Renting movies online is one of the most popular ways to enjoy entertainment today. Businesses realize this, which is why there are so many options available.
Amazon and iTunes have offered movies for rent online for some time. Google entered the market by offering movie rentals on Google Play, as did Walmart with Vudu. YouTube now offers YouTube movies to customers who want to pay a small fee to watch hit movies. If you can't find the movie you want to watch online for free Top 18 Free Movie Streaming Sites Top 18 Free Movie Streaming Sites If you want to watch movies for free legally, you have many options online. Here are the best free movie streaming sites. Read More
With so many options, how do you choose? In this article, we compare the best online movie rental services in terms of price, quality, and options.
Not sure which movie to watch? Find the best reviews on Rotten Tomatoes 7 Useful Rotten Tomatoes Features Beyond Tomatometer Ratings 7 Useful Rotten Tomatoes Useful Features Beyond Tomatometer Ratings Rotten Tomatoes is about more than its tomatometer ratings. Let's look at seven features on the site that are worth a second look. Read more.
Amazon has been our family's go-to for many years when we want to rent movies at home on Saturday night. It's especially good if you have an Amazon Prime subscription.
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That said, the options available on Amazon Prime are typically older movies, low-quality B-movies, unrated or independent movies, or just movies that were never very good, even when they were first released. /P>
That said, if you hunt hard enough, you can find some pretty good ones. However, the best movies are the ones you pay a rental fee for.
With most movies, Amazon gives you the option to purchase the movie permanently or rent it in HD or SD format. Buying the movie stores the movie permanently in your Amazon video library.
Renting it usually gives you about 48 hours to see it..
You can access the SD option by clicking on More purchase options .
Not all movies have this less expensive option, but most do.
It's worth exploring if you want to save money on your rentals.
If you make your purchase on a computer or laptop, you can go into your video library and watch it right away.
If you want to watch the movie on your TV using your computer, there's no native option to cast, like you'll find in other apps. One option is to use Google Chrome to "cast" the tab where Amazon is playing on your Chromecast device.
Or you can play the movie using any of the many streaming media boxes. What is the best streaming media device? What is the best media streaming device? Looking for the best streaming device? We've covered four different types of streaming devices:Budget, Mid-Range, High-End, and DIY. Read More Of course, Amazon offers the Fire Stick. How to Set Up and Use Your Amazon Fire TV Stick How to Set Up and Use Your Amazon Fire TV Stick The Amazon Fire TV Stick is a great and affordable streaming device for beginners. This guide will help you set up and start using your Amazon Fire Stick without any stress. Read More
You can also use the Amazon app to purchase and play movies from your Amazon account, but again, there's no native option to cast or stream the movie to your TV.
Download: Amazon app on Google Play (free)
Download: Amazon app on iTunes (free)
As with most streaming media services, playback quality is highly dependent on the bandwidth of your internet connection. If you have any reservations that your internet can't handle very well, you'll want to stick to only buying SD movies that don't require a very high connection speed.
Note: Android mobile devices default to SD, so don't waste your money buying an HD movie if you plan to watch it on an Android.
iTunes is a great option for anyone invested in the Apple ecosystem. If you have iPhones, an iPad, or a Mac, then this is a perfect option for you.
However, since you can install iTunes on any PC How to Make iTunes Usable Again in 7 Easy Steps How to Make iTunes Usable Again in 7 Easy Steps iTunes was once great, but now it's horrible. Restore your Apple Music Player to its former glory with these essential cleaning tips. Read More This is especially useful if you've used iTunes for a long time and have now switched to a PC or Android.
iTunes has a library of movies for rent that is as varied and full of options as Amazon or Vudu.
As with Amazon, you have the option to purchase the movie permanently or rent it for 48 hours from the time you start watching it.
You can see those options for purchase on the individual movie synopsis page.
You also have the option to rent a lower resolution movie if you wish, but unlike Amazon this doesn't seem to change the purchase price.
If you have an iPhone, you can obviously access your iTunes library as you normally would. However, if you have an Android, you're out of luck unless you're willing to install a third-party app to try and sync with iTunes. But even that may not work due to DRM restrictions. There are ways around that, but they're not legal.
Also, if you have an Apple TV, you can use the Home Sharing feature in your iTunes account to stream your rented movies to your Apple TV.
This is a pretty sweet feature as most streaming boxes like Roku, Fire Stick and various media streaming boxes don't allow streaming from iTunes.
Apple is known for being a company that provides a superior multimedia experience, at least when you're viewing media using its products. Actually, this seems to be reflected in the playback quality in the iTunes client application.
When you play a movie in iTunes, the player fills the screen completely and has the ability to play movies on a widescreen, high-resolution laptop, or any type of large screen you might have.
Probably not the best solution for someone already entrenched in the Google ecosystem with Chromecast devices and an Android smartphone. But if you're an old Apple user, at least it's good to know that there's still a way to enjoy the movies you bought on iTunes, even on non-Apple devices.
In 2010, Walmart saw the potential of the online movie rental business and bought the Vudu company. Today, Vudu is as ubiquitous as Amazon and Netflix are these days, on the most popular streaming devices.
If you ever run out of movies to watch on Amazon, YouTube, or anywhere else, Vudu really is a great place to convert.
It's not better than other services in any way, nor is it less (or more) expensive, but it does at least provide additional titles and programs to choose from.
The great thing about Vudu is how simple the filter function is. Simply mark the items that are important to you.
For example, most of the time we look for 80% fresh tomatometers, and from the 1990s or 2000s.
When we started using Vudu, I assumed that you would have to pay for what you want to watch. But that is not the case at all. If you are looking for free content, you have two options..
In both cases, you will find hundreds of movies. Many tend to be of the same quality as Amazon Prime "free" movies, but there are quite a few gems if you don't mind checking all the lists.
A big plus point for Vudu is that they have integrated Chromecast into the web-based player when you sign in to your Google Chrome account.
There is also a Vudu app available for Android and iPhone.
The app has all of the same features, including a variety of movie and TV show options, filters, and Chromecast functionality.
Not only is the Vudu app a good place to turn when you run out of movies to watch elsewhere, but with Chromecast built right into the app, it's an easy task to cast the app to your TV.
If you don't have a Chromecast, don't worry. It is compatible with Roku and Tivo, Samsung, Sony and LG Blu-Ray players, as well as Playstation and XBox.
Like Amazon, VUDU has the option to rent SD and HD options, as well as UHD for select movies.
One thing we did notice when testing the various casting options is that sometimes Amazon had lags or issues with freezing when casting content to Chromecast using the Chrome browser. VUDU didn't have those problems.
As with any other service, always keep in mind that buying higher definition versions requires more bandwidth, so make sure you have the bandwidth available!
Download: Vudu App on Google Play (Free)
Download: Vudu app on iTunes (Free)
Google Play was one of the last online movie rental resources I went to personally, mostly because I was tired of running out of options elsewhere. You may not find many different options here, but there are plenty of them.
You'll notice that Google Play listings don't look too different from other sites like YouTube and Vudu. But it's a good resource to check if you're looking for the best prices. Sometimes you will find good deals..
Options span production studios, TV stations, and networks.
You can sort the movie listings by all of those, as well as by genre.
There's no “free” category to search for, but if you search Google Play Movies for “free movies”, you'll find a list of a couple dozen movies you can watch for free.
It's not much, but it's something. It's mostly B movies or documentaries, the kind of stuff you might try if you're really bored.
Buying movies through Google Play is as easy as anywhere else. All you need is a credit card and you can start watching any of the movies available on the site in just a few minutes.
When you buy over the web, Google obviously natively supports streaming to your Chromecast device.
Google provides a list of other devices that support streaming from Google Play. Available PDF download includes over 600 device pages, including mobile devices.
Google Play Movies is also available in the Google Play app. The GUI on mobile is very easy to use. It's almost too easy to scroll through movies in different genres and buy them. It's very easy to get carried away and spend a fortune.!
On Google Play, SD is available for any compatible device. You can buy HD movies for laptops, Chromecast, Roku, as well as iOS and Android devices. UHD is available for Android TV and Ultra HD for Chromecast Ultra.
While I've seen issues casting my laptop to Chromecast when Chrome casts the tab using Amazon, I had no issues casting the same laptop to Chromecast using Google Play casting.
Download: Google Play Movies on Google Play (Free)
Download: Google Play Movies on iTunes (Free)
YouTube is a great place to turn when you run out of options to find a good movie to watch on a Friday night.
YouTube doesn't have a very well segregated one. “movies” section, but if you Google “YouTube Movies” you can find the channel where all the movies for rent are listed.
There are movie categories like new movie releases, special offers, or best sellers, but the front end for searching for movies leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike Vudu or Amazon, the filtering option is practically non-existent.
The best thing to do is search by genre or search for the title of the movie you want to rent.
However, the volume of movies available is as plentiful as Amazon, and prices here generally line up perfectly with Amazon rental prices.
Renting through the YouTube website is very simple. Clicking on the movie you want to rent instantly plays the trailer, and more than half of the trailer will see the “From $x.xx” button that you can press to rent the movie.
You will need to play for the rental with a credit card (which you can save in your account for future rentals).
Once you click on Start the rental period , you have 48 hours to see it until it disappears from your rental queue.
Watching YouTube on your TV if you're using Chromecast is as easy as it sounds. YouTube has natively launched on its website video player..
You also have the option to purchase and watch YouTube movies using the YouTube mobile app.
If you are a Chromecast user and want the convenience of buying and casting the movie from your mobile device and sending it to your TV, this is a better option than Amazon.
Amazon hasn't embraced the Chromecast culture, due to its push for Fire Stick adoption. But if you own a Fire Stick, Amazon is likely to become your preferred rental option.
All video resolution options available on other online rental services are also available on YouTube.
Both the web-based and mobile players are fairly minimalist, but offer features like Chromecast, adding to your Watch Later queue or a playlist, or changing the playback speed.
Even though the players are simple, the playback quality is impressive for both web and mobile versions.
You can easily stream HD movies to HDTVs (as long as your internet bandwidth can support it).
Download: YouTube app on Google Play (free)
Download: YouTube app on iTunes (free)
With so many options for renting movies online, it's sometimes hard to know where to start. Having so many options is great, but it can also be overwhelming.
You can rely on all of the services listed above to deliver movies at the level of quality you need for your preferred devices. The only real deciding factor is what those devices are.
It's a wonderful time to be a movie buff. So turn on your favorite streaming devices and start watching some great movies. Here are the best free movie streaming sites. Read more !
