As streamers create ways to ramp up subscribers and profits, Kanopy remains free and ad-free

Ray Richmond
·4 min read

At a time when Netflix, Amazon, Apple and the rest of the for-profit streaming universe are looking to ramp up subscriber numbers and revenue – because they are, after all, in the moneymaking business – Kanopy is something of a revelation. It offers what is undoubtedly the best library streaming service around, available free and ad-free to some 45 million people in the United States with a library card and through more than 85% of large American colleges and universities. It has more than 12,000 filmmaker and supplier partners.

Kanopy’s curated catalog of feature films and documentaries (available at kanopy.com) cuts across a variety of movie genres and TV classics, including Oscar winners like “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Whale,” “Thelma & Louise,” “Black Hawk Down,” the Paul Newman-starrer “Hud” and “Romeo & Juliet” (from 1968), to Academy Award nominees “Triangle of Sadness” “Lady Bird” and “EO,” to the Emmy-winning David Bowie documentary “Moonage Daydream,” to the classic 1960s TV drama “The Prisoner.” Because of the depth of its content, the Kanopy service is prized among cinephiles, film buffs and film critics. The company partners with filmmakers and movie studios around the globe to give movie lovers free access to films that stimulate imagination, promote learning and spark meaningful conversations.

More from GoldDerby

SEE‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ tops Kanopy streaming service list of its Top 30 Most-Watched Films of 2023

Many films on Kanopy come from iconic suppliers like the BBC, NEON, Samuel Goldwyn Films, HISTORY, A&E, Paramount, Criterion Collection, IFC Films and A24 and are unavailable from other streamers. And your library card is the key that unlocks the thousands of free films. That includes thousands of free hours over Kanopy Kids. Yet the service is still largely unknown.

“We certainly are still in that ‘Best Kept Secret’ category,” says Kanopy general manager Jason Tyrrell, “except we’re not so much a secret within the creative community. The general consumer audience is discovering us more and more now because of the great mix of content that we make available and just the general kind of mistrust and malaise of streaming services.”

By “mistrust and malaise,” Tyrrell refers to what he considers a growing disappointment in the streaming universe overall.

“I think broadly, the promise of streaming was this concept that you would have the entirety of film cinema at your fingertips and this ability to sort of binge without  interruption,” he believes. “And I think more and more, what people are seeing is that content is disappearing, prices are going up, and it’s just become an unreliable, more expensive version of your cable package. I think that’s where platforms like ours start to become really appealing.”

SEEIndigenous films take center stage over the Kanopy streaming service on Native American Heritage Day

Branching out into originals, Kanopy recently announced its first homegrown project, a co-production with Atomic Focus Entertainment entitled, “Banned Together.” It’s a feature-length documentary about he current wave of book bans in the United States, focusing on a local story in a small town in South Carolina where 97 books were suddenly pulled from their school libraries after two adults threatened action against the school board.

Tyrrell maintains that the public would also be surprised at the broadness and depth of the Kanopy online catalog. “You can watch some of the earliest silent short films ever produced all the way up to movies from 2023,” he notes. “You can do deep dives by director, by decade or by film movement. We tend to have more titles from an actor’s early work in their careers. It becomes a source for a real immersive film education…I grew up passionate about the art form. I grew up on video stores, and I’d take out five movies at a time. That’s the kind of experience you can have on Kanopy.”

He describes Kanopy as “a discovery platform” that makes suggestions and recommendations but allows people to navigate their way through the site without focusing on whatever the latest blockbuster new release happens to be. “There’s also sort of a moral and social nature to using the site that doesn’t exist on the other platforms,” Tyrrell maintains. “It’s really just a modern iteration of checking a movie out at the library, a streaming version of that. If you use Kanopy, you’re using your public library.”

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

SIGN UP for Gold Derby newsletters and updates

Best of GoldDerby

Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.