X
  • Tech
  • Services & Software
  • Services & Software

LoveFilm and MGM sign online movie streaming deal: Classic films for free

LoveFilm has signed a deal with MGM to stream classic and brand new films to subscribers. No sign of a certain suave secret agent, sadly.

Headshot of Richard Trenholm
Headshot of Richard Trenholm
Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Expertise Films | TV | Movies | Television | Technology
Richard Trenholm
2 min read

LoveFilm has signed a deal with MGM to stream classic and brand new films to subscribers. LoveFilm subscribers will be able to watch over 4,000 films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, online and on-demand. 

Classic films will be available free to LoveFilmers as part of their subscription, including twinkle-toed gang warfare in West Side Story, Eastwood and Bridges in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, bittersweet social climbing in The Apartment and Robert Shaw at his ruthless best in the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. New releases will be available for pay-per-view streaming.

We'll also be looking out for lesser-known classics like Monkey Hustle, Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland, and Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine. Sadly the deal doesn't include the James Bond series, so no From Russia with LoveFilm. No On-Demands are Forever. No On Her Majesty's Streaming Service.

James Bond will return -- in high definition -- on ITV, in a recent deal renewal that means the free telly premiere of Quantum of Solace will have more breaks than a henchman being thrown off the side of a volcano.

MGM will no doubt be glad of the extra cash: it's in more debt than a student under a Conservative government. The studio can't afford to make the blockbusters that could balance the books, such as The Hobbit, Robocop and the 23rd Bond film. It can't even afford to release completed films, including the recently wrapped and no doubt highly relevant remake of Cold War propaganda toshfest Red Dawn. With a slate of such innovative and forward-thinking filmmaking, how did MGM ever find itself in such a financial pickle?