A friend of mine recently put me onto Filmstruck -- a new streaming service which offers a lot of foreign, indie and / or Criterion titles.

I would particularly recommend it to fans of Japanese cinema -- most of Kurosawa's pictures are available there, as are a number of Masaki Kobayashi's films, along with "art house" classics (Woman in the Dunes, Realm of the Senses, etc.) as well as "mainstream" Japanese flicks (the Samurai Trilogy, Three Outlaw Samurai, Lady Snowblood). There are a good number of Truffaut's movies and obscure British films as well. They even have the new Criterion HD transfer of Tom Jones to stream (which hasn't even been released on Blu-ray yet!).

Costs around $10-$11 a month and offers a 14-day free trial.

https://www.filmstruck.com/us/

Recommended!

I haven't used it but it apparently had a lot of technical issues for many users. App crashing, buggy, etc. They may have ironed them out but you do see a lot of mixed reviews around even now...only reason I haven't tried it myself!

Haven't had any difficulties at all myself.

I access it through my computer though, not through a Blu-ray player or other device.

I use Filmstruck through computer and iPad. Works fine.
Best part is that they gave a proper streaming home to the Criterion Collection. Unlike Hulu, which just posted a bunch of Criterion titles without any bonus features and left them up there until they lost the service. Filmstruck rotates a group of Criterion titles in and out, with several titles being posted with a fair amount of their bonus content, including commentaries. They also try to program mini film festivals with the Criterion materials every week.

There are, apparently, still a fair amount of problems if you want to stream the app using anything other than a computer -- as in, the Roku stick, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, whatever. If you go to the Filmstruck Reddit page there are numerous threads from people experiencing technical issues, not to mention ample 1 star reviews on Amazon from users who ended up canceling their subscriptions.

Still, for that price it's plenty attractive. I may give it a go for a month and see how it fares with my newer Roku model.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2018 2:50 pmStill, for that price it's plenty attractive. I may give it a go for a month and see how it fares with my newer Roku model.

There are a lot of Criterion titles I've never seen, but have wanted to -- I just didn't want to spend $25-$35 on a movie only to find I didn't like it!

Filmstruck is thus a terrific option for me. I'd also agree with Kevin on how great it is that Filmstruck also offers the special features of many of these titles as well.

I'd also add that Filmstruck is not just "at house" fare -- they also offer a number of Toho monster flicks as well.

Double post!

Criterion themselves actually licensed the Godzilla movies. Folks are hoping for a Blu-Ray boxset that finally releases most of them in the US.