Netflix is one of the biggest providers of streaming content in the world. Having recently moved into the UK they are now bigger than ever.
The question I always have is… how do I find what I want?
The amount of titles on Netflix is staggering. Sometimes queues can be over one-hundred titles long and forgetting what was in there is a common occurrence. While Netflix own site allows you to find what they are streaming, there are some questions that arise. What are the newest titles added to the service? If it’s not streaming here where can I find it? What about those TV shows you were going to announce?
1. Instantwatcher.com
Instantwatcher is one of the premier tools to help with searching the library of Netflix titles. Their mission and why they exist…
It’s for Netflix users who want to traverse and explore Netflix’s catalog of streaming titles more efficiently and painlessly. All the information and cross-links on this website are limited to Watch Instantly titles so you don’t have to waste time sifting through a bunch of DVD-only titles to find the ones that you can start watching right away.
Not only do they list some of the most recent titles added to the service, they also give data on which of those films is the most popular at the moment.
2. CanIStream.it
Having just learned about this option I’m really excited to share it. CanIStream.it searchs multiple streaming engines to determine if your movie is available anywhere to watch (sorry no LOVEFiLM). This is their mission:
Let’s say you are a regular techie with a Netflix account, a Hulu account, and since you only shop online, you also have an Amazon Prime account. Now let’s say you want to know if a movie you’re dying to watch is available to be streamed instantly, using any of these accounts.
With CanIStream.It, you can search across all of these services and pick the one you want to use. And if the movie you’re looking for is not available, just sign-up, set a reminder and voila we will shoot you an email when your chosen service makes the movie available. It’s simple and fast.
Just the other day I looked up Groundhog Day on Netflix and it wasn’t there. Thinking I wasn’t going to find it I gave up. Only later did I find out via Twitter that the movie was streaming for free on Crackle. Luckily I was able to watch it, but this would’ve saved me otherwise.
3. Netflix RSS Feed
There are other ways around this, but this is the simplest way. Want to know major changes that are happening to the service or big new TV news? Then subscribe to the newsletter or follow their RSS feed. That was you won’t miss when they add the latest season of Mad Men or when those new episodes of Arrested Development will start airing.
What do you use to find movies on Netflix? Do you find the service difficult to use?
