Favourite streaming services?

December 3, 2020 6:48 PM

What are your favourite streaming services that I may not have heard of?

I recently discovered Curiosity Stream and I'm wondering what other interesting streaming services I'm missing out on.

posted by poxandplague to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

Kanopy?
posted by aramaic at 6:54 PM on December 3, 2020 [16 favorites]

For local TV, Locast. . I have an Android phone that I can spoof my GPS and watch local TV (or sports) in about two dozen markets.
posted by AugustWest at 7:03 PM on December 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

Screambox is for horror fans.
posted by Sunburnt at 7:15 PM on December 3, 2020

Mubi. A new film every day.
posted by wsquared at 7:19 PM on December 3, 2020 [7 favorites]

Where are you? CBC Gem is free and has a lot of good CanCon, but I don’t know if it works outside Canada.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 7:45 PM on December 3, 2020

Where are you? CBC Gem is free and has a lot of good CanCon, but I don’t know if it works outside Canada

Sadly not.
posted by cozenedindigo at 7:50 PM on December 3, 2020

PBS Passport
posted by phunniemee at 8:02 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Pluto.tv is my go-to for everything from slow tv to MST3k to Gordon Ramsay shows I've never heard of. I also check Hoopla occasionally, which does movies and more through public libraries.
posted by knile at 8:51 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I'm in Australia
posted by poxandplague at 9:19 PM on December 3, 2020

Kanopy and Beamafilm are available for free via public libraries in Australia.
posted by riddley at 9:54 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

thepiratebay.rocks, rarbg.to and yts.mx, along with Transmission Daemon on my little home server and uBlock Origin and Torrent Control in my browser, get me 99.5% of everything I want to see with extreme convenience and almost complete insensitivity to the frequently shitty speed of my Australian National Broadband Network internet connection.
posted by flabdablet at 3:18 AM on December 4, 2020 [8 favorites]

I've been very impressed with viki, which has a huge selection of (mostly) east asian TV shows and dramas and some movies. At least half of the content can be watched for free (without an account!) so it's easy to try out.
posted by trig at 5:31 AM on December 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

If you're interested in French-language content (with subtitles in both French and English) there's also the free TV5MONDEplus* with content from a number of different Francophone countries.

*it's available everywhere except the US, China and the Netherlands (and maybe also Canada), so if you are in one of these places it will just redirect you to the main TV5MONDE site
posted by andrewesque at 6:30 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

Ubu for avant-garde film & media, much of it out-of-print elsewhere from what I can tell. It's free/gift economy.
posted by veery at 6:59 AM on December 4, 2020 [4 favorites]

OVID.tv:

“A fantastic streamer for people with a taste for foreign, political, and otherwise beyond-the-American-mainstream films.”

—Vanity Fair

But don't take the wealthy liberal media's word for it: see for yourself.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 7:54 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

You can access the The Criterion Channel outside the US if you have a VPN
posted by Chenko at 11:00 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

Acorn TV if you like British shows
posted by belau at 1:14 PM on December 5, 2020

Rewinding a few steps: our public library in the US has access to Kanopy, Hoopla, and a third streaming service I can't remember the name of.

It is highly worth asking your local public library which services they can access (in addition to all the others above which may or may not be streamable in Straya)

Additionally, with the right VPN, there is PBS Passport, but there is also regular free PBS streaming content on their main site (I am fond of the Woodwright's Shop)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:32 PM on December 5, 2020