Free 2017 Movies

In 2017, Hollywood used the past to take on our scary present and uncertain future. Whether a film came from a veteran (Steven Spielberg) or a newbie (Jordan Peele), you felt the energy of an artist spoiling to be heard. The themes were many and varied: the simmering heat of racial politics (Get Out, Detroit); a U.S. President’s unconstitutional war against a free press (The Post), the rage that comes when you feel helpless to fight the power (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri); and the essential question of how to live in a world heading for global disaster (Dunkirk, Darkest Hour). The year’s best movies sent a message that a lot of us are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Is anyone listening? #OscarsNoTrump

For movie fans, there is more fantastic content available now than ever before, in theory. The rise of streaming has made it possible for vast film libraries to be accessible to the entire world via the Internet. That content is owned by rights holders, however, and those rights holders want to get paid when people see their movies. Some holders have been fairly generous about this, and have been willing to license out their material at reasonable prices so that it could reach a wide audience. Other folks have been a little less forthcoming.

Also see our article How To Watch Movies on Kodi

Back in the days of broadcast TV, there were only a few channels available, but they were all ad-supported and thus free at the point of use. Today there are numerous streaming service, but most of them want a monthly subscription fee. Although services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO all offer trials, it’s not actually possible to obtain those services for free for more than a month or so – and the subscription fees for paid streaming channels run anywhere from $5.99 to $14.99 a month.

There are lower-cost alternatives. RedBox, the 21st century equivalent of the video store, is still a thriving concern, with kiosks around the country offering a cheap way to rent DVDs, but not everyone is able to access those platforms, and the selection at RedBox is limited at best. There are torrenting sites that provide access to commercial movies and TV shows for free, but there come a ton of legal and ethical problems when looking for free streaming movies online. For one, streaming a movie for free through most torrent websites means you’re breaking copyright law. Illegally streaming copyrighted material is covered under the Copyright Act of 1976, and allows for people caught pirating content to be fined anywhere between $750 to $30,000 per copyrighted work. And while this usually involves settlements and other deals worked out—along with a strike system that usually lets people stop pirating before they get fined officially—there are plenty of legal examples of pirates going bankrupt when caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Believe us: you do not want to be one of these people.

However, there are alternatives to both torrenting and the RedBox kiosk. There are many legal ad-supported streaming sites that are absolutely free, and while you may have to shop around to find the content you’re looking for, you can get a wealth of entertainment without having to pay anything other than a bit of your time for ads. Below, we present our favorite sites and apps that will let you legally watch movies for free online without having to hand over your credit card. These are primarily ad-supported services, without any kind of hidden fees or charges, and they are all 100% legitimate – no pirating allowed. It’s the ethical way to go.

The Free Trial Option

Speaking of ethics…every college student and broke 20-something in the world knows about the free trials offered by Netflix, Hulu, and the rest. Personally, I can remember rotating credit card numbers and email addresses so I could keep my Hulu premium subscription going for a few months. However, those trials are limited, and you’ll eventually run out of credit cards and email addresses, right?

Nope. Hulu and the rest identify unique customers by a combination of the credit card number, the e-mail address, and the IP address used to subscribe to the service – but mainly by the credit card number. You can use a given credit card number to subscribe to one free trial, but you won’t be able to use that card again on that service other than to start paying for the subscription. Rotating your email address and IP address won’t overcome that limitation. It’s how these services prevent the whole world from just free-trialing them to death.

Most of us only have a couple of credit cards, and so we can only sign up for a few trials before we have to sigh, bite the bullet, and start shelling out the $7.99 a month. But what if you had an infinite number of credit cards?

“That’s crazy!” you cry. “Not even Bill Gates has an infinite number of credit cards!” Ah, but he does. Many credit card companies offer their members virtual credit card numbers, designed specifically for use in online transactions as a fraud prevention device. A virtual credit card number is indistinguishable from a regular card number, but it is temporary, with its own expiration date and CVV code, and points to an existing real credit card. So for example, someone wanting to buy something from Amazon could register their virtual card number on the site and make a purchase, but Amazon would have no record of their real credit card number – just the virtual number. If the Mad Hacking Bandit steals Amazon’s entire database, all he or she has access to is your virtual card – the one that you set to expire the day after you made your purchase.

When the trial expires, you repeat the process. Since you have an endless supply of credit card numbers, you can continue doing this for as many months as you want the subscription service. It’s a hassle, yes – but it’s free.

Let’s not fool ourselves, however. This is unethical behavior; we are taking advantage of the subscription service’s desire to give people a chance to preview their service in order to get that service without paying for it. So, decide if you can live with yourself or not before taking this route.

Also note that there are some real downsides. The main one is that you’re going to lose all your watched-show history, because you’re creating a “new” account every time. So you’re going to be retraining the site’s algorithms over and over, and never really enjoying the benefit of having the site know that you WILL watch anything related to the Redneck Comedy Tour, but DON’T want to see anything by Amy Schumer (or the other way around). Also, you’ll lose your place in any movies or shows that you’ve started to watch when the trial period ends. And of course, you always run the risk that Hulu or Netflix or whoever will get wise to your shenanigans and cut you off.

And now, on to the free (and ethical!) places to get movie content!