Filmstruck shutting down service on Nov. 29

just got the email. gutted. especially since they had exclusive rights to criterion.

fuck.

oh well. Sort of pissed me off also how terrible their Apple TV app was. It used a proprietary scrubber... so you couldn't do the normal edge click to skip 10 seconds like on almost VIRTUALLY EVERY tvOS streaming app. Then to boot they included no flags on any of their video. So it all streamed through at default system settings (60fps, 3:2 pulldown, dolby vision) which looked terrible. So before playing Filmstruck I'd have to go into my Apple TV settings and turn off HDR, and set it to 24hz.

Still... their movie selection was ungodly. :( was actually worth all of that hassle.

Never even heard of them.

Had the service for a year. It was decent. I hope it goes back to Hulu or Prime picks it up.

Shitty. One of the best streaming services and the perfect platform for digitally restoring criterion movies/features. It had a lot more options than simply throwing the movies up.

Not too surprising though.

lunarworks said:

And here I was waiting for it to be available in Canada.

Kanopy has a lot of Criterion films, if your local public library has an arrangement with them. It's capped at 8 films a month, but it's better than nothing.

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Tried that for a bit, but the shoddy quality of stream is a bummer

Hoping Criterion moves back to Hulu or jumps to Amazon or Netflix.

I have limits on how many streaming services I'm willing to opt in to.

The best streaming service ....this hurts

Gutted, they only just got going in the UK as well

The extras are nice but I buy Criterion on blu-ray if I really want that stuff. I don't buy more than one of those a month.

Never got to try this out being in the UK so it must suck for subscribers but we still got BFI, Curzon, and Amazon for all these obscure/arthouse/cult films.

Filmstruck is the only streaming service that I enjoyed subscribing to and supporting. Making rare, important, and influential film accessible is necessary for modern literacy, and the service was great about doing that. It even allowed Criterion to do some smaller digital only releases, like with the Showa Godzilla films. Really unfortunate to see this gone.

Terrible news.

I'm going to spend way too much money at the upcoming B&N Criterion sale now.

This is terrible for people who don't want to pirate old or rare films but also don't want to spend $14-30 on a Criterion BluRay.

Not sure what to say to people because of ERA's strict rules against mentioning piracy, but trust me - these films are not lost :)

sotojuan said:

This is terrible for people who don't want to pirate old or rare films but also don't want to spend $14-30 on a Criterion BluRay.

Not sure what to say to people because of ERA's strict rules against mentioning piracy, but trust me - these films are not lost :)

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Yeah, this actually sucks, but, we'll find a way I suppose.
*puts on jaunty, plumed tricorne*

They were an absolute treasure for the cinephile crowd. This sucks :(

Where is Criterion going to land? It's so nice having access to such a great catalog. I had to buy a fire stick since there was not an app for the ps4/Xbox.

Time to burn through as many films as I can in the next month. We should create a Criterion thread so we can all watch together and write up our thoughts.

They took entirely too long to become available on more TV-connected devices and they still aren't on consoles.

Just FYI, they are running a 30-day free trial right now, go watch all those good movies while you can because they'll probably be in limbo for awhile.

Edit: too late!

Aftervirtue said:

Where is Criterion going to land?

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Well, they used to be part of my $8 Hulu subscription.

RIP, remember that Warner doesnt care about film preservation or accessibility and that you should probably pirate their shit

ArmsofSleep said:

RIP, remember that Warner doesnt care about film preservation or accessibility and that you should probably pirate their shit

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Links please.

Window said:

Links please.

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Enjoy your b&

Movie preservation in the digital age is a joke. There's no way to watch classic movies anymore, it's wild. Streaming killed it, as weird as it is. This was a shimmer of hope, but that's the end of that I guess.

That's a shame. I never subscribed because I stream through my PS4 and they didn't get around to making an app for it. But I was going to get an appletv or something so I could. Too little too late.

It's funny how the big streaming platforms drop the ball on movies. I mean, they do alright. But there is such a huge catalogue of older and foreign movies begging for a spot. I hope something worthwhile comes out of the void.

Timeaisis said:

Movie preservation in the digital age is a joke. There's no way to watch classic movies anymore, it's wild. Streaming killed it, as weird as it is. This was a shimmer of hope, but that's the end of that I guess.

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This is nonsensical. Indie labels are doing great work with regards to physically preserving classics and niche films. If you're sticking to streaming, sure, but then you're not getting the best quality regardless.

I wonder if this means Criterion will go back to Hulu or if we'll see some Criterion stuff on Netflix like the old days.

Kinda interesting.

ArmsofSleep said:

Enjoy your b&

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I mean it.

Guess we aren't getting that PS4 app now :-(

Timeaisis said:

Movie preservation in the digital age is a joke. There's no way to watch classic movies anymore, it's wild. Streaming killed it, as weird as it is. This was a shimmer of hope, but that's the end of that I guess.

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There is one site in particular that has done an amazing job in preserving old and foreign film for more than a decade but it's against the rules to mention it. Just saying that to let you know a lot of people care about preservation!

Metallix87 is right though. Criterion among others have done a good job at preserving physical films but even their older catalogue can be hard to find.

sotojuan said:

There is one site in particular that has done an amazing job in preserving old and foreign film for more than a decade but it's against the rules to mention it. Just saying that to let you know a lot of people care about preservation!

Metallix87 is right though. Criterion among others have done a good job at preserving physical films but even their older catalogue can be hard to find.

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I try to bring it up every once in a while, since I feel labels like Criterion, Arrow, and Shout / Scream Factory are largely unknowns in terms of the general populace, so I want more people to know about them and the great work they do.

Metallix87 said:

This is nonsensical. Indie labels are doing great work with regards to physically preserving classics and niche films. If you're sticking to streaming, sure, but then you're not getting the best quality regardless.

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You realize how expensive that stuff is? I can't just rent a movie anymore or watch it one. I have to spend $40 on a movie I've never seen in hopes that I will like it enough to warrant a purchase. You can't just go to the library or blockbuster or find it used in a old video store anymore, because that doesn't exist.

It's preservation for people who are already fans. Everyone else is not going to bother.

This is so depressing. So many great films on there that aren't available in HD anywhere else - not even via blu ray. I wonder what they are going to do with all the original content created over the years?

Timeaisis said:

You realize how expensive that stuff is? I can't just rent a movie anymore or watch it one. I have to spend $40 on a movie I've never seen in hopes that I will like it enough to warrant a purchase. You can't just go to the library or blockbuster or find it used in a old video store anymore, because that doesn't exist.

It's preservation for people who are already fans. Everyone else is not going to bother.

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There are options available to you. Netflix still has a tier for DVD and Blu-Ray rentals, for example, and that's widely available.

As it stands, yes, they'll always remain pricey simply due to the nature of such releases. Companies like Criterion and Shout Factory need to charge more because of the extensive work going into the product coupled with the niche market.

What a damn shame. This was a great service, and most of these films aren't available on other streaming services.

I subscribed to this last week (14 day trial) and I am in the UK.. Why are people saying its not available here?

It had a way stripped back catalogue compared to the US though.

wtf filmstruck is amazing. It has a ton of amazing movies and features that never end up on any of the other services.

I guess that ps4 app is never coming.

Again, I think you're all making a big kerfuffle over what'll turn out to be nothing.

These movies aren't going back to the vault nor will they be burned (shoutouts to the hyper-melodramatic tweet).

Warner Media is bundling all these services together into one big streaming service. It's why they shut down DramaFever and why there was talk about DC Universe potentially being cut short. I'd bet good money this is where you'll get all the content from Boomerang, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, et al. They plan to launch the app in 2019, so I'd expect that you get your kino back before this time next year.

FUCK.

First all the Criterion was taken off of Hulu, and now Filmstruck is shutting down? I really hope all this content finds a new streaming home.

Time to binge everything I've been putting off just in case.

Filmstruck was great. Really hate to lose it.

Shit. I've been a yearly subscribed since the beginning. This sucks.

Good thing I went on a Samurai movie shopping spree a couple of years ago, and basically bought all their almost out of print DVD's that were never made avalible on Blu-Ray.

Dream Machine said:

Time to binge everything I've been putting off

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Just kidding. You can't even subscribe for the last month of service.

Gonzalez said:

Good thing I went on a Samurai movie shopping spree a couple of years ago, and basically bought all their almost out of print DVD's that were never made avalible on Blu-Ray.

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I have to finally buy the Zatoichi set I guess. I've already seen them all and even was planning a big Era (ahem...Gaf at the time) post but never put it up. If it weren't for streaming I never would have been able to watch them all multiple times like I did. Losing something like Filmstruck is a huge loss for things like that.

borghe said:

just got the email. gutted. especially since they had exclusive rights to criterion.

fuck.

oh well. Sort of pissed me off also how terrible their Apple TV app was. It used a proprietary scrubber... so you couldn't do the normal edge click to skip 10 seconds like on almost VIRTUALLY EVERY tvOS streaming app. Then to boot they included no flags on any of their video. So it all streamed through at default system settings (60fps, 3:2 pulldown, dolby vision) which looked terrible. So before playing Filmstruck I'd have to go into my Apple TV settings and turn off HDR, and set it to 24hz.

Still... their movie selection was ungodly. :( was actually worth all of that hassle.

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This right here.... JFC. I'm a bit miffed, because the main reason I bought an Apple TV is for Filmstruck access (couldn't get it on PS4. Still can't), but the app was awful on there, too. Really hate to see the service go away. I'm wondering what will happen with the Criterion content going forward. It was also a great place for the occasional older prestige film that never shows up anywhere else (North by Northwest, for instance).

So, yeah... fuck. Hate to see it go in spite of its ongoing issues, and I hope something better replaces it for a comparable price soon.

For those that are saying these films will show up elsewhere, yeah, perhaps, but the best thing about Filmstruck was the curation. The collections, the extras, the host intros. It was the whole package that made it great.

Burying them in some other service's catalog won't replace that.

Mollymauk said:

For those that are saying these films will show up elsewhere, yeah, perhaps, but the best thing about Filmstruck was the curation. The collections, the extras, the host intros. It was the whole package that made it great.

Burying them in some other service's catalog won't replace that.

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Agreed. I think, sadly, the Hulu deal with criterion was the best solution for that particular service. Or add it to something like Amazon for an extra $7 a month. But a standalone service for that stuff just doesn't work, sadly. I think your average person doesn't want to pay an extra $10-$15 a month for that content when I don't think most people want to watch foreign, indie, historic, or art house films as often as they want to rewatch popcorn content, and it has to be WAY hard to deal with licensing and rights and all of that with an inherently smaller customer base.

What I do think will happen is that Criterion will drift somewhere else, and we'll see at least some of the curated content pop up elsewhere now and then. But who knows.

Mollymauk said:

For those that are saying these films will show up elsewhere, yeah, perhaps, but the best thing about Filmstruck was the curation. The collections, the extras, the host intros. It was the whole package that made it great.

Burying them in some other service's catalog won't replace that.

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Yeah, the app was super buggy on both Roku and Fire TV, but we'll never see a better take on a streaming service for film nerds.

By the way, everyone who's subscribed already needs to watch Ken Russell's "The Devils." I'm obsessed with that movie now.

I always wanted to get this but never got around to it. I am the problem.

Hopefully Hulu gets the Criterion movies back.

I want to cry. FS was the only steaming service I cared about.

Time to resiliate that internet subscription and back to hunting down old-ass VHS/DVD/LD in shops, I guess.