Which films you can watch will vary, unfortunately, depending on which part of the world you happen to be watching them in. Among them are numerous black-and-white classics, of course, but also critically acclaimed pictures by international auteurs, rather less critically acclaimed (but nonetheless enjoyable) cult favorites, documentaries on a wide variety of subjects, and even twenty-first-century Hollywood releases. That’s why we’ve rounded up this collection of Youtube channels with free movies, which together constitute one big meta-collection of hundreds of films. That said, these are still relatively early days for on-demand viewing, and finding out just where to do it isn’t as easy as it could be. But on the whole, we do have the advantage of access, whenever and wherever we like, to a great many films that most of us may have been wholly unable to see just a couple of decades ago - and often, we can watch them for free. The quasi-religiosity of the cinephile viewing experience is, arguably, not as well served by clicking on a Youtube video as it is by attending a screening at a grand revival house. Like every period in the history of cinema, ours has its advantages and its disadvantages.

We lived in the age of movie theaters, then we lived in the age of home video, and now we live in the age of streaming.

Full movies on youtube