Kanopy
OverDrive Inc (2023)
It's entirely likely that this service is common knowledge and that I'm late to the party as usual, but there is a streaming service called Kanopy that has an impressive catalog of movies available to watch. The best thing about it is that it's absolutely free. All you need is a library card.
Here's how it works: you sign up for an account using your card from a participating public library, which thankfully the Luzerne County Library System is. When you sign up, you get 15 tickets which you can redeem to watch one of the movies, shows, or documentaries on the platform, each of which cost a certain number of tickets. Your tickets replenish on the first of every month, but unused tickets do not roll over. There is also a section called Kanopy Kids with children's programming, but you have unlimited access to all of this content without needing to redeem a ticket.
The Kanopy app is available on Roku and many other devices, and all of the video that I've watched so far has been fast, in high definition, and commercial free.
This month, I got to see We're All Going To The World's Fair, The Belko Experiment, It Comes At Night, The Girl With All The Gifts, and the Alex Winter documentary The YouTube Effect, and I still have tickets left over. This was my first time seeing each of them, and I especially recommend The Girl With All The Gifts. It's one of the best "zombie" movies I've watched in a very long time.
Between Kanopy, Tubi, Pluto, and Plex, and the deals that we got on Hulu, Disney+ and Peacock, we now have access to far more entertainment than either of us could ever have enough time to watch, all for less than $60. I don't mean per month or per service... I mean $60 total cost for all of them for the next twelve months combined. Truth be told, I'd probably be perfectly satisfied with just the free services, but the deals they were offering for Black Friday were too good to pass up.
