The Ultimate Guide to Finding Something to Watch Online

Streaming movie finders, sites with trending videos, and more

Man and woman on couch watching online movies

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By
Stacy Fisher
Stacy is a freelancer with over 18 years experience writing about technology and personal finance. She has published hundreds of articles and co-authored a book.
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Stacy Fisher
Updated October 29, 2019

Internet streaming has made watching videos online super easy. Instead of aligning our schedules with network TV or a movie theater's listing, we can watch our favorite videos anytime we want from nearly any device.

So, where do you begin? How do you actually find something to watch among all this content?

Below are the best places to start that will help you find websites with movies, TV shows, trending videos, trailers, and more.

Free Online Movies

Family watching a movie while eating popcorn

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If you're looking for just anything to watch, there's hardly a need to pay for it. There are many places to watch free movies online, and most of them include the option to watch the films from your phone or tablet with a free movie app.

Looking for specific kinds of movies? We have lists of the best places to find a comedy, drama, horror, action, documentary, educational, kids, or Christmas movie.

If streaming isn't a requirement for you, there are also websites that let you download movies free. Doing this lets you store the movie on your computer, phone, or tablet so that you can watch it even without an internet connection.

Full TV Shows

Person watching TV with feet kicked up

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In addition to free movies are entire TV shows that can be streamed online. If you're not sure what, specifically, to watch online, a TV channel can do the picking for you.

Some examples of websites where you can watch free TV include Crackle and Tubi. You'll find reality TV, crime shows, drama series, and lots more.

If you like the traditional way to watch TV where you have a TV guide and the shows play live on a schedule, try Pluto TV. There's a channel for romance, terror, documentaries, indies, and several other genres.

Public Webcams and Live Streaming Sites

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With all the tools at our fingertips to broadcast ourselves live on the internet at any time for anyone to watch, it makes sense that there are websites you can visit to watch other people live streaming.

RealLifeCam is one example of a website that displays several apartments full of 24/7 webcams. Watch people come and go all day long, make food, invite friends over, and even sleep. There are other at-home webcams and location-based webcams, too, that aren't as personal but still fun to watch.

Snapchat is another way to watch personal webcam-like videos from your phone. Users post publicly accessible videos that followers can watch.

Movie Previews and Trailers

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Other things to watch online include movie previews and trailers. There's no better way to prepare yourself for a visit to a movie theater or know what a free movie is about before you stream it, than to watch a trailer.

Some movie preview websites include ComingSoon.net and Trailer Addict. Another popular all-purpose movie and TV show site that also includes trailers, is IMDb.

Other Online Videos

Man and woman watching a video on a smartphone

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More people are watching free videos on the web than ever before. Just visit any video sharing website to see the massive catalogs of free videos that you can watch over and over again. YouTube is by far the world's most well-known and most visited site for video sharing, but others exist, too.

There are music videos, funny videos, sports clips, casual conversations, viral videos, educational videos, and everything in between. In fact, video sharing websites often overlap movie and TV streaming sites, so you'll also find documentaries, short films, and other videos.

Social media is another good sources of free videos. When it comes to finding something to watch on social networking sites, look for ways to determine which videos are the most popular at any given time: