There are a lot of great streaming services out there, from big players like Netflix,Disney+, and Max, as well as free, ad-supported streamers likeTubiandPluto TV. For movie fans, though, the world of streaming can be difficult – especially when it comes to accessing classic, independent, international, and art-house films. That’s where Mubi comes in.
There are several other great streaming services for cinephiles, includingThe Criterion Channel. Mubi, though, is the biggest and best, offering a great library of titles from across film history. The service has a particular focus on acclaimed contemporary films, and original movies distributed by Mubi, like the recent award-winning horror hit,The Substance.
Mubi is a streaming service built for movie lovers, featuring ambitious films by some of the world’s most visionary filmmakers, with a library of art house classics and the best contemporary cinema.
Criterion 24/7 helped me discover the best movies I’d never seen
Criterion Channel’s live-stream of classic cinema is a cinephile’s dream.
What is Mubi?
A streaming service for true cinephiles
Mubi was originally founded all the way back in 2007 as The Auteurs, which launched as a streaming service in partnership with The Criterion Collection the next year. In 2010, the name was changed to Mubi.
Netflix becomes the latest streamer to hike prices
All of Netflix’s subscription plans are going up in the US.
In recent years, Mubi has also made the move into producing and acquiring titles for theatrical distribution and streaming, finding big success in 2024 with The Substance, which has earned over $76 million worldwide at the box office, and received plenty of awards attention, including a Best Actress win for star Demi Moore at the Golden Globes.
How Mubi works
Just subscribe and watch
Mubi maintains a list of its 1,000 greatest films of all time, voted on by its community of film lovers.
Additionally, Mubi also offers well-curated selections of films organized by unique, creative categories, like Millennial Meltdown, In the Mood For Love, and American Indies. Some categories spotlight specific filmmakers, while others carry classic selections from international film festivals in Venice, Berlin, and more.
How $100 a year gives me personal access to the best movies ever made
The Criterion Channel is the perfect streaming service for die hard movie buffs like me.
On top of all that, Mubi maintains a list of its 1,000 greatest films of all time, voted on by its community of film lovers. On the streaming service, one section offers all the films in the library that are found in that top 1,000 list, including Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite and Lynne Ramsey’s We Need to Talk About Kevin.
And for some extra value, Mubi also publishes Notebook, an online and print publication featuring some of the best film criticism out there, to help expand people’s knowledge of cinema, and highlight many of the great films featured on the service.
The bottom line
Turning movie love into obsession
There are so many movies out there, with hundreds more being made each year, and it can be hard to sort through it all to find the good stuff. Mubi is one great solution to that problem. And better still, with its focus on art-house and international cinema, it’s the streaming service best equipped to turn a love of movies into a downright obsession.
Mubi is establishing itself as one of the best modern film distributors.
With its carefully assembled library of titles, and its curated categories, original films, and more, Mubi is both a great place for both movie lovers itching for a fix and budding cinephiles looking to expand their movie knowledge. And with the success of The Substance in theaters and in the awards race, Mubi is also establishing itself as one of the best modern film distributors, providing a platform for boundary-pushing art that gets audiences talking.
Do you care if AI is used in films?
A24 film The Brutalist has been on a hot streak in the awards season run up to the Oscars, with the film most recently garnering the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Drama), in addition to numerous other awards for acting and directing. However, over the weekend, the wind seemed to be taken out of the film’s sails, with the revelation that a corrective audio program that uses AI was used to enhance the film’s Hungarian dialogue, and generative AI was used to create a series of architectural drawings and finished buildings in the style of the film’s main character during the movie’s final sequence.
Of course, this isn’t the only film to use AI to assist in production, with other recent titles like Alien: Romulus, Late Night with the Devil, and Furiosa all using this technology to varying degrees to enhance production. However, with this film already racking up awards before anyone even knew about its AI usage, many are now wondering about whether AI usage should be disclosed when
