Criticker.com

Hi,

I've hardly been able to find any of my favourite films online. My boyfriend has subscriptions to a heap of services and they don't have any of them. Can anyone recommend somewhere to find obscure stuff like old films and world cinema to rent online?

Thanks,
Rowan

Haven't used it in a while, as I haven't been watching as many movies lately, but fandor is excellent (unless they've drastically changed things, which is possible): Very affordable, high quality streaming, and good selection of cult and obscure movies.

MUBI is pretty good.

Filmstruck, netflix still does disks by mail with a big library. Speaking of, my local library is also an impressive resource and partners with hoopla which has a, mildly put, mediocre selection only in SD but I have found a few titles I couldn't find elsewhere there, and in the past they've released some Asian films before I saw them on netflix. Also, I assume you've tapped YouTube as a resource but it's worth mentioning for all the obscure movies they have tucked away (foreign films may take some sleuthing to find the right title) both for free or rental. I frequently use yt for my blog, and actually found all but 2 of 11 Lucio Fulci movies I planned to watch on there. Finally, vudu has quite a bit, and their free (with minimal ads) selection has often surprised me.

Many libraries (both public and university) also partner with Kanopy, which has a decent selection of art house, foreign, and classic cinema.

Seconding the library. I pester my library all the time for nonsense and they’ll order them 90% of the time. They drew the line over a Jorg Buttgereit bluray set lolo

Facets has a decent selection, and you can rent online: http://www.facetsmovies.com/user/homeNewUser2.php

zevel6 wrote:MUBI is pretty good.

Thirding the Library (if you become friends with your A/V acquisitions rep you may be able to get rare DVDs, in addition to Kanopy services). MUBI is also a good resource and they have a rental section now, which flies under the radar.

I'm a huge proponent of supporting the official distributors (I have like 2000 movies in my collection), but for those films of questionable or unknown ownership, which is where the really wild obscure stuff is, RareLust scratches that itch.

Why are you guys recommending MUBI? lol. Absolute garbage selection.

I've been able to find some extremely difficult to find stuff on terrarium, but it was shut down and even though you can still find a work around, it'll be dying sooner or later. My local library has been really good too. They have an impressive international section and my city is only 100000 or so people.