JustWatch: Best site to watch TV shows, Comedies, and Movies for free

JustWatch isn’t a new service; it’s been in use since 2014. But the modern-day excess streaming services and revolving rights agreements have made it more important than ever.

JustWatch is a search engine for digital media websites. Type in the title of a movie or TV show, and it will show the viewers everywhere they can stream it, watch it for free with ads, rent, or buy it. Once a viewer has found what they’re looking for, they will simply click and it’ll link directly to that service. JustWatch is not the only app or site that does this, but this is a very credible and valuable information 

And that’s for a few reasons. The first is clearly how extensive JustWatch is, It loops in almost every streaming service and TV show/movie, but it turns out it’s the only place you can currently stream the criminally underrated Pushing Daisies, 

But what sets it above and beyond the rest is that users can also filter searches based on special streaming services. Only subscribe to Hulu and Netflix? Users’ search results will only show those services if you want. Users can also use more advanced filters, sorting by just movies or  IMDB rating, or MPAA age ratings, TV shows too. Only users interested in JustWatch can tell you if it’s available or not.

And if the movie user is interested in isn’t available to stream somewhere, JustWatch will display the prices from virtually every major retailer for renting or buying a movie digitally. That’s incredibly useful for relating different prices, whether the user is interested in establishing a digital library or just wants the economical place to rent Bill & Ted’s Outstanding Adventure for a lovely weekend.

JustWatch operate internationally

JustWatch isn’t just limited to United States services: it’s available in over 45 countries around the world, including the United Kingdom and Canada. That makes it significant in the streaming sense because; what content is accessible, where it can be streamed from, and even which services are functional can shift wildly, depending on what country a user resides in. (For example, Star Trek: Discovery is a CBS All Access restricted in the US, but accessible on Netflix in the UK.)

With streaming directories continuing to switch and change over the coming months and years (just ask WarnerMedia, which has already had to modify HBO Max advertisements to report some movies will soon be leaving the service or aren’t yet available ), finding who has the rights to the movie user want to watch is only going to get more difficult. And while nothing short of shifting market forces is possible to change that anytime soon, at least there are services like JustWatch to assist in sorting out the chaos.

Not just a streaming site

JustWatch isn’t just a TV streaming service itself, though, users won’t be able to stream anything from within it – but it surely offers a helpful place to browse through everything available to stream elsewhere, meaning you don’t need to inspect the apps separately to find what you’re looking for.

Let’s face it: there are numerous TV streaming services nowadays. While  YouTube and  Netflix can still be referred to as the dominant players when Ie talk about online streaming, there’s now a host of competitors taking up our screen time. And in a world where Prime Video, Amazon, HBO, Disney Plus, and Hulu are all loaded with programming, with content libraries cycling through different titles each month, it might be very hard to keep up with what’s available

The idea behind it

JustWatch isn’t a recent idea: viewers have swarmed to the internet to find out what film or show is landing on the site for many years now, but JustWatch is unique in its sheer scale. Rather than simply showing what’s streaming on a particular service (in the vein of What’sOnNetflix), JustWatch enables you to scroll through over 100 different library contents to see what’s accessible, where what quality resolution it’s streaming in, how much will it costs, and the kind of payment method available ( rental, subscription, etc).

Users can also filter a large number of titles by the following categories: 

• Movies, 
• TV series, 
• Genres, 
• Release year, 
• Price, 
• Rating (i.e. IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes score), and 
• Age rating.

This means that users can search immensely across different services, rather than simply jumping out for a specific title, or having to go into Netflix, Hulu and Amazon separately to see what animated films or action movies are on offer.

JustWatch app

As the JustWatch smartphone app puts it: “Get special recommendations for movies and TV shows available on Netflix, Disney Plus, Now TV, and lots more.”

JustWatch Netflix: all the TV streaming services

Viewers will discover more than 100 TV streaming services contained on JustWatch, from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video (both rentals/purchases and those included in a Prime subscription) to the likes of CBS and Syfy  All Access. Other significant services include Disney Plus DC Universe, Apple TV Plus, Rakuten TV, Acorn TV, Comedy Central, Hulu, and HBO Max / HBO Now / HBO Go.

This article, won’t list all of them, but users can go to the JustWatch website https://www.justwatch.com/ to check them out, as every TV streaming service gets a personal icon at the top of the content filters.

As to the list of each film or show, users can see when it landed on the respective service, how many episodes are accessible (if relevant), the streaming quality ( HD, SD, 4K), and how much is the costs on each platform for each type of resolution. Users will find a run-down of each episode synopsis and title too, together with the cast and related titles you may likely want to check out.

JustWatch price, app, and website

Most significantly, JustWatch is free to use. Users can make an account for a more tailored user experience – primarily in the form of emails that flag content it thinks you’ll like – but it’s also possible to use without making an account.

The About Us page for JustWatch is also ultimately straightforward about how it earns its money, stating that user data is utilized to “collect user profiles of millions of cinema goers” and target them for advertising on behalf of “movie studios, VOD services, and distributors

Users will find the JustWatch app on Android smartphones, iOS, and as well as on internet browsers.

Any user that wants to sign up, can do so with your Facebook or Google account, or by simply inputting an email address and password manually. Note that any user who sign up will need to accept email marketing, though users can head to their various account settings after the fact to turn this off.