> Anyway, Waiting for Guffman still holds up, and you can watch it on YouTube, for free.
On top of that it never was released outside of the US before! As a European fan of Spinal Tap I'm quite excited to finally be able to see this film.
Also: no mention of The Mission, which is also in the list? That's quite a critically acclaimed one. Just look at these opening paragraphs from its wikipedia page:
> The Mission is a 1986 British historical drama film about the experiences of a Jesuit missionary in 18th-century South America.[4] Directed by Roland Joffé and written by Robert Bolt, the film stars Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally, Aidan Quinn, Cherie Lunghi, and Liam Neeson.
> The film premiered in competition at the 39th Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d'Or. At the 59th Academy Awards it was nominated for seven awards including Best Picture and Best Director, winning for Best Cinematography. The film has also been cited as one of the greatest religious films of all time, appearing in the Vatican film list's "Religion" section and being number one on the Church Times' Top 50 Religious Films list.
Oh, and the score is by a certain Ennio Morricone.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IpNXw6Y05M&list=PL7Eup7JXSc...
There was a time fairly early in Netflix's streaming era when all the studios were just dumping their old back catalogs on Netflix to get some revenue from 'dead content' that I thought "Wow, someday soon pretty much all the old content will just be available on a central streaming service. The future will be good."
Then the stock market started inflating the value of streamers because of ARR projections and studios adopted a gold rush mentality, pulled back all their content and each tried to launch their own service. Of course, this quickly fragmented the streaming market as few consumers would subscribe to more than one or two services at a time. As stock valuations dropped back to reality, the server plus bandwidth costs started piling up and the also-ran streaming services became break-even boat anchors for most studios.
Now we're left with the cultural 'worst of all worlds'. A dozen inaccessible walled gardens each neglected by their owners and no easy, central way to find and watch an old, low-value film.
I assume they get "monetization" from Youtube and they don't need to worry about hosting or discovery. Probably better than doing nothing with these films.
For your searching convenience, they do seem to have all their full movies in a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Y4rNBCLaU&list=PL7Eup7JXSc...
That will pop up to The 11th Hour but the playlist has them all.
Anything from before the 1980s should just be on YouTube, its easy cash for them on films that are sitting idle otherwise. Anything they aren't licensing to anyone anywhere should just be on YouTube. Or any sort of streaming platform that has sane ads, and anyone can see. It is really sad to me there's no genuine YouTube competitor.
Check out Peroscope films.
They take public domain footage, mostly us government stuff, and release it and claim copyright over it.
I took some of their public domain footage and put it on YouTube and they freaked out.
Through logic and reason I was able to get them to admit they have no copyright right, as they were initially claiming.
But they did have the YouTube terms of service.
So, back to this.
If they had public domain stuff they wanted to protect, this is another less obvious way to do it.
It’s Zaslav-era WB so there’s probably some kind of weird tqx write-off happening, or some contractual agreement that they’re living up to in the cheapest way possible.
Some good stuff on there - shout out to The Mission, which includes one of Morricone’s greatest scores.
They're not being dumped. Putting them on YT lets WB make passive money while maintaining control of their rights with little effort on their part. If WB makes a better deal down the road, they can hide or delete the movies from YT.
This also makes some of the movies more valuable by revealing hidden demand. WB will see their YT stats for their films and see where future investments or licensing deals may pay off. A streaming company is disincentivized to tell the movie owner how the film is doing.
My first thought upon reading the headline was that it's better that they put everything on YouTube, than delete more stuff like what they did to Cartoon Network's website:
https://slate.com/technology/2024/08/david-zaslav-warner-bro...
When Jeremy Irons was asked why he did Dungeons & Dragons (2000), he replied "Are you kidding? I'd just bought a castle, I had to pay for it somehow"
Oh nice they got The Science of Sleep (2006) on here, great film with Gael GarcĂa Bernal by Michel Gondry.
Sony has this thing they call Bravia Core (which they no renamed to Sony Pictures Core) and as far as I can tell, it’s restricted to Bravia TVs (okay also PlayStations and an Xperia phone apparently). You get a certain number of credits when you buy a tv I guess. And then I don’t think you can even buy more. I get that it’s Sony trying to monetize their content in a way (though I’m not sure it really incentivizes the TV purchase if people don’t really know about it…) but it seems like a step in the wrong direction if other studios are looking to make their catalogs more accessible. The killer feature for the Sony service though is that it’s super high bandwidth and really high quality stream. (But, in testing it, it seems some of their tv processor hardware or memory limits can’t handle the load).
It’s like the most bizarre version of a walled garden.
At least using YouTube kind of makes it accessible to more people. And YouTube does have some high bitrate options
All of Tarkovsky is on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hBLv-HLEc
These are movies nobody is lining up to syndicate, for a company desperate for cash. Why not dump them on YouTube and get a bit of ad revenue? It’s low effort relative to the income it generates. Even if it’s unlikely to make much money.
Many Indian movies are available on YouTube. Particularly old movies or dubbed from South Indian languages to Hindi. Some of them of 100s of millions of views. Considering home video market is more or less dead. YouTube is the best pay per view (via ads) available.
""" 33 unavailable videos are hidden No videos in this playlist yet """
My guess it's that they do it to discover what "hidden gems" actually have potential, and that they may not stay free.
There is an increasing amount of UK TV uploaded to YouTube from whoever owns the rights. Have seen The Bill (26 seasons) and pretty much all of Gordon Ramsey's work recently (including a 8hr entire season video). ITV appears to have even created the brand "Our Stories" for their YouTube fly on the wall telly content.
Much of this not-fantastic-quality TV could probably be easily found on YouTube even without the rights holder being involved anyway - so better they get paid?
Now do Coyote v. ACME!
(It was a Roger Rabbit-style live action + cartoon character blend, based on an awesome newspaper parody, that was completely created, received rave reviews, and then shitcanned by the befuddling new accounting practices of Warner Bros. Discovery.)
I watched one of these movies after reading this discussion on HN. It was blocked halfway thru the movie "not available in this region" (European IP address).
This is cool!
I do get it, these movies are most likely basically "worthless" for WB at this point.
Hell, I remember seeing Deathtrap and True Stories in the Wal-Mart $5 DVD bin 20 years ago.
This is still better than letting them basically be completely lost/unavailable and the ad revenue makes it a positive cashflow proposition I bet.
Maybe this helps their efforts agaisnt illegal hosting of those old movies? It is available for free for users, and they will keep attacking piracy.
They can at any time substitute the full movies with ads to buy the collection, before IP expires. It is a low cost experiment.
Why are some great films mixed with some duds? This is classic Hollywood accounting. They sell N files for $M and then split the revenue evenly. The great film gets $M/N and so does every dud.
In practice, the great film's revenues have already "earned out" any advances so that $M/N must be shared with outsiders. Often, the duds haven't made enough so the studio gets to keep all $M/N.
I don't know that's what they're doing here. Certainly, they have enough data to accurately allocate revenues. But it's what's been done in the past.
> By releasing a handful of hidden gems next to some of the worst films it ever released, WBD is doing a disservice to its creative teams of past and present
Making older movies publicly available at no cost (albeit with ads) is good, actually?
Is the suggestion that there's no bad content on Max and that's why they should put the movies there, instead, behind a paywall? Instead of Youtube, he wants these movies next to Dr. Pimple Popper?
(Ironically, I'm pretty sure this is #1 on Hacker News because people appreciate the heads-up about the free resource, and not because folks support his call to remove them from public view.)
I work at Google, and I didn't even know that there are good movies you can watch for free with a YT Premium subscription until I saw this article:
https://www.youtube.com/feed/storefront
Includes Roger Rabbit, Billy Madison, Good Will Hunting, Wayne's World, Mars Attacks, Grumpy Old Men, Osmosis Jones, the 90s TMNT movie…
For those who are interested, Mosfilm has been uploading a bunch of Russian movies to YouTube for a long time.
You can watch Tarkovsky's movies, for example.
And one of my personal favorites - Kin-Dza-Dza! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYHv8eJrW2Y
Last time I checked there was no age check on the horror movies, which is especially strange for access from Germany
Murder in the First is one of them, and it is a long favorite of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X42yOL5Ah4E&list=PL7Eup7JXSc...
It has the best performance I've ever seen by Kevin Bacon, and a solid performance from Christian Slater. Gary Oldman is a solid villian. R. L. Emery does his usual thing, but he's really good at that usual thing. I think about lines and ideas from it frequently. Granted, this is partly because the movie came out when I was 15 and I watched it a formative age with friends. But I've also watched it recently, and I think it holds up.
This is what I thought digital content would be two decades ago.
I love this.
It's been ages since I've seen "Oh God" or "Hot to Trot". Not great movies, not genre or culture defining, but fine. These are movies I'd watch if they were on.
I hope they do more. And I hope other distributors follow suit. Basically, I want Critters 1-3.
It would be great if they started putting the canceled and removed cartoons on YouTube as well. Stuff like Final Space, Close Enough, and Infinity Train, which AFAIK has no legal way of watching anymore, could get a new audience on YouTube.
Free money?
It's probably zero effort to upload them to YouTube. People watch them. YouTube generates ad revenue and pays out Warner Brothers.
They probably choose the movies nobody wants to pay for any more on VoD/DVD and nobody views on paid streaming services.
As always, don't count on it lasting. Nevertheless, it's a welcome move from WB, even if I've already fallen out of movie watching. I'm quite surprised they did it region-free.
Even though the article says this initiative is not part of YouTube Movies/Premium, assumedly if one does have YT Premium/Music, then these movies should be ad-free, correct?
Great was my first thought - except that I am met with “the uploader have not made this video available on your country” (Denmark). So no value for me…
I don’t know about officially sanctioned releases, but I feel like I’ve watched entire movies through YouTube shorts at this point… there’s a really simple grift that rockets to the top of the algorithm and also pushes people into a pipeline for other clips of the movie:
1. Clip a movie scene and crop it for vertical aspect ratio (maybe some AI is used here to choose the focus point of the scene)
2. Add royalty-free background music and possibly other tweaks like mirroring the video
3. Title it something generic that doesn’t acknowledge it’s a movie/show, like “College dropout beats Harvard Law grads to the job” for the scene from Suits (Note: for shorts, the title doesn’t matter if it’s algorithmically chosen to play next… in fact at this point the more relevant title is the optional link to a different short… the real title is barely visible)
4. Do not mention the name of the movie/show in the title or description
There are hundreds of accounts producing these shorts on an industrial scale. It’s easy to see how the automation works and also why it’s successful. It’s clickbait (people want to comment or ask for the title, or correct the title to mention it’s actually from a movie); it’s addicting (it funnels people into watching more clips from the same movie… funny how YouTube knows to do that but not that it’s copyrighted, btw); it’s self-optimizing (if the algorithm doesn’t surface the next short, people go looking for it specifically); and of course, it’s automatable (everything from curation to editing can be automated, and just a sprinkle of AI is apparently enough to obfuscate the automation).
What’s fascinating is that YouTube hasn’t stopped this. The shorts algorithm can obviously detect the similarity between clips from a movie, but the copyright/spam detection algorithm can’t detect the same.
Quite nice that they, unlike the free ones on the "Youtube Movies" channel, can be downloaded by YouTube Premium users without any hassle.
Within the last 2 or 3 months, I have noticed that a lot of old movies are popping up on my YouTube feed. This includes full movies from the 30s to the 90s, and some are even in other languages. They are being uploaded, often with a small watermark in the corner, and they are not taken down.
I am rather curious as to why this is happening now (and happening across multiple countries, apparently) but I kinda like it.
Why? My guess is the data Youtube Analytics makes available and the potential for making something a cult classic.
To boot, if there’s no revenue, there’s no need to pay creative people. Indeed, if it boosts expenses under Hollywood accounting practices, those expenses might offset other income that would otherwise be owed to artists and their estates.
I think this is a play on testing how the DRM of their catalog looks like. Looking through my mcn cms they have all the applicable claims on the content so they are possibly testing how many infringing videos are on YouTube as well as using all this content as a content funnel
Since those are mostly old movies, my immediate thought was: "maybe it's a new creative way to create a new income stream for hard-to-sell-otherwise assets?". If a decent enough number of users watch them, it could bring some cash to the publisher, couldn't it?
people talking about ad revenue... It feels more like a reputational play, ie: throw some free movies out with the WBD logo, more people recognize the brand strength of WBD, then subscribe to Max. Though the selection is small and the movies don't look very good at a glance..
There just isn't much value in most old films. There are a handful of standouts per year, and anything in a major franchise, but the demand for everything else is low, so you might as well make it as easy to find as possible and get what money you can from it.
I think it does two things:
1. It puts these otherwise worthless movies to work and earns some ad revenue even if it is peanuts
2. There is always the chance a clip goes inexplicably viral on social and suddenly finds new relevance to the point that someone does want to pay money for it.
It's not strange that they are attempting to monetize movies that don't generate subscriptions or VOD revenue. WB/Discovery doesn't have a free streaming service like Tubi, PlutoTV, FreeVee, etc. so why not YouTube? The CPMs are great.
I imagine the selection seems random because these are films that WB has the most favorable contracts for -- So there is no need for them to track number of streams so they can send some director or production company penny checks every month, etc.
All paid for, near zero cost to distribute, small crumbs of revenue, but from enough crumbs - a loaf can be made, and they have a lot of crumbs. I have poked around and watched a few and I liked them. Good for you WB = adapt and prosper
YouTube playlist with the movies https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Eup7JXScZyvRftA2Q5h...
Is it even a "release" when it's on youboob?
Will they allow downoad? Will they enforce ads and popups in order to view these movies?
It's more like they gave the licensess to goggle than actually "releasing" the movies...
If we stopped watching, they would pay us to watch. Holly wood casts spells.
I think, for viewers, it's a win. Free movies, no DRM, and no region locks? But it's ironic that YouTube is now offering a more open and accessible archive than most official streaming services
Maybe they are republishing the movies in the cheapest way to keep the rights?
Not in New Zealand
> The uploader has not made this video available in your country
I've been using Youtube to re-discover a lot of fun movies from the 80s-00s that I never saw when I was a kid. It's quite nice to tune in and out while working.
They do no longer remember who holds the IP but have copies laying about. So post them, if they do not get a strike by a ip owner- they might be actual yours?
I think it's pretty obvious.
They think it's going to makes more money with YouTube advertisement than the traditional copy selling.
Honestly maybe just because they can?
They have these relatively obscure movies that aren't really worth much so why not throw them on youtube and give them the best possible chance of being watched.
I think it's a great move honestly, I know a tv show from the UK that's been doing the same, hopefully more shows/movies will do it as well.
A friendly reminder that your local library has a ton of free online access to news sites, movies, and ebooks! Libraries are amazing! Support them!
There's a small chance they will get a cult following with more exposure and lead to increase in value of the IP.
I'm surprised by the quality of some of these movies, they're not no name failures.
The wind and the lion! Took me years to find a digital copy of that movie about 7 years ago
Because they need all the money they can get, they are a sinking ship. Next question.
Could be for market research. Whichever is the most popular, gets remade or whatever.
I will go ahead and say that some of these movies were given 'for free' some years ago. In some countries, Sunday newspapers and/or magazines would come with a 'free' DVD. But they were never giving away the blockbusters, they would give away good movies, with good cast (e.g. Mission - De Niro).
So there are so many (hundreds? thousands?) of DVDs/copies floating out there, to the point that nobody would pay a fee to watch them.
I had a collection of those 'free' DVDs that came in newspapers/magazines. Some years back I 'ripped' them all (kept photos of the album with the DVDs as proof of ownership) and threw away (responsibly) hundreds of DVD disks. I have never watched any of them.
I do not believe that all these "views" listed are real.. "True stories", 29k views in 6 days?? Really?? I think people search for "<title> full movie" and click on anything that comes up, as they search for some blockbuster/pirated movie.
And/or some people will click, use their InternetDownloadManager (or similar), download the 1080, save it, and never watch it.
Very nice. Unfortunately no Brazilian Portuguese subtitles.
Ok but how am I going to watch the first three Critters films??
Good luck getting kids to watch them. Kids today have a hate on for movies or TV older than themselves. It makes sense since there has only been a handful of great movies in the last 20 years. Dumping B grade and lower stuff on YouTube is only going to reinforce the idea.
It’s hard to believe how far Hollywood has fallen. I haven’t paid much attention to trailers in years.
because no one watches them, so better be available, and in peoples minds, grab attention (which is the #1 commodity in the world) than fall to obscurity
looks like they already removed all of those. I just opened saved playlist and found that non videos available.
Now if only whoever owns the rights (Fox? Disney?) would follow suit and drop the old Fox TV catalog (Herman's Head. Whoops!, Parker Lewis Can't Lose) on youtube so I could rewatch the shows I loved as a kid, but never stream anywhere.
They are not old they are classics
It’s got Suburbia on there.
My guess would be offloading storage space while adding monetization revenue.
This is a desperation move. Warner, like many other studios fed Netflix the content to make the service that is destroying them. Then a WB had a disastrous acquisition by ATT-- admittedly made worse by a Trump grudge that held it up for years. Then an acquisition by Discovery, that added very little to WB except bad management. Destroying the HBO brand, DC, etc.
Why is this dumb? They get pennies for their assets today while they bolster the other tech giant that is going to kill them. Studios like WBD don't have the capital or the strategic vision to operate in this environment.
Aaaaand it's gone.
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TL;DR: because they dont have a streaming service
For the same reason the guy wrote an article/ad about it. To make money.
Old movies have been available on various "free ad-supported streaming television" for a while now, so I'm actually more surprised it took copyright holders that long to realize that Youtube also shows ads and doesn't require people to install some wonky app that might or might not be available for their platform.
Of course, region-specific copyright deals are incredibly complex etc. etc., so I could imagine it was just a matter of waiting out until the last person putting up a veto retired or moved on to other things.