YouTube has a wide variety of content, and among the hundreds of thousands of videos that are uploaded daily full movies are also included. In this way, and although with a much smaller catalog, the Google platform becomes a peculiar alternative with which you can watch movies for free.
But for this you first have to find them, and this is not always easy. For this reason, today we are going to explain to you where those free full movies with copyright or public domain and what you have to do to find them. We will also tell you about the alternative created by YouTube itself so that you can enjoy the cinema at home.
Finding free movies on YouTube
Movies enter the public domain when their copyright expires 50 or 70 years after the author’s death, so the most you’ll find on YouTube are quite old feature films. To find them the best way is resort to specialized channels that exist on the platform.
You have an example with the channel Classic Spanish Cinema, which has more than a thousand old Spanish films. You also have the Free Cartoons channel in the public domain, which collects a lot of content whose rights have expiredand pages that, like Legally Free, have specialized in offering you Public Domain or Creative Commons licensed movies available on different platforms.
But beyond these antiques, you can also find modern movies for free. thanks to companies and producers. For example, you have Paramount, which has created a channel called The Paramount Vault where they upload their movies, although they are geographically restricted and you will need to use a VPN.
Spanish independent distributor Cinetel Multimedia also offers classics thanks to its exclusive acquisition agreements for rights from major bookstores. And if you like Manga, Selecta Vision has the Manga channel where they usually upload chapters of their series.
Finally, You can also use the YouTube search engine to find this kind of movies. Typing terms like “complete public domain movie” will show you a plethora of films whose rights have expired and are now available to everyone. As we said at the beginning, it is more difficult to find specific genres, but there is a good collection.
Obviously, just by using terms like “full movie” you will also find much more modern ones, although these are not always uploaded by the rights owners and can disappear from one day to the next. If you’re interested in this kind of content you won’t have a hard time finding it, and there are even subreddits like Full Movies On YouTube and Full Foreign Movies where people share these finds.
YouTube has its own alternative
YouTube also has an alternative to watch movies on its platform, although not for free: YouTube Movies. It is a video store of its own.where you can buy or rent first-run titles like “Rogue One”, “Arrival”, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” or movie classics like “Titanic” and “Smiles and Tears”.
Perhaps the big point against it is the high price of buying movies in digital ownership so you can watch them whenever you want, since they are 14 or 17 euros depending on whether you want low resolution or HD quality. Instead, the movie rental option is priced at 3 and 4 euros for SD and HD qualities. After paying you have 30 days to start watching them, and once you start playing them you will have up to 48 hours to finish them.
The process is simple. First of all, in the content list you have to click on the movie you want to buy or rent. Doing so will automatically open your trailer, and on the left you will have a blue box that tells you what price it is available from, and on which you have to press. If you see that it costs less than 4 or 5 euros, it is that it is available to rent, but if you see that it costs a lot more, keep in mind that at the moment you can only buy it.
By clicking on this button with the price, a window will open where you will see the availability of the film, and the price of each option. Clicking on the option you choose will open a window to complete the purchase with PayPal. Complete the payment and the film will be yours, either temporarily in rental mode or forever if you have bought it.
Now, to access the movies you have purchased you will have to look in the menu on the left side of YouTube. In it, within the Shopping category you will have all the movies listed that you have bought or rented. In the case of rentals, to the left of the title you will see how much time you have to watch the movie. To see it, just click on the one you just bought or rented.
In the event that it is a rental, when you enter the movie nothing will be played, but a black screen will appear and a blue button for you to confirm if you want to start the rental period. Just hit yes and you’ll start watching the movie. Remember that you have one month to start this period, and that once started you have 48 hours to finish watching the movie. If it is purchased you can enter as many times as you want and you will start playback automatically.
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