If you’re anything like me, you’d probably rather not have to manage five or six different monthly subscriptions to continue enjoying all of the games, movies, and music you love. Or maybe you’re a real film nerd who can’t help but cringe at how woefully lit some modern movies are. Either way, I’ve just found a stone I’m about to huck at both birds.
Wikiflix is a free, online archive of about 4,000 public domain films (via TechCrunch and Annie Rauwerda of Depths of Wikipedia). 1922’s Nosferatu, 1927’s Metropolis, and 1946’s It’s A Wonderful Life are all here, in addition to a wealth of other black and white pictures that deftly answers the question, ‘what would Netflix have looked like 100 years ago?’ It’s incredible to see actors and action from a century ago—and I’m trying very hard not to get on my own ‘why don’t we take videogame preservation as seriously?’ soap box right now.
Wikiflix pulls its video from a variety of sources, including YouTube, Wikimedia Commons, and the Internet Archive but I think the best part is that it’s not just collating early examples of English-language cinema. There’s a selection of live action films from around the world, including India, Japan, Portugal, and Spain—plus a healthy helping of Soviet era animation too.
Though Wikiflix tends to prioritise pictures with a lot of internal site links across Wikipedia, there’s a few curated collections as well. For instance, I think I’m going to spend some of my winter holiday challenging my preconceived notions about filmmaking in the 20th century by watching Wikiflix’s ‘Female Directors’ collection.
Now, if you’re looking for recommendations and I can persuade you to watch just one film from that aforementioned collection, please make it the 1962 Iranian documentary short film The House Is Black. It’s 22 minutes long and it is beautiful.
Your favorite website should be wikiflix.toolforge.org !!!!!!
While we’re on the subject of curation, the Wikiflix community does also maintain a blacklist to ensure you don’t stumble upon, say, a fascist propaganda film while you’re casually collection hopping around the main page. You can still find such films via search or the blacklist itself, though. Wikiflix explains, “While these items, their video files, their Wikipedia pages etc. are perfectly fine in an educational context, WikiFlix is more focused on entertainment.”
However, it’s not all historical pictures modern morals would find deeply objectionable. Did you know that a cut of 1986’s Virus, one of the most expensive Japanese films ever made at the time, is also available on Wikiflix? It’s got Sonny Chiba and Olivia Hussey in it! It was also a box office flop, but I don’t think that’s going to stop me from giving it a watch. That’s entertainment.
