Stream More Than 30,000 Movies for Free With This One Simple Item.

October 14, 2024 8:32 AM

Hint: All you'll need is a public library card or an university email. Create a Kanopy account. Check out all the movies offered. Be happy.

Are there limits to the number of films I can watch per month?
Yes, Kanopy does not offer unlimited streaming. After signing up, you can stream up to 10 titles per month. Your 10 play credits will renew at the beginning of every calendar month. These credits do not carry over if you don't use them.


Are there limits to the number of films I can watch per month?
Yes, Kanopy does not offer unlimited streaming. After signing up, you can stream up to 10 titles per month. Your 10 play credits will renew at the beginning of every calendar month. These credits do not carry over if you don't use them.

Why is there a monthly limit?
Kanopy works on a pay-per-checkout model, meaning the public library system pays a small fee each time you check out a title. By limiting checkouts to 10 titles per month, libraries can ensure they stay on budget.

Which films are offered on Kanopy?
Kanopy catalog gives you access to over 30,000 titles, including:
Award-winning foreign films
Critically acclaimed movies
A24 films
Documentaries
Classic films from the Criterion Collection
Content from the Great Courses and PBS
Festival indie or world cinema
Storybooks
Films and series for children

posted by dancestoblue (47 comments total)

Excellent, thank you.

With a small child at home, we're lucky to watch 2-3 movies in a month so we'll never hit the 10 title limit.
posted by subdee at 8:36 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]

Limits seem to be set by the libraries. Here in San Francisco, you get 32 tickets per month, and movies are usually 2 tickets, so 16 movies a month. There is a 72 hour limit to finish watching the movie once started before you have to spend more tickets to finish it. Interesting selection of stuff.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:39 AM on October 14 [6 favorites]

Seattle Public Library is 15 tix/mo, and a movie is usually 3 tix, which means 5-6 movies, and it resets every month (i.e. tix don't roll over). If I still watched movies like I did in my 20s/30s that wouldn't last a week; as it is I'll watch maybe 1/mo.

Great selection though.
posted by Pedantzilla at 8:45 AM on October 14

unfortunately, the chicago public library doesn't use kanopy; my understanding is that the fees are a bit too steep for their comfort, and so they use hoopla, which has a considerably smaller digital library
posted by i used to be someone else at 8:54 AM on October 14 [7 favorites]

Can't believe I got scooped on the Chicago Public Library info.
posted by phunniemee at 8:57 AM on October 14 [6 favorites]

The Seattle Public Library also has a Hoopla account for patrons, but the Roku app is (last time I looked) practically unusable, so I don't use it.
posted by Pedantzilla at 9:10 AM on October 14

The New York Public Library seems to be the same - the costs were too high to maintain access.
posted by jellywerker at 9:13 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

Kanopy looks pretty good but I worked though my list of films I'm struggling to get hold of and none were there. I'm sure I'll find something else though. It has the advantage over Hoopla of being accessible in the UK.
posted by biffa at 9:14 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

Scary season highlights on Kanopy include:

Midsommar, Possession, Audition, Hereditary, Let the Right One In, Triangle, Suspiria (1977), The Babadook, Titane, Black Christmas, Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls, The VVitch, Don't Look Now, Train to Busan, Green Room, The Wailing, In the Earth, Ringu, Profondo Rosso, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Blackcoat's Daughter, Censor, Hatching, The Stepfather, The Love Witch, Clear Cut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Invitation, The Host, The Hole in the Ground, The Endless...
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:18 AM on October 14 [20 favorites]

My local library system (Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library) is amazingly generous, offering both Kanopy (45 tix/month) and Hoopla (20 borrows for movies + other media per month).

It's rare that I do more than scratch the surface on their monthly offerings, but they're great for all kinds of obscure or older things that either simply do not appear on the big streamers or require subs to specialty services like Criterion or Shudder. I could see living quite comfortably with just Kanopy/Hoopla access and maybe one premium streaming membership at a time.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:22 AM on October 14 [5 favorites]

Seattle Public Library is 15 tix/mo, and a movie is usually 3 tix, which means 5-6 movies, and it resets every month (i.e. tix don't roll over)

My local library (in Australia) has Kanopy, but the allowance is a stingy 8 tickets per month, which really doesn't go very far.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:22 AM on October 14

If you have cards at multiple libraries you can stack cards on Kanopy to watch more movies, you just have to switch which library card you’re using in the app when you run out of credits at one library.

FYI if you live in California you can get a card at any CA library just by showing up!
posted by cali at 9:27 AM on October 14 [8 favorites]

At times my spouse uses my Hoopla credits for extra audiobooks and I use hers for extra Kanopy movies.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:28 AM on October 14

Yeah, the Brooklyn library cancelled its Kanopy account. So unless there's another way to access I'm SOL.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:33 AM on October 14 [3 favorites]

Kanopy is particularly good for lesser known art films and documentaries that don't rate a major distribution contract. Highly recommended: Color Adjustment, Marlon Riggs' 1992 documentary about the history of African American representation on TV. (RIP John Amos.) Kanopy has several of Riggs' films including Tongues Untied, the 1989 queer Black documentary.
posted by Nelson at 9:35 AM on October 14 [9 favorites]

Checking in from the Boston area, it looks like the Minuteman library system has 30 ticket/month plus unlimited "Kanopy Kids" - neat!
posted by heyforfour at 9:41 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

Surprised more people don't know about this already.

Works for Toronto Public Library as well. Hoopla too.
posted by dobbs at 9:46 AM on October 14 [3 favorites]

If you are in California many libraries will give you a temp 90-day card; if you hit LA I highly recommend getting a LAPL card since they cover the entire metro region and have a huge collection. I've got a patchwork of cards covering the Bay Area.

I also keep Library Extension and Available Reads installed. Any time you're on GoodReads or Amazon or whatever it'll pop up and let you know if the book is available at your library.
posted by caphector at 9:59 AM on October 14 [6 favorites]

I don’t work in this area of librarianship, but as has been alluded to it can be very expensive for the libraries that provide it and my sense is that public libraries have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Kanopy. I’d be interested to hear from any MeFibrarians with more direct experience.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:15 AM on October 14 [3 favorites]

Oh, hang on a second!

Is there another library system out there that offers online-only memberships to people outside the local area, the way that Brooklyn Library does for books? I'd totally consider doing that for the Kanopy access.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:26 AM on October 14 [1 favorite]

We get Kanopy from a neighboring library since our library also pulled the plug due to cost. Kanopy kids is unlimited, not affected by the monthly token system that the regular side is subject to.
posted by dr_dank at 10:27 AM on October 14 [2 favorites]

My college is the only local account I have with access and appears to be licensing specific movies needed for certain classes only. I’m still glad to have set it up - that’s one less thing to do later on!

For those that can afford it, please donate to libraries :)
posted by Callisto Prime at 10:40 AM on October 14 [3 favorites]

please donate to libraries

Tax billionaires more!
posted by phunniemee at 10:54 AM on October 14 [32 favorites]

I work at a public library that subscribes to Kanopy, and we've generally been happy with it--we're looking at spending more money on them next year.

It's not as popular among our users as Libby/Overdrive or Hoopla (though it's a lot more popular than Freegal), but the people who use it tend to really like it. Kanopy's collection, while it's neither as deep as one of the big streaming providers nor as curated as e.g. Criterion, always seems to have something interesting on offer.

Right now, that includes documentaries I Am Not Your Negro and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, hand-drawn animated movie The Secret of Kells, and seasonally-appropriate Rosemary's Baby, Ganja & Hess, and A Perfect Candidate, about Oliver North's (spoiler alert: failed) Senate campaign.
posted by box at 11:05 AM on October 14 [7 favorites]

Kanopy tips:
They also have a bunch of BBC material but you have to type BBC at the begnning of your search.
If you have two card holders in your house, you can double your tickets by switching cards.
Watch The Women On The Sixth Floor.
posted by charlesminus at 12:14 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]

I like poking around the documentaries section of Kanopy. I recently enjoyed Style Wars, a 1983 documentary about graffiti in NYC, and Spaceship Earth, a movie about Biosphere 2 (made by the Biospherians but still interesting).
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:18 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]

As mentioned above, Libby and Hoopla are also great services for eBooks and Audiobooks. Check with your library if they have subscriptions.

You can stack cards from multiple libraries. But this is more useful for title availability if the item you’re interested in is already checked out.
posted by rubatan at 12:43 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]

Kanopy is my go-to streaming service for lesser known music documentaries. For example:

We Intend to Cause Havoc (profile of Zambian psychedelic band W.I.T.C.H)

Keyboard Fantasies (a wonderful retrospective about the career of Beverly Glenn-Copeland)

Sisters with Transistors (documentary about Delia Derbyshire, Suzanne Ciani and other pioneering female synthesizer artists)

There's an incredibly deep, eclectic and diverse catalog here. Definitely worth delving into it if you can.
posted by vverse23 at 1:05 PM on October 14 [6 favorites]

In the DC area, DC Public Library and both Arlington Public Library and Fairfax County Public Library in Virginia provide access to Kanopy; Montgomery County Libraries and Prince George's County Memorial Library System in Maryland provide both Kanopy and Hoopla. Those are just the systems in the reciprocal agreement where I have cards. (I also have a card at Alexandria Library, but they don't offer any streaming video services).
posted by fedward at 1:36 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]

In addition to DirtyOldTown's list, Kanopy has a bunch of Shudder holdings, including Mad God and the full run of Riget (Lars von Trier's, not Stephen King's). (Maybe some or all of DirtyOldTown's are also on Shudder, but anyway these are the ones that I was most excited to see.)

For EmpressCallipygos's question, Houston also offers free OverDrive access to anyone in TX, in case you happen to live here instead of NY, and I think it includes Kanopy access.
posted by It is regrettable that at 2:17 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]

> Tax billionaires more!

Yes, do that also! When it comes to pass, I then retract my plea to donate to libraries.
posted by Callisto Prime at 2:43 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]

A lot of movies I've looked for are on both Hoopla and Kanopy, both of which I have access to, but I always go with Kanopy because Hoopla seems to have generally lower picture quality for the same offerings, FYI. Kanopy always looks nice and crisp like a modern streaming service, no complaints, while Hoopla often has a Dailymotion-in-2013 resolution.
posted by dusty potato at 3:47 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]

Kanopy used to be a corporate shitshow and is now part of Overdrive/Libby. It isn't cheap, and there are a lot of possibie pitfalls, especially for underresourced public libraries. For one thing, most of their titles come with annual rather than perpetual licenses - the library doesn't own it, they are effectively subscribing to it for you to the tune of over $100 (and often much more) per title. For another, their early patron-driven models were really unpredictable and unsustainable for libraries with limited budgets for streaming media. That earned them a lot of bad rep and many libraries cancelled their relationships with them due to how they handled it.

There are a lot of good things about them as well, and it's great for people to know about this resource. But before hammering your librarian to get Kanopy, it's worth asking why they don't have it already.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:07 PM on October 14 [9 favorites]

Many of the series on Kanopy cost 5 tickets, but are issued for 2 or 3 weeks. That's how I've enjoyed Alone and several of The Great Courses lectures.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 4:18 PM on October 14

If your library doesn't offer Kanopy, sometimes a nearby library will. The library in my town doesn't offer it (though we do have Hoopla), but the library 90 miles down the road does offer it and shows anyone in the state to get a library card there.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:19 PM on October 14

Both Hoopla and Kanopy always seem to have Nude Nuns with Big Guns available. Not actually good, but a sign of a healthy B-movie ecosystem.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 4:52 PM on October 14

For some reason it didn’t like the number of the library card I have; but I was able to sign up with my work email (.edu). So will definitely check it out! And I didn’t see any tokens or tickets, although I haven’t explored it very much.
posted by TedW at 5:50 PM on October 14

I have heard that Hundreds of Beavers is available on Kanopy, which is great if you want a really fun retro throwback thing full of basically one Looney Tunes sight gag after another (I recommend it heartily)
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:17 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]

Great Courses has NO limit.

I have heard that kids stuff might also be unlimited.
posted by jb at 8:04 PM on October 14

I have heard that Hundreds of Beavers is available on Kanopy, which is great if you want a really fun retro throwback thing full of basically one Looney Tunes sight gag after another (I recommend it heartily)

It’s on Hoopla too, and count me in with the hearty recommendations. Very original, very creative, and hilarious.
posted by azpenguin at 9:31 PM on October 14

Kanopy works on a pay-per-checkout model, meaning the public library system pays a small fee each time you check out a title. By limiting checkouts to 10 titles per month, libraries can ensure they stay on budget.

*laughs darkly in Library Budget*

When a library buys a physical book or DVD, they use it until it falls apart or they decide it no longer belongs in the collection -- at zero cost for additional checkouts by patrons.

When patrons borrow an electronic resource (movie, audiobook, ebook) it costs cash money. * Some titles cost more, some less; some formats cost more, some less -- but the more popular electronic media use becomes, the more it costs the library out of pocket.

The New York Public Library seems to be the same - the costs were too high to maintain access.

Speaking from the vantage point of my own suburban, New England library: the problem here is that the demand for electronic media took off with COVID lockdown, and never came back down to pre-pandemic levels -- so libraries have essentially a new, bigger-every-year expense to try to cover. They can't simply redirect funds for physical media, since that is still needed (though at a slightly reduced rate).

So yes, use your library's electronic media, but also bug your town to increase the library's budget! Remember that someone has to pay for these rentals -- and if you're reducing your media spending by using the library, the bill is only bring shifted.

* Yes, some electronic media is covered by a flat subscription -- but not much, and less all the time. Many deals are a set pool of money up front, with rental charges by patrons running that pool down. It may be possible for libraries to put extra money in that account if it's depleted by the end of the year -- but that's probably coming from the money planned to pay for some other need.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:19 AM on October 15 [7 favorites]

I love Kanopy. But:

According to this, Kanopy charges $2 per film watched (even if you watch only 5 seconds). And "Overall, public libraries spend $4.51 per person on collection materials" annually. That implies that if every patron watched just 2 Kanopy movies per year, there would be almost nothing left for any other materials.

Librarians, is that right?
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:33 AM on October 15 [3 favorites]

Scary season highlights on Kanopy include:

Kanopy is my go-to choice when donating platelets (which takes roughly the length of a movie more or less). Today I watched The Stepfather.

I prefer Kanopy vastly to Netflix if I am not looking for something specific. Kanopy doesn't seem to be invested in pushing algorithmic choices and series over movies the way Netflix seems to.
posted by Gelatin at 7:50 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]

Kanopy is my go-to choice when donating platelets...

From one platelet donor to another, I bless you burning library money during your donations. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:42 AM on October 15 [2 favorites]

Thanks for reminding me about Kanopy Kids, good stuff on there, and I need to shake it up off of PBS Kids all the time, I remember there s weird / good language shows on it
posted by eustatic at 6:25 AM on October 16

Kanopy is great. It feels, to me, like walking into your local video rental store. Curated. Different. Enough of all types of films. It is like how I imagined streaming films would be, before all of the apps built walled gardens.

Of note: many seasons of television programs (Lots of BBC)!

I've dipped my toe into so many interesting pools (1970's Russian dystopian sci fi, 1960's documentaries, well regarding films that have not found a distribution app) that I talk about Kanopy to all of my friends!

Thanks for the post!
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:25 PM on October 16 [1 favorite]

Aside from the entire discussion about streaming media via the library, I was just curious… just how many librarians are on MetaFilter?
posted by azpenguin at 8:45 PM on October 16