The streaming revolution has made almost the entirety of movie history available at the clack of a keyboard, but it’s far from perfect. For one thing, it’s grown terribly expensive. As the number of platforms has exploded, the notion of canceling cable – the dream of the early streaming era – has become increasingly cost prohibitive. And yes, while there are a handful of free, ad-supported services with decent catalogues out there, it’s pretty jarring to watch, let’s say, Late Spring and suddenly get interrupted with a commercial for cleaning liquid or Taco Bell.
But what if we told you there’s a streaming service that’s not only totally free and without ads, but loaded with great new, classic and rare films – and that all you need to access it is a library card.
It’s called Kanopy. Started in 2008 out of Western Australia, the company initially aimed to be ‘the Netflix of education’, marketing itself to universities and libraries in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. and hosting thousands of videos from the likes of the Criterion Collection, PBS and BBC. Now, it’s simply a cinephile’s dream, offering over 30,000 titles ranging from classics from Hollywood and abroad, to cult favourites, to hard-to-find obscurities, to documentaries and experimental films, to even newer fare like 2025 Best Picture winner Anora. (A handful are added weekly.) And, as mentioned, if you have a library card from a participating library – or, for college students university ID – that’s all you need to sign in.
The caveats? That whole ‘participating library’ thing. Kanopy may be free for users, but its ‘patron-driven acquisition’ model can be pricey for institutions, and some have opted out, including three of the biggest libraries in New York. And streaming is not unlimited: users are granted a certain number of ‘tickets’ per month – films cost anywhere from zero to four tickets, and two on average – which reset at the end of each month but do not roll over.
All things considered, though, it’s something of a miracle that not many people know exist. Looking to dive in? Here are 10 standout titles that are not currently available for free anywhere else.
The Exiles (1961)
A neo-realist slice-of-life about young Native Americans living in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles which has since been redeveloped beyond recognition – an invaluable, underseen cultural time capsule.
Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)
A kaleidoscopic journey into Tokyo’s queer underground regarded as a major totem of the Japanese New Wave, and a rumoured influence on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.
Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976)
A cult-classic martial arts flick, featuring a one-armed kung-fu expert, a blind monk skilled in the art of decapitation and a coterie of other fighters straight out of a Mortal Kombat roster.
The Silent Partner (1978)
One of the more overlooked thrillers of the 1970s, starring Elliott Gould as a bank teller stalked by an angry mall Santa, played by Christopher Plummer. Siskel and Ebert loved it.
Babylon (1980)
Director Franco Rosso’s gritty expose of British racial tensions, framed around a tumultuous week in the life of a young reggae DJ.
The Brother from Another Planet (1984)
John Sayles dips into sci-fi comedy with this social satire about an alien who resembles a Black human man lost in New York, featuring a tremendous wordless performance from Joe Morton.
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
Paul Schrader’s visually and narratively imaginative portrait of Japanese artist Yukio Mishima, widely considered one of the best (and most original) biopics ever made.
Hard to Be a God (2013)
Russian filmmaker Aleksei German’s final movie, an epic and visually unsettling adaptation of the 1964 sci-fi novel about a crew of scientists observing a race of extraterrestrial humans in the midst of their medieval phase.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (2024)
An Academy Award-nominated documentary that takes a mesmerising video-essay-approach to the role American jazz musicians played in a US-backed coup in the Congo – and how some of them fought back.
Universal Language (2025)
One of the year’s under-the-radar gems, a surreal comedy from Canadian experimentalist Matthew Rankin set in alternate reality and featuring three seemingly mundane stories that overlap in surprising ways. It’s… hard to describe, but well worth watching.
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