Free Movies . . . Online

How often have you sat around on a Saturday night, wishing you could go to a movie but--darn it!--you're a poor student, so it wouldn't be prudent?

No need to be culturally deprived! Free resources on the internet come to the rescue once again:

PublicDomainFlicks.com provides free downloads of full-length feature films that are in the public domain. When we visited the site, the newest additions to the collection ranged from from Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936, dir. John Cromwell) to Terror in the Midnight Sun (1959, dir. Virgil W. Vogel -- "Aliens release a furry critter in the wilds of Lapland where it takes a woman captive and threatens a group of scientists.")

The Moving Image Archive of the Internet Archive also features films that are within the public domain, conveniently categorized according to type, such as Animation & Cartoons, Arts & Music, Ephemeral Films, Movies, etc. One can view classic films here, such as D.O.A. (1950, dir. Rudolph Maté), The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960, dir. Rodger Corman), Topper Returns (1941, dir. Hal Roach), or the Charlie Chaplin films. It was in the web site's Prelinger Archives that we found Alaska: A Modern Frontier (rev. ed., 1948), a useful introduction to the Republican veep candidate's home state.

Of course, some current movies are available, too, on internet sites. We like the following site:

• imdb.com--a selection of full-length movies and full-length TV episodes
• hulu.com--free content shown with commercial interuptions
• Fancast
  

And how to decide what's worth watching? Take a look at Film Resources on the Web: An Introduction from the Association of Colleges & Research Libraries.

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See also our previous post on Historic Video Footage from NARA.