Summary
- Mubi is the go-to streaming service for cinephiles, offering a wide range of classic and contemporary films.
- It carefully selects a library of films, focusing on art-house and international cinema, which is perfect for movie buffs.
- The service provides curated categories, original films, and film criticism publications, which can turn a love of movies into a fixation.
There are a lot of great streaming services out there, from big players like Netflix, Disney+, and Max, as well as free, ad-supported streamers like Tubi and Pluto TV. For movie fans, though, the world of streaming can be difficult — especially when it comes to accessing classic, independent, international, and art-house films. That’s where Mubi comes in.
There are several other great streaming services for cinephiles, including The Criterion Channel. Mubi, though, is the biggest and best, offering a great library of titles from across film history. The service has a particular focus on acclaimed contemporary films, and original movies distributed by Mubi, like the recent award-winning horror hit, The Substance.
In recent years, Mubi, with its over 15 million subscribers, has emerged as the go-to streaming service for movie buffs. Its carefully selected library of titles is basically a cinephile’s dream, especially for those looking to keep up with the movies on the bleeding edge, pushing boundaries, and forging the future of cinema.
MUBI
Mubi is a streaming service built for movie lovers, featuring ambitious films by some of the world’s most visionary filmmakers, with a library of art house classics and the best contemporary cinema.
- founded
- February 14, 2007
- number of users
- 15 million
- notable movies
- The Substance, Dahomey, Decision to Leave, Fallen Leaves, Maria, Passages
- Price
- 14.99/mo
- Free trial
- 7 days
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What is Mubi?
A streaming service for true cinephiles
Mubi was originally founded all the way back in 2007 as The Auteurs, which launched as a streaming service in partnership with The Criterion Collection the next year. In 2010, the name was changed to Mubi.
Mubi soon emerged as one of the best streaming services for movie buffs looking for the kinds of films Netflix and other big streamers were unlikely to carry. Their library is focused on world cinema, both classics and contemporary films. Subscribers can watch everything from small independent films, to award-winning international hits, documentaries and more. It’s not a big library, consisting of under 1,000 titles in total, but each title has been carefully selected, which means if it’s on there, there’s a very good chance it’s worth your time.
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In recent years, Mubi has also made the move into producing and acquiring titles for theatrical distribution and streaming, finding big success in 2024 with The Substance, which has earned over $76 million worldwide at the box office, and received plenty of awards attention, including a Best Actress win for star Demi Moore at the Golden Globes.
How Mubi works
Just subscribe and watch
It doesn’t really get more simple than Mubi. Sign up for a subscription, which is available for $15 per month, or $10 for students, and start watching. For people trying to find the best titles to check out, Mubi highlights new additions to its library, along with its own original content.
Mubi maintains a list of its 1,000 greatest films of all time, voted on by its community of film lovers.
Additionally, Mubi also offers well-curated selections of films organized by unique, creative categories, like Millennial Meltdown, In the Mood For Love, and American Indies. Some categories spotlight specific filmmakers, while others carry classic selections from international film festivals in Venice, Berlin, and more.
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On top of all that, Mubi maintains a list of its 1,000 greatest films of all time, voted on by its community of film lovers. On the streaming service, one section offers all the films in the library that are found in that top 1,000 list, including Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite and Lynne Ramsey’s We Need to Talk About Kevin.
And for some extra value, Mubi also publishes Notebook, an online and print publication featuring some of the best film criticism out there, to help expand people’s knowledge of cinema, and highlight many of the great films featured on the service.
The bottom line
Turning movie love into obsession
There are so many movies out there, with hundreds more being made each year, and it can be hard to sort through it all to find the good stuff. Mubi is one great solution to that problem. And better still, with its focus on art-house and international cinema, it’s the streaming service best equipped to turn a love of movies into a downright obsession.
Mubi is establishing itself as one of the best modern film distributors.
With its carefully assembled library of titles, and its curated categories, original films, and more, Mubi is both a great place for both movie lovers itching for a fix and budding cinephiles looking to expand their movie knowledge. And with the success of The Substance in theaters and in the awards race, Mubi is also establishing itself as one of the best modern film distributors, providing a platform for boundary-pushing art that gets audiences talking.
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