Filmstruck / Criterion Channel

The film streaming service from TCM & Criterion Collection goes live in 13 days — October 19th.
$6.99/month for the basic service, $10.99/month (or $99/year) for Filmstruck + Criterion Channel

Who's in?

looks good that they have the commentaries, extras etc of Criterion discs, or at least some of that kind of content. i hope this won't mean the end of the Criterion blu rays. i'm expecting 'that market' will always want the 36 page books and fancy packaging and such. i know i will.

http://www.filmstruck.com/

I'm in.

i wonder why the TCM lot and the Criterion gang decided to get into bed together. i mean Criterion doesn't seem like an obvious match for Ted 'Colourization' Turner.

Turner hasn't been involved in years...? TCM is a pretty good channel. Have they ever shown a colorized film?

Cons: US only, no Roku support at launch, extreme vagueness (how many films? "HUNDREDS of films!")

But I'll sign up, at least for a few months.

I'll wait to start until Criterion joins up in November. I'll drop the $99 for their catalog alone.

Criterion won't be available from day 1? I hadn't heard that part.

Yet no one posts on my Fandor thread

November 11th for Criterion. They have to wait for the Hulu deal to expire.

Not bad, if you do the $99 once-a-year payment, it's about $20 cheaper than a year of Netflix. Is there any way to browse the TCM catalog at the moment?

On their FB page they said Criterion will be available at launch.

I want to sign up but my two devices (Nvidia Shield TV and XB1) aren't supported.

I went by this press release that says the 1th of November.

https://thefilmstage.com/news/filmstruck-and-the-criterion-channel-reveal-subscription-pricing-plans/

Been reading a lot of information on the website and elsewhere, but haven't seen anything that says the TCM movies will also be part of the package. I have a nagging feeling that they're not. Also wonder if the Criterion movies will be available in 1080, instead of the 720 now on Hulu.

I don't think everything on nightly at TCM will be on there but a selection of TCM-sequel films.

I'm going to guess it will be like Mubi with a larger rotating library plus Criterion.

TCM-esque

yeah, TCM's tweet that filmstruck "will focus on indie, foreign & cult titles, not Old Hollywood. Some limited titles, not many" considerably dampened my enthusiasm.

https://twitter.com/tcm/status/777661149911347200

my guess is milo z otm re: criterion plus larger mubi. Which is cool, but not the turner library plus janus library nearly nonstop excellence that i had prematurely imagined

I have a Hulu subscription and honestly never watched a single Criterion title. The ones I want, I just buy.

I was excited when I thought this was gonna be criterion + old Hollywood tcm stuff. The latter element was critical for me. If it's criterion + buffet of other stuff then no.

Yeah, that's a bummer. I figured $99 was a no brainer but if it's Criterion plus some random rotating films I don't know.

basically i would pay... let's see... $15 a month for some reasonable fascimile of access to TCM's programming without having to have fucking cable tv

aw man. I too was pretty stoked for the TCM+Criterion version of this.

This weird in-between time where the biggest events still happen on old-fashioned cable TV, the "prestige" TEH DISCOURSE TV shows are on Netflix, film is either exploded across multiple competing streaming services or iTunes rental downloads that disappear after 24 hours or totally unavailable, video stores are rare — is totally excruciating.

whiney otm, i feel a deep nostalgia for, like, 2008-2010, when a full decade of DVD production had led to lot of foreign/classic/arthouse stuff to be available, and Netflix was still in the business of providing just about any DVD that got produced.

Like, the fact that we let this happen is ridiculous: http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2014/09/12/netflix_streaming_dvds/

maybe i just wasn't reading the early filmstruck announcements carefully, but it seems like everyone i know was expecting it to have a major focus on classic hollywood, given tcm's involvement. My guess is that getting streaming rights to that old hollywood stuff is probably just insanely complicated and, from a business perspective, not worth the investment of time and resources. Still disappointing though.

I've never watched any Criterions on Hulu but that's because their interface is such a disaster - you don't know what's streaming in HD, there's no easy way to sort the entire Criterion list, etc. Higher hopes for this, though I'm a lot less inclined toward a burning need to watch Truffaut than when I was 23.

Their interface/searching/tagging/credits is all pretty awful in comparison to Netflix and even Amazon Prime. That said, damn I'm gonna have to rush out some screenings before they leave. Better get Lady Snowblood queued up.

The FAQ has changed to specify that only 4th-gen Apple TV will support this, so me and my 3rd-gen box are out of luck. I'll have to load a film on my iMac and push it to the tv with Airplay.

With airplay/casting, does it make a difference if you're casting from a phone vs. a computer?

(I think my Apple TV is second generation...)

I honestly don't know. That time David Lynch cussed traumatized me so bad I've never tried watching film or video on my phone.

sad trombone

Hello film fans:

We want to share some news that the launch of FilmStruck is delayed until November as we work to complete a seamless and easy registration process for subscribers.

Just like the final stages of completing a film, this additional time will allow us to put the finishing touches on FilmStruck in order to bring you a premium service with beautifully curated content and the largest streaming library of world-renowned arthouse, indie, cult and foreign films. Rest assured, we're working hard to bring you the high-quality streaming movie service you've been waiting for.

Thank you for both your patience and your enthusiastic interest in FilmStruck.

The FilmStruck Team

At this point they should wait until the Hulu contract for the Criterions expires.

Yep. I wasn't planning on starting any free trial until everything was available.

Launched.
Looks like the Criterions are up with an 11-day overlap with Hulu. Seeing a lot of fussing on the Facebook page about errors while setting up payment.

Anyone start using this yet? Any thoughts (apart from the still unavailable (?) Criterions?

I'm in, just getting the apps installed now. I need a tivo app! Apple and Amazon will do for now.

Sound like it's worth waiting a few weeks for them to get all the bugs worked out

Not available on Roku til Jan so nope for a while. Also copy on their site suggested that virtually all Criterions wd be available but several that I've searched for are not (incl All That Jazz, ugh)

They have someone responding to comments on Facebook, putting on the shiny happy face but being really vague with specific questions.

Some Guy Named Dave: Your Criterion selection seems to be quite limited. Are you ever going to offer the same number of Criterion titles as Hulu - over 900?

FilmStruck: Hi Dave, on the #CriterionChannel side you will find the largest selection of Criterion releases available to stream

Me: That doesn't really answer the question that was asked...

FilmStruck: #CriterionChannel has the largest Criterion selection available streaming, more than was ever available elsewhere.

Me: Ozu on Hulu: 30 features, 2 shorts and a trailer
Ozu on Filmstruck: looks like 18 features

Filmstruck: (crickets)

Huh, why would it have less than Hulu does? That doesn't make any sense to me. I did notice through a cursory search that they had at least two titles not on Hulu (Godard's Every Man for Himself and Yang's A Brighter Summer Day), so I was hopeful that maybe it had more than Hulu.

It doesn't have all the Oshima titles that are currently on Hulu either

I'm hoping they're still loading up the buffet table. They have quite a few things that aren't on Hulu -- Blood Simple, that JFK documentary stuff. They got The Killing of a Chinese Bookie back, which disappeared from Hulu a year or more ago.

I'm hopeful too, though the way filmstruck has been marketed and rolled out has dampened my expectations all around

Even Criterion doesn't have the rights to all the Criterions anymore

yeah, otm, and i'm sure there are a number of criterions that got dvd release, but where they never had streaming rights. the more i search around on filmstruck the more i think that WilliamC is probably right that they're still adding movies to the service.

hm. no amazon app even!

TBF, this is the day where they're going nuts with the press.

$25 store credit for Channel charter subscribers. Aren't those usually $10? But this one expires at the end of October.

Did you get a new code? I don't think I have yet.

yes, about 30 minutes ago

I think some people (you) got $25, while other people (me) got a code to share a free one month subscription with friends and family. Lame.

they gave me 20% off annual as a nonsubscriber.

Posted my $25 code on 77

Watched Taking of Pelham 123 last night, gosh what a wonderful film

May 2025 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8772-the-criterion-channel-s-may-2025-lineup

I need like a whole month where I get to do nothing but watch noirs.

Whenever I watch one of those Criterion closet picks videos I am always surprised that, when faced with all the crazy and classic stuff in the collection, people's picks often come off almost totally random. It'll be, like, "I'm picking Dekalog and The Breakfast Club and Shoah and Infernal Affairs and Boyhood and The Human Condition." Love how the diversity of taste in movies is reflected in the diversity of the catalog.

I feel like some of it is observer effect. Like nobody loves paper moon that much gtf outta here.

lol, that's kinda what I mean! if I were dropped in there there's all sorts of shit I would go for. No one seems to go for, like, all the great Japanese directors.

Was it brandon jacob jenkins who just grabbed all the 10 disc box sets? That’s the play

June 2025 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8802-the-criterion-channel-s-june-2025-lineup

Jordan Peele/Sinners headz should check out the '66 short feature Dutchman, which was added this month.

Will try to remember to watch the Les Blank/Leon Russell film.

Dutchman rec v good thank u

July 2025 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8837-the-criterion-channel-s-july-2025-lineup

Wasn't expecting to get invited to partake of a class action settlement against Criterion for allegedly selling user data.

There are so many of these similar lawsuits overlapping out there. I got one the other day about Gamestop mining or selling my personal data, and I had to think, huh, when did I get something at Gamestop? Like, maybe once I bought a used game online and picked it up in store and they ... sold whatever minimal personal data that entailed? I didn't bother signing on for the $5 or whatever payout in the distant future. The irony is that the only way the legal team could even find and attempt to rope me in is that ... they had my personal info.

Anyway, whatever, Criterion, enjoy my personal data. If it helps me get better targeted ads the rare instances I am on social media, so be it.

August 2025 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8863-the-criterion-channel-s-august-2025-lineup

Was The Shrouds only a weeklong engagement? It's already gone!

Is it? I still see it in there. Still need to watch it. Unless there is some lag and it will go vanish for me too in a few hours

Just checked and it still ain’’t there. This might be a Canada thing, though; I suspect one of the other streaming services here has the rights to it or whatever.

Criterion Laserdiscs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZlpLwWeKvA

lol, I love how she leans into movies with her husband, father or mother.

Revealing that Janet Leigh is "mom" and Tony Curtis is "Tony Curtis."

September 2025 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8894-the-criterion-channel-s-september-2025-lineup

The Devils! Never seen it.

I wonder what cut it is?

That Jodie Foster series ... I was going to say it doesn't exactly showcase her career in the best light, but she's had a weird-ass career. Also, funny how those Pakula jams just dropped into two separate series, his own trilogy and '70s Thrillers.

The Devils is great. Totally worth a watch if you're at all interested. I might just end up watching the whole nunsploitation series, even though I've seen most of them already. I think I might watch Popeye too, since the last time I saw it was 1982 or so. They have Possession, which I've already seen four times, but may watch again. Also interested in the Alain Kassanda films, which are new to me. I will definitely try them out.

A Perfect Couple is the one from this batch I'm most interested in, because I watched it a few years back on a crappy YouTube VSH (it looked like) rip and I feel like I owe it a proper viewing.

A Perfect Couple, so far as I know, has never been on streaming.

https://i.redd.it/dsj8ngn2mfkf1.png

KICK ME IN THE NECK

wowwwww, nice

Seeing on Reddit that the version of The Devils being provided to the Channel is a 108-minute edit that Ken Russell thought was terrible.

October 2025 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8922-the-criterion-channel-s-october-2025-lineup

FEATURING: Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979), The Magnificent Butcher (1979), Dreadnaught (1981), Heroes Shed No Tears (1984), Police Story (1985), A Better Tomorrow (1986), A Better Tomorrow II (1987), City on Fire (1987), Prison on Fire (1987), As Tears Go By (1988), Police Story 2 (1988), School on Fire (1988), A Better Tomorrow III: Love & Death in Saigon (1989), The Killer (1989), Miracles (1989), Pedicab Driver (1989), Bullet in the Head (1990), Swordsman (1990), Once a Thief (1991), Once Upon a Time in China (1991), Prison on Fire II (1991), Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991), Full Contact (1992), Hard Boiled (1992), Once Upon a Time in China II (1992), Swordsman II (1992), The Heroic Trio (1993), Once Upon a Time in China III (1993), Executioners (1993), The East Is Red (1993), Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997), Infernal Affairs (2002), Infernal Affairs II (2003), Infernal Affairs III (2003), PTU (2003), Breaking News (2004), Throw Down (2004), Election (2005), Exiled (2006), Life Without Principle (2011), Drug War (2012), Blind Detective (2013)

sick.

Fucking wicked

I'd never seen "Peking Opera Blues" and ... couldn't finish it, tbh. I made it almost to the end of this stylized chaos of broad screwball comedy and incomprehensible espionage with no real interest or investment in the characters, and then, close to the end there's this loooooong sequence of sadistic torture and I thought, nah. Kind of a bummer, people love this one, don't they?

That bit definitely caught me off-guard but I was charmed enough by the rest of the movie (the drunken sleepover!) that I was able to roll with it. She does get rescued iirc!

The drunken sleepover was the best part, without question. But that's just two minutes of otherwise underwhelming everything, imo. I expected better.

November 2025 additions: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8951-the-criterion-channel-s-november-2025-lineup

that's a lot of Herzog!

Oh man, I’m not even caught up to what I wanted to watch from September additions, and there’s a bunch of stuff like the Herzog that I want to watch/rewatch from November’s now. Halloween season has had me watching a ton of horror films and interrupted my attempts to keep up. Good problem to have because I won’t lack for options when I want to watch a movie, but I feel pressure to make a lot of time to watch more than I probably should.

Taken as a whole it's overwhelming, but that's because unlike most streaming services, which are chock full of garbage and filler, almost everything streaming here is worth watching. What I like about the channel (which I, too, don't feel like I take advantage of enough) is that it's both curated and that afaict there are very few movies that never return, so you get prompted to watch a bunch of the same movies but collected in different contexts, and sometimes that context is what draws you in you. Maybe I didn't catch "Sorcerer" as part of a Friedkin series or whatever, for example, but I did when it was collected under synths scores. You also get a notice when things are leaving (which Netflix used to do way back when), so that also helps direct my interest as well. I've definitely been trying to make more time for Criterion, especially as I cancel other services out of disinterest or protest.

When i got cc i was worried it was going to be so far up it’s ass that it wouldnt be fun - it’s extremely the opposite and i go to it constantly, esp since DVR-ing TCM has had diminishing returns lately

Agreed that it's really hard to keep up. I still have a few Nunsploitation movies I want to see, all the horror additions from October look great, and the Hong Kong Action Classics collection has like 40 films in it! And now this Herzog collection, too. I guess the way to do it is to carefully pick a selection and hope that some of the ones you miss come back at some point?