\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s nice to remember that not everything on the internet needs to be a subscription-based platform with ads. On WikiFlix<\/a>, a Netflix-inspired archive of public domain films, you can watch movies like \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d and \u201cNoseferatu\u201d for free. You don\u2019t even have to make an account! Crazy, right? <\/p>\n A project of Wikipedia\u2019s volunteer community, WikiFlix hosts over four thousand movies from Wikimedia Commons, the Internet Archive, or YouTube that have fallen into the public domain \u2014 that means they are free to share and distribute, usually because the copyright lapsed, or there was never any copyright at all. So, yes, most of the movies on the WikiFlix homepage are your grandma\u2019s age, but isn\u2019t it kind of fun to imagine what Netflix would\u2019ve been like back in the day?<\/p>\n WikiFlix isn\u2019t new, but it\u2019s new to us, courtesy of a TikTok<\/a> by Annie Rauwerda, the creator behind the \u201cDepths of Wikipedia<\/a>\u201d accounts.<\/p>\n While WikiFlix can introduce you to historic films like \u201cWings,\u201d the first movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, there\u2019s also a bunch of hidden gems on there. As Rauwerda says in her TikTok, \u201cSometimes I really like watching things that I know nobody else is watching, because what if I discover something crazy?\u201d <\/p>\n On its homepage, WikiFlix prioritizes movies that have a lot of sitelinks on their Wikipedia pages, since those are more likely to be popular or interesting. But there is some degree of curation. The community around WikiFlix maintains a blacklist, which helps ensure that you\u2019re not going to run into an historical Nazi propaganda film during your next \u201cWikiFlix and chill\u201d night. (\u201cWhile these [films] are perfectly fine in an educational context, WikiFlix is more focused on entertainment,\u201d a Wikiflix page<\/a> says.)<\/p>\n WikiFlix content may not exactly be as binge-worthy as \u201cStranger Things,\u201d but give it a try. Why not watch a Soviet musical<\/a> inspired by Cinderella, a silent film<\/a> about swashbuckling pirates, or a Japanese post-apocalyptic film<\/a> that features a guy<\/a> who somehow played for both the Boston Celtics and<\/em> the Chicago Cubs? You can always catch up on \u201cLove is Blind\u201d another time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n