Art house films for £3 a pop

July 8, 2009 4:41 AM

Art house films for £3 a pop. Stream them from here
posted by muggsy1079 (17 comments total)

Argh! Messed that up - apologies for the horrendously unclear post.
posted by muggsy1079 at 4:43 AM on July 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Well, you got my attention.
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 4:46 AM on July 8, 2009

Free film of the month:

Dry Summer
Susuz yaz
Turkey
1964
88 MIN
Color
Turkish
Subtitled in English

posted by pracowity at 4:50 AM on July 8, 2009

Of course I see this as I'm about to rush out to work... Looks fantastic, though!
posted by elfgirl at 4:51 AM on July 8, 2009

Uh, wow. There are some seriously good films on there, many of which I haven't yet seen. Neat.
posted by fire&wings at 5:09 AM on July 8, 2009

Fantastic find. Thanks for this.
posted by ciderwoman at 5:13 AM on July 8, 2009

This film is not available to watch.

If we had it our way, you'd be watching this film right now instead of reading this message.

So ... umm ... what's the point?
posted by jbickers at 5:19 AM on July 8, 2009

Nice.
posted by R. Mutt at 5:25 AM on July 8, 2009

I wanted to be a jerk a complain that it is just like Netflix without Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but then I realized it is just like Netflix without Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
posted by munchingzombie at 6:06 AM on July 8, 2009 [4 favorites]

Can anyone tell me what quality the films are?

Some amazing stuff on there, without a doubt.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:09 AM on July 8, 2009

Very nice, thanks!

One nit to pick: why bother showing me a list of films that I can't view "in my area" (presumably based on geocoded IP addresses) at all? It's not like I'm going to change countries in order to view them.

Still, I got stuck 15 minutes into the (free) documentary on the 80's Moroccan music group Nass El Ghiwan before I realised where the time had gone.
posted by nonspecialist at 6:14 AM on July 8, 2009

I wanted to be a jerk a complain that it is just like Netflix without Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but then I realized it is just like Netflix without Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
posted by munchingzombie

...and with an exclusive partnership with the Criterion collection?
posted by vacapinta at 6:17 AM on July 8, 2009

Can anyone tell me what quality the films are?

The free one that I saw was a flash-streamed mp4, about the same as an "HQ" youtube video that's actually high quality, instead of just re-encoded from a lower bitrate.

In other words: quite acceptable for a laptop screen, even in fullscreen mode.

One nice feature that I found (by accident) is that, if you stop partway through, you can pick up from where you left off without having to wait for the stream to download again, and then go hunting with the slider.
posted by nonspecialist at 6:19 AM on July 8, 2009

vacapinta's link is to Criterion's side of the partnership. One more click brings you to theauteurs.com/criterion, where they feature 6 free films every month (more or less – it was last updated in May), and where I discovered my great love for Merchant-Ivory.
posted by shemko at 6:33 AM on July 8, 2009

One nit to pick: why bother showing me a list of films that I can't view "in my area" (presumably based on geocoded IP addresses) at all? It's not like I'm going to change countries in order to view them.

As I understand it, part of the site is intended to be a discussion forum, so you can discuss films that aren't available for viewing.
posted by Infinite Jest at 6:50 AM on July 8, 2009

Double.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 7:22 AM on July 8, 2009

This is a great example of the kind of intelligent film distribution that's impossible because of piracy.

(What?)
posted by rokusan at 12:56 PM on July 8, 2009