Tips for finding full-length movies on Youtube

February 24, 2013 3:42 PM

Youtube has turned into a repository of full-length movies of late. How can I improve my google-fu for finding both obscure and well-known titles?

Youtube seems to be one of the fastest-growing movie sites on the net, but indexing lags behind Netflix and other paid subscription services. What's the easiest, most effective way to search for movies on Youtube? Are there any third-party sites indexing Youtube movies by year, director, or leading actor? How can I upgrade my google-fu for finding older titles and movies of specific countries?

posted by Gordion Knott to media & arts (6 answers total)

Just came across this recently: "Pegleg crowdsources full-length movies from YouTube." Haven't gone through it very thoroughly, but seems useful.
posted by Ms. Toad at 4:06 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

*cough* http://www.reddit.com/r/fullmoviesonyoutube/
posted by youknowwhatpart at 4:19 PM on February 24 [13 favorites]

Youtube Movies - free section

on a side note, they have a larger large collection of classic Russian movies if anyone is interested.
posted by pyro979 at 4:45 PM on February 24

This answers the end and not the means, but "movie title putlocker" gets you pretty much anything. Use Firefox with Adblock, though - some of the results are rough territory.
posted by michaelh at 6:10 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Google gives you the option to search for videos by length [short (0-4 min.), medium (4-20 min.), and long (20+ min)], and by source [youtube.com, amazon.com, hulu.com, mojvideo.com, veoh.com and vudu.com].

Enter in the movie title, focus the search on long videos, and see what you find. Here's the most basic URL for searching for trainspotting:

https://www.google.com/search?q=trainspotting&tbm=vid&tbs=dur:l.

From that search, I see that movie is available on Hulu, Amazon, and Vudu (Wiki page on Vudu, if it's new to you). It also seems that someone has uploaded the whole of the 2nd Trainspotting soundtrack as a single "video" on YouTube, and that modelrailwaytv has a number of Trainspotting Programmes, which look to be more about actual trains, and less about recreational drug use and a view of the related lifestyle.

A bonus to searching for long videos this way: you can find complete albums or concerts, typically uploaded to YouTube, but occasionally on different video hosting sites, too.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:19 AM on February 28

pyro979: there are also a lot of Indian movies (see this related AskMe question)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:21 AM on February 28