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What does Wikiflix actually offer?
Film nerds will find what they are looking for when searching for classics of film history on Wikiflix.
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Older film classics can often be found freely accessible on the Internet, you just have to know where. How Wikiflix wants to occupy the niche.
Wikiflix is a useful addition to the existing streaming platforms for lovers of older films or niche films: The streaming service from Wikimedia, which is also behind Wikipedia, bundles license-free classics and offers them free of charge. In contrast to other services, Wikiflix does not require a login. What the streaming portal offers:
There are a lot of public domain films on the Internet – license-free films and documentaries that you can watch without having to pay for streaming or take out a subscription. Wikimedia has taken the trouble to bundle this offer and prepare it clearly. On the website You can browse through WikiFlix for royalty-free films and start streaming them straight away. This should be particularly interesting for classical music fans, as most of the works are older works.
What does Wikiflix offer?
Although the platform is not particularly spectacularly designed, it offers a collection of more than 3,500 films at launch. As usual on other platforms, users can browse through different genres and specifically search for films. However, the selection is a bit unconventional as Wikiflix only offers films that are in the public domain and not subject to copyrights.
The films are divided into different “sections” that combine genres, countries and similar categories. The homepage currently has sections such as “Female Directors” with works by female directors such as Maya Deren (1917-1961) and Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981), but also films from different countries and genres such as “B Western”.
On the homepage, the new releases are presented under “Recently Edited” and the most popular films are presented under “Most Viewed Movies”, including classics such as “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang (1890-1976) and “Journey to the Moon” by Georges Méliès (1861- 1931).
Access to the Wikipedia database
Wikiflix sources its films from a database consisting primarily of Wikidata. More than 31,000 film titles are listed there, of which more than 3,500 are linked to a film file. The platform also links to Wikimedia Commons, the Internet Archive and YouTube. Users can actively participate by contributing information to the datasets.
The quality of the films varies greatly because they come from different sources and are available in different versions. Some silent films are only available without the original music.