I did the unthinkable last week: I paused my Netflix subscription and decided to only watch content from a smaller, lesser-known streaming service called Mubi instead.
The results? I watched a lot of movies that I normally wouldn’t be able to find on one of the best streaming services. From arthouse and indie films like Pablo Larraín's Ema, to world cinema and restored classics like Tarsem Singh's The Fall, a lot of the titles I watched aren’t widely available to stream elsewhere.
While mainstream streaming services have played a valuable role in helping to distribute more indie films, in more recent years many have had to tighten their purse strings as they look to funnel more money to their studio's big-ticket productions. This means indie movies don't tend to make up a huge part of their libraries, giving Mubi the opportunity to cater to a niche that the popular streamers are neglecting.
Mubi's catalog might have a lot less choice than the likes of Netflix, but this gives its original content (both self-made and acquired) even more exclusivity, as it's the only place to find certain films. What Mubi is essentially offering is a gateway to some of the biggest film festivals’ highlights, so if you didn’t get to go to this year’s Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale or Venice festivals, Mubi is your streaming portal.
Of course, not every film from these festivals is streaming on Mubi. The cost of acquiring movies depends on the scale of a production and the prestige of the studio behind it. But with Mubi making its biggest acquisition ever at this year’s Cannes – it spent $24 million on Lynne Ramsay's festival darling Die My Love (pictured above) – it's starting to become a viable rival to streamers with deeper pockets.
What I streamed during my Mubi subscription
If you’re new to Mubi, there’s never been a better time to be getting into independent cinema. Indie studios such as A24 and Neon are producing some of the movie world's most talked-about releases – who could forget last year's Oscar-winning hit Anora? Or what about some of the best horror movies of 2024 like I Saw the TV Glow and Long Legs?
Mubi's own distribution studio is making waves in the space, too. It most notably secured the global streaming rights to Coralie Fargeat’s body horrorThe Substance last year, alongside Magnus von Horn's true-crime drama The Girl with the Needle and Andrea Arnold’s dreamscape coming-of-age drama Bird, which if you haven't seen is an absolute must-watch.
Arnold is known for casting unknown actors alongside established stars, and this formula works brilliantly for Bird, which sees Barry Keoghan (Salt Burn) starring alongside newcomer Nykiya Adams.
Other highlights from its 2024 releases (that I've seen so far) include the Latvian indie movie Flow, which beat Inside Out 2 and Moana 2 to win Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, as well as Gia Coppola's The Last Showgirl and Miguel Gomes' Grand Tour.
I also managed to find some older films that I hadn't seen in years like John Carpenter's Escape From New York (if you haven't met Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken before, then you're welcome), Spike Lee's Malcolm X, Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin and Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. I also made sure to stream these nine movies on Mubi with over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes recommended by TechRadar's Rowan Davies.
What I'm most excited for, though, is the new movies and series that Mubi acquired at this year's festivals, and which are yet to be released on the streaming service. From what I'm seeing online from those who attended the screenings, Cooper Raiff's Hal & Harper, Alex Russell's Lurker and Oliver Laxe's Sirât are among the most-anticipated, with all three having over 90% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes based on early critic reviews.
What I loved about streaming movies on Mubi
We once hailed Mubi as the “antidote to streaming fatigue”, and I wholeheartedly agree with this for the way it takes a completely different approach to curating its library. Unlike the more popular streamers, Mubi hand-picks the films it shows, making it a lot easier to find something new to watch.
I'm sure many have found themselves making one of these five mistakes when choosing what to watch on Netflix (or any streaming service for that matter); whether it be ignoring non-English titles or judging a movie by its cover art. But it's a lot harder to do this on a service like Mubi, mainly because it specializes in foreign films (it always includes the country of where a film is made), and because of the incredible cover art it features for each title.
It even has a Curator's Spotlight section of featured films to make deciding what to watch easier, but it's worth noting that this varies by region because of distribution rights. For instance, in the US, Mubi's editors have picked Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, Alonso Ruizpalacios' La Cocina, Daisy Von Scherler Mayer's Party Girl and Michael Almeryda's Marjorie Prime, while in the UK only La Cocina is recommended out of those four.
Mubi also has a treasure trove of little-known content that makes finding something new to watch enjoyable and fresh. Half the time, I've never heard of the films I see in its catalog, which means I'm constantly discovering new underground hits I wish I'd known about sooner. I couldn't ask for anything more from a streaming service.
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