This is truly a golden age for movie lovers. Those of us who remember the Friday night sojourn to the local Video shop, who remember standing before the thousand garish and groovy VHS covers, who spent hours picking out the perfect film, those of us whose choice was between the top ten recent releases and the overstuffed bargain bin – the sheer amount of options we have now is wondrous.
What we have now is the ultimate row of virtual video shops at our fingertips, with every genre well stocked with classics to current releases just a click away. We could never have imagined that a monthly fee could have brought in any one of the myriad cinematic delights into our home. We’d stumble on home with The Gate, or Ghostbusters for the twentieth time, and watch the film as many times as we could before returning it the next day. There is so much choice that for anyone on a budget (i.e. all of us) you need to know the best way to get the most choice and the greatest service at the best price.
Here are your options.
Go full on Video Shop Supermarket Sweep
Get everything. We mean everything. Gather up your streaming services by the handful and plant yourself down on the sofa for the next ten years to watch nothing but movies. Netflix and Amazon Prime are your current best bets as they have an enormous amount of new movies and thousands of classics. They are the ubiquitous choices for many of us, with an ever-evolving catalogue and seamless delivery. Make sure you take time to get out and discuss the movies you’re watching though as we appear to spend more time watching streaming services than we do going out with our friends. Or just invite them round – problem solved!
Pro tip: You need to hone your choosing skills though, as you could be spending more time flicking through the dozens of categories and options available than actually watching movies.
Become a sofa cinephile
Or you could take advantage of the curated cinema offerings available to you, which look to widen your movie going horizons with the very best in World Cinema and classic movies (which, given we’re in an age of instant ephemera, means anything made before 1999). FilmStruck Curzon is the latest boutique streaming service to launch, and has the double whammy of the catalogues of TCM and the esteemed Criterion Collection in its arsenal. Curating and celebrating the best in rare, classic, foreign, arthouse, and independent cinema, FilmStruck Curzon is the perfect place to dive deeper into the ocean of cinema from the last century.
Pro tip: The service has a 14 day free trial, so book off a couple of weeks, turn off your phone and indulge with some of the greatest cinema in the world.
Get yourself a Media Package that has it all
Back in the long lost and distant past you would have to wait until the TV schedules put on a film in order to enjoy some big screen entertainment. With only four or five (yes, really…) channels bringing you your weekly entertainment chances were that unless it was Christmas Day, or a Bank Holiday with the late night horror double bills, you weren’t guaranteed anything decent to watch. How times have changed, although change has come so fast that you may not realise you’re sitting on a cinematic goldmine already. Services such as Virgin Media have a ready made collection of the latest movies and TV shows at the press of a button. If you do your homework you could get a decent discount on vouchercloud. So, if you’ve finished watching Bake Off and fancy some Ratatouille courtesy of the chefs at Pixar – there’s an option to take you straight there. If you’re catching up on the latest happenings in Westworld and fancy taking a look at the film which started it all – the option is there.
Pro tip: Many of these services have content specific options built in. So, if you’re watching a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger it’ll suggest other Arnie classics to watch. The choice is endless.
