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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Streaming Services That Are Free for 30 Days

Streaming Services That Are Free for 30 Days

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This post is in: ,

If you guys want to identify the URLs for signing up for these free streaming services, please add them to the comments and I will update the thread.

Also, if you are aware of any additional streaming services that are free for the time being, please add that to the thread also.

*****

Netflix continues to offer a 30 day free trial.
Broadway HD now has a trial period now of 7 days.
Playster (ebooks, audiobooks, music) – 30 days
Pantaya (Spanish language movies & TV) – 7 days
Indieflix (indie films) – 7 days
Amazon Prime – 7 days
Fandor (non-mainstream films) – 7 days
Screambox (B- and C-level horror movies) – 7 days
Curiosity Stream (documentaries) – 7 days
Gaia (yoga, meditation) – 7 days
NFL TV – 7 days
Eurosport – 7 days

Sirius XM is (apparently) available at no charge till May 15.

*****

From Slate on March 20:

The Streaming Services You Can Watch for Free While You’re Stuck Inside

In a gesture of generosity for those in quarantine (or perhaps as a way of nabbing a captive audience), several streaming providers have decided to lift their paywalls and offer temporary extensions on free trials. These trials, which provide access to shows and movies across a wide range of genres and networks, are a small gift for everyone facing the possibility of weeks stuck at home. Here is a complete list of the networks offering free trials or extensions for those stuck at home.

Showtime

Friday morning Showtime announced that it will begin offering a 30-day free trial to new customers effective today. Viewers who sign up before May 3 will have access to the network’s full portfolio of television series, specials, and movies online. Highlights include: Ray Donovan, Dexter, and Homeland, which will continue to air new episodes of its final season through April 26.

Sundance Now

Sundance Now, the streaming service best known for its large selection of true-crime, thrillers, and dramas, is now extending its seven-day free trial to 30 days, with the code SUNDANCENOW30. Owned by AMC Networks, Sundance Now also offers a variety of documentaries and television series, including the acclaimed miniseries The Little Drummer Girl and the show McMafia.

Acorn TV

For all the anglophiles out there, this U.K.-centric streaming service is now offering a 30-day free trial to customers who use the code FREE30 when signing up. (The free trial is usually one week.) The streaming service, which is currently only available in select countries, specializes in British programming including titles like the popular series Midsomer Murders and the medical dramedy Doc Martin.*

Met Opera

The Met, like many live performance venues across the country, closed its doors and canceled all upcoming shows in an attempt to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. But, beginning this week it began streaming for free encore presentations of its Live in HD opera series. “We’d like to provide some grand opera solace to opera lovers in these extraordinarily difficult times,” said Met general manager Peter Gelb.

Sling TV

Dish-owned TV streaming service Sling TV announced it’s making a selection of its content available to stream for free, no credit card or account required. “Stay in & SLING,” as the free service is called, includes thousands of shows and movies including ABC News Live, content for families, as well as lifestyle and entertainment programming.

Starz

In an gesture of generosity for those in quarantine, the network subsidiary of Lionsgate is making select titles from their library available for free to non-subscribers. Shows available for free streaming include the first full seasons of Black Sails, The Girlfriend Experience, American Gods, and Vida, along with the pilots of a number of their original shows. At this time, the free deal will be available until the end of March, though it could very well be extended.

Vid Angel

The family-friendly streaming service that allows viewers to skip “objectionable” content like profanity, nudity, sex, and graphic violence, is now available for free use until March 30 (it’s usually $10) with the caveat that users must agree to practice social distancing. The platform, which boasts “the world’s largest library of clean comedy,” can be particularly helpful for parents working from home, who may have a hard time closely monitoring what their children are watching.

Shudder

Horror junkies, rejoice! This gore-and-suspense-centric streaming service just extended its free trial to 30 days with the code SHUTIN. If the current reality wasn’t scary enough, it is now possible to binge free-of-charge on classic horror flicks like Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Shudder is currently available in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Ireland.

Correction, March 22, 2020: This post originally misidentified Midsomer Murders at Midsomer Mysteries.

Reader Interactions

33Comments

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    Wagner week at the Met, with Tristan und Isolde right now. A perfect feel-good story…

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: The Met’s free stream is one opera a day (i.e. not a Netflix-esque “pick anything in the catalog”). This week it’s all Wagner, and today’s offering is a story that’s every bit as cheerful as, say, Romeo and Juliet.

    Edit: Starting tonight, and for the rest of the week, are the four operas of the Ring Cycle. That’s a …serious time commitment, so perfect for the circumstances I suppose. Next week, the composers are more to my taste.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Netflix continues to offer a 30 day free trial.

    Broadway HD now has a trial period now of 7 days.

    Additional free trials (some are new, others ongoing from previously; not a fully comprehensive list):

    Playster (ebooks, audiobooks, music) – 30 days
    Pantaya (Spanish language movies & TV) – 7 days
    Indieflix (indie films) – 7 days
    Amazon Prime – 7 days
    Fandor (non-mainstream films) – 7 days
    Screambox (B- and C-level horror movies) – 7 days
    Curiosity Stream (documentaries) – 7 days
    Gaia (yoga, meditation) – 7 days
    NFL TV – 7 days
    Eurosport – 7 days

  11. 11.

    Feathers

    Criterion Channel free period is now 14 days. IIRC was seven. Highly recommended. Arthouse classics, recent foreign films, lots of noir, samurais, most recent star of the month is Rita Hayworth.

    When I worked at the video store, I’d put Rita Hayworth’s films on and customers would just stop and stare, entranced. They couldn’t believe they didn’t recognize her. But her career was short and under the control of Harry Cohn, so many of her films were not so timeless musicals. But she is always wonderful.

  13. 13.

    Feathers

    @Michael: one note on Kanopy. They charge libraries by the stream, so if you use them a lot, a donation to your library, with a note as to why, would be great. NYC cancelled Kanopy because a small number of users was streaming a very large number of films. Also, many sources non exclusively stream on Kanopy because of the library and education usage. It’s a good idea to check if your other services have the title as well, to save the library money.

  14. 14.

    Avalune

    Daily Burn is doing 60 days free for indoor exercise/yoga.

    Zombies Run has some “Lockdown Workouts” free – written by Naomi Alderman (Zombies Run is essentially gamify your workout. You are a “runner” for Abel Township going out for supplies for the survivors. Interval training through zombie chases and a story while you work out plus a little bit of game stuff with your town of Abel).

     

    Not exactly streaming but sub services that could be included.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    @Avalune: Those are great.  Beth (of BJ calendar and pilates fame) is planning to send me a bunch of links for various physical activity stuff online.  I figured I’d add a link to the list in the sidebar when I got those, and now I can add your two links to that.

    Well, not links exactly.  Maybe you could supply the links?

  18. 18.

    narya

    Question for the jackeltariat: My dad (who loves to read) is recovering from surgery on his one remaining eye and still cannot see well enough to read. Mom and dad might be interested in listening to books, but they don’t have any idea how to set that up. Mom has an iPhone. What’s the easiest service for books? I can try to help them set up remotely, or get nephew to help, but they have to be able to download, etc. They have financial resources, so doesn’t have to be free!

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: There’s a schedule posted here.

    After the Ring Cycle, the next few are:

    Saturday, March 28  Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
    Sunday, March 29  Wagner’s Tannhäuser

    Monday, March 30 Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites
    Tuesday, March 31 Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia
    Wednesday, April 1 John Adams’s Nixon in China
    Thursday, April 2  Verdi’s Don Carlo
    Friday, April 3  Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles 

    Next week’s offerings are much more to my tastes than this week.

  20. 20.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scribd is offering an open 30-day free trial, it has books, audio books and magazine and newspapers like WSJ.

  22. 22.

    Michael

    @Feathers Our library limits the streams to 10 a month. And donating to your local library is a great idea.

  25. 25.

    Janet Strange

    @narya: I subscribe to Audible through Amazon. Super easy to use and basically, if there’s an audio version, Audible has it. But I check the library first. Their app is Overdrive (at least my library’s is, I think it’s a common one). Also easy to use, but selection varies. My local library doesn’t have  a lot of things I look for but I pay to be a non-resident member of nearby big city public library. Fee is less than the cost of buying audio books. Not all public libraries allow non-resident memberships, but I found quite a few that do. Brooklyn PL, maybe? Librivox https://librivox.org has audio versions of classic, out of copyright books read by volunteers. It’s a little … different. Some books have several readers. Some are well suited to the book – I really liked the man who read Grant’s autobiography (a truly great book, btw). On the other hand, I listened to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass read by a person who sounded like a very young white woman, which was jarring at first but I got so wrapped up in the story I soon forgot about that.

  26. 26.

    Ann Marie

    The Great Courses (video courses, mainly taught by college profs, on many topics, including history, art, science, and others) is offering free access to their Signature Collection until April 19 to Xfinity X1 subscribers.

  29. 29.

    PaulB

    If there is a way to get access to any Starz series free, I’m not seeing it. I tried both on Amazon and on Starz.com and in both cases, the only deal I saw was three months at $4.99 a month before they revert to the full price.

    Update: Black Sails Season 1, is available on Amazon if you have Prime.

  31. 31.

    PaulB

    Okay, digging a little deeper, it looks like season 1 of some of the Starz original series are free on Starz but definitely not the full list from the article. And the only way to figure out which ones are free are to try them one at a time. The ones that will start playing are free; the ones that take you to the signup are not. Frustrating.

  32. 32.

    karen marie

    @PaulB:  You couldn’t pay me to watch any more of American Gods than I already have — maybe three episodes.  The lead was badly cast, making it unwatchable.  Too bad as I love the book and was really looking forward to the series.

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