some of the most famous blockbusters here and there.

 

[Loxley]

This is why, in addition to having a healthy library of DVDs and blurays, I also have a pretty massive digital library of movies, between iTunes, Vudu, and Movies Anywhere. I just refuse to be beholden to streaming services when I'm looking to watch something specific. Especially with everyone and their mother raising their prices seemingly every 6-12 months now.

 

[nitewulf]

Some of the classic are available on Tubie, Freevee and random free apps but overall I agree, a lot of movies are behind paywalls.

 

[More_Badass]

There's a bunch of stuff from the 80s that I swear I've seen randomly uploaded by users on YouTube than legit services like iTunes.

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Tubi and YouTube are king

 

[Kopite]

What's the best way to search for a movie across multiple streaming services?

 

[J75]

The situation becomes 100x worse when we put foreign films in the equation. It's bad out here. Tons of media gonna be lost in the future.

 

[Brazil]

Wanted to watch Catch Me If You Can yesterday... Five separate stramers and none of them have it! :P

 

[Vic Damone Jr.]

Yup and it be movies that aren't even that out there, it makes no damn sense. I wanted to catch up on 007 series a few months ago but spectre wasn't streaming and now that spectre is streaming no time to die isn't. Finally saw Venom last year and enjoyed it but wouldn't you know Venom 2 ain't on any of the main players.

 

[Conditional-Pancakes]

I feel like month after month the streaming model keeps straying from its original promise. Either by gradually getting insanely expensive (hi Netflix!) or by throwing ads at the face of paying users at an obscene level (hi Amazon!), all streaming services are becoming less and less appealing.

I don't know what can be next, but something needs to happen now.

 

[Nida]

As a kid I used to love the movie The Cowboy Way which I randomly thought of last night. Only available on DVD.

But yeah I hate when stuff simply isn't available. I'm sure there are portions of the catalog they deem only rental worthy.

 

[Tavernade]

What's the best way to search for a movie across multiple streaming services?

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JustWatch will show everywhere a movie is streaming if you search for it. Letterboxd has some functionality with it too. you can even get notifications of stuff getting added.

The situation becomes 100x worse when we put foreign films in the equation. It's bad out here. Tons of media gonna be lost in the future.

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Maybe I'm just lucky and like what's becoming popular, but I feel like Tubi and Criterion have really added a ton of Japanese films in recent years/months. At least for older/obscure stuff.

 

[Princess Viola]

What's the best way to search for a movie across multiple streaming services?

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IDK if there's a better site, but I use justwatch.com

 

[Slick Willy]

Imagine how much worse it is living in a country where most of those streaming services are not available.

Piracy is literally your only option to watch them.

 

[Soapbox Killer]

Pluto Tubi and the real winner, over the air tv.
OTA is becoming the best option the older I get.

 

[Stuggernaut]

I'm the opposite... almost everything I want to watch is SOMEWHERE I have found. Not necessarily ad free, but I can live with that if I REALLY want to see something.

I will say like others, TUBI has a TON of content.

 

[More_Badass]

The situation becomes 100x worse when we put foreign films in the equation. It's bad out here. Tons of media gonna be lost in the future.

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Tubi, Hoopla and Kanopy (if you have a library card), Yotutube, and international steamers like iQiyi are pretty good in that regard

 

[Airi]

I've been wanting to watch the whole Cornetto trilogy for many years now, but the only one on any streaming service is Hot Fuzz. I think even that one may have dropped off them by now, actually. It's rather annoying.

 

[SeanM]

There's actually a surprising amount of content on the free services like Tubi, Pluto, and Freevee.

I dislike ad-supported content so it's usually a last resort for me, but there's been a bunch of times those services have things that the big heavy hitter premium services don't.

 

[Manmademan]

I have Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, and Paramount+. Also up until recently I had Prime video, and Peacock.

I'm always finding new movie recs and whenever I try to watch them, 9 times out of 10 they're not on any of the platforms listed above, even if they were produced by their parent company. This ranges from classic movies to modern ones only a few years old. The only to watch them seems to buy them individually off of Amazon and Itunes. Which will get very expensive super quick.

As someone who loves movies I find this super frustrating...

Click to shrink...

The worst are the ones who switch services every month or where some installments are on one and the rest on another.

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This is why physical media releases are still important. Rights issues for digital content are all over the freaking place and it is not unlikely at ALL that a film you like will just straight up vanish, or be replaced with an abomination of a "director's cut" with no way to view the original footage (looking at Star Wars here.)

If you really love movies, streaming isn't a viable solution long term if you want to watch what you want, when you want.

 

[Khanimus]

These two posts are exactly why physical media will always be my preference. I know getting up to change discs is a bit much for some people but these streaming services constantly swapping movies, removing movies or straight up not having stuff I want to watch is why folks should try to make the effort to buy what they want. If it's this bad now, it's only gonna get worse later for us.

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Physical media offers little help with people following up on a recommendation on something they haven't seen, let alone the near complete lack of rental stores beside some rare novelty mom-and-pop.

 

[CharlesAznable]

Physical media offers little help with people following up on a recommendation on something they haven't seen, let alone the near complete lack of rental stores beside some rare novelty mom-and-pop.

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Yeah I love physical media and fully support preservation methods, but when i'm trying to watch some obscure B movie for the 80s, the last thing I want to do is hunt down a store that sells it, wait for it to deliver in 3 days and then if I end up not liking it, be short $20.

 

[More_Badass]

Yeah I love physical media and fully support preservation methods, but when i'm trying to watch some obscure B movie for the 80s, the last thing I want to do is hunt down a store that sells it, wait for it to deliver in 3 days and then if I end up not liking it, be short $20.

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8-9 times out of 10, you can bet the more obscure a b/cult film, the more likely it'll have a YouTube or Dailymotion upload

 

[TissueBox]

These two posts are exactly why physical media will always be my preference. I know getting up to change discs is a bit much for some people but these streaming services constantly swapping movies, removing movies or straight up not having stuff I want to watch is why folks should try to make the effort to buy what they want. If it's this bad now, it's only gonna get worse later for us.

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☝️

 

[TripaSeca]

Try your local library.

 

[Brandino]

It's not just movies. I'm not sure why the middle 5 seasons of Mythbusters aren't on Max

 

[J-Skee]

Yeah I love physical media and fully support preservation methods, but when i'm trying to watch some obscure B movie for the 80s, the last thing I want to do is hunt down a store that sells it, wait for it to deliver in 3 days and then if I end up not liking it, be short $20.

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I've been checking out the library lately. Great way to save some money.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

It's really bad. There's a ton of older movies that are just stuck in licensing limbos where it can be unclear who has the rights, or some just aren't interested, thus they'll never show up on streaming or digital purchase platforms. And as mentioned above, once you take into account films from outside the US, it gets even more dire. Then you also toss in how so many of these movies are likely not to bring a huge viewership, and may cost them more money to stream it and you end up with a ton of movies just unavailable effectively.

 

[captive]

physical media for life. I was just telling my wife about this today, about how movies or tv shows just leaving streaming. or people buying a "digital" copy of something and then that company deciding they have to get rid of it because of some rights issue.

Yep, streaming now is basically just regular TV. Series and original content with some of the most famous blockbusters here and there.

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not sure what your talking about.

back in the day cable/satellite had random movies on loads of channels all the time, as well as TNT blasting the famous blockbusters.

Like the only reason I know "Crybaby" exists is USA would play the shit out of it late at night. Which is why I was surprised its actually getting a 4k release from arrow or kino (cant remember which.)

 

[xendless]

Netflix is also visually a pain in the ass just to look through all the icons and try and find anything at all
At least Amazon Prime often incorporates the movie posters into the thumbnails

What's the best way to search for a movie across multiple streaming services?

Click to shrink...

I use Just Watch if I want to find something specific, it searches across free services too

JustWatch - Streaming Search Engine for Movies and TV Series

Find out where to watch movies and tv series legally online with JustWatch, the streaming search engine.

www.justwatch.com

 

[Afrikan]

I was recommending this to a co-worker...and they were like where is it streaming. And of course. 😐

Edit- apparently it just went up on Starz.. finally geez.

 

[chaostrophy]

I miss Netflix DVD service. Yeah, you couldn't get the discs fast enough to binge tons of tv, but for movies the selection and price were amazing. Sucks that even with all the savings from eliminating shipping and manufacturing costs Netflix streaming is so much worse.

 

[Autumn]

Ed isn't available anywhere.

 

[mnemonicj]

At least gaming has emulation to keep games "alive". Maybe one day all movie distributors agree to make a huge movie archive and all will be preserved somehow.

 

[SirFritz]

It's worse if you live in a country like australia where our options are even more limited, and our selection of dvds/blurays is quite poor (with companies like disney pulling out from selling new movies at all here). I watch a lot of older movies and some are just impossible to find. A VPN and Tubi help a lot though.

 

[345]

at no point have i ever assumed that any given movie would be on one of the streaming services i use. i don't think it's any worse now than it used to be.

i tend not to watch movies even when they are on netflix/amazon etc because usually they don't have 4K or dolby vision unless they're exclusive to the service.

i'm pretty confident itunes isn't going anywhere so i almost always just buy movies from there.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

the goal now is to make their own original content. Now that they've done that, hosting other movies is not as much a priority.

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Well.. that's not quite true anymore either. We're seeing things rebalance the other way now to a hybrid of how things used to be. Some original or owned content is being removed from their parent service to license to other streaming services again since depending on all-original streaming content is a massive money sink that doesn't necessarily bring up subscription revenue to a point that offsets those budgets. The streaming gold rush is over, and amongst all of the streaming apps that ballooned over the pandemic, Netflix remains that only service that can leverage their value for the most original content while remaining profitable.

 

[G_Shumi]

Yeah, I'm getting really annoyed that even popular movies like Back To The Future are so sporadic on streaming. It's on something every couple of months or so, but it's always somewhere different every time. But now it's not available anywhere. So I have to wait and see if it'll show up somewhere next month. It's really frustrating!

 

[Aadiboy]

Please consider visiting your local library.
It's likely they have a large selection of movies.
Really, everyone should be making use of their local libraries resources.
Also, check out Tubi.
Tubi has a lot of movies too.
Each of these resources are invaluable to movie hunters.