Criterion teams with Hulu Plus to stream 150 films with 800+ planned

Movie about 13 years agoby

Good news for Hulu Plus users, Criterion has just added 150 titles and is planning to have a total of 800 titles available. If you don't pay for the subscription service, this could be just the push you need to shell out the $7.99 monthly fee. Films available now include Hausu, Ikiru, La Strada, Jules and Jim, L’Avventura,The Battle of Algiers, The Blob, George Washington, Grey Gardens, High and Low, and over 100 more.

Here are some details from Hulu:

Hulu Plus has commercial breaks, but Criterion films will be presented with ads up front, and no breaks in the films.
Supplemental features (commentaries, interviews, making-of features, etc) will be available over time.
Some titles will be available free on Hulu each month, and all will play on any device supported by Hulu Plus.
For now, this is US only. Sorry.
Some of the films released will be movies in the Criterion library that haven’t had proper release in a long time, if ever. Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Silence de la Mer is mentioned.

It is not known at this time if the entire library will be available at once, or if Hulu Plus will cycle through the hundreds of titles.

Here is what Criterion had to say:

Starting today, there are more than 150 of our most important films online on the Hulu Plus subscription service. Over the coming months, that number will swell to more than 800 films. For the true cinephile, this should be a dream come true. On Hulu Plus, you’ll find everything in our library, from Academy Award winners to many of the most famous films by art-house superstars like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Federico Fellini to films so rare that they have never been seen in the U.S. in any medium. Some of these lost gems have been so hard to see that even most of the Criterion staff will see them for the first time only when they go live on Hulu Plus! Each month, we’ll be highlighting a mix of programs, centered on themes, directors, actors, and other creative artists, as well as celebrity picks, and mixing them with deep cuts from the catalog that will be unknown to all but the most prominent cinephiles in the world.

And finally, why Hulu? In short, because they get it. As their regular viewers know, the Hulu user experience is exactly what it should be: simple, elegant, and focused on the content. Hulu has built their brand on letting the shows and movies take center stage. Nobody does it better, and we’re honored that they see Criterion as a good match for their audience. We’re going to do all we can to make the experience of Criterion on Hulu Plus an exciting adventure for all of us, so please check it out and let us know what you think.

I guess this means the Criterion films will be soon be gone from Netflix. I am sad to say that my only Criterion film is Wes Anderson's Rushmore. I have stopped collecting discs opting for streaming films and renting them from Netflix and Redbox. Criterion has one of the best collections of films, not a bad deal for basically eight bucks a month.

Do you have a Hulu Plus account? Do you plan on getting one now?