Since I watch so many movies, TV shows and miniseries, I thought I’d explain how I find them.  Sure, sometimes it just from plain old-fashioned advertising:  Ads on TV (Google TV, to be specific), ads in Happenings magazine, ad on the internet, etc..   Whenever I see or hear about something I might be interested in, I add it to my list.

I keep a list in OneNote, a Microsoft app I have on my phone and on my computer.  That list contains all of the TV shows and movies I’m interested in, ongoing, upcoming, and from the past.  It gets updated a LOT.  With all of the entertainment available in the world these days, it can get a bit overwhelming at times, especially during certain times of the year, like during “sweeps” or the summer blockbuster season.  But when those times come around I actually enjoy them – it gives me a chance to renew and update a lot on my lists so I have sort of a “queue” of shows and movies I can watch whenever I have time – sort of a “watchlist”.

Over the years I have converted every single DVD and Blu-Ray disc we own into digital format and added it to my Plex server – A movie application much like Netflix.  Plex is simply a different streaming service like the others, except it also allows users to and to add their own content to a personal server, then serve it up as if it were just another piece of media on their service.  Plex has allowed me to avoid having to physically insert a piece of media into a device to watch something for years now.  Now we just need to get our fold home movies – all in ancient formats of different kinds – before that media deteriorates completely – if it hasn’t already.

Plex’s free movie and TV offerings are one of my sources as well as another place I keep my “Watchlist”.  At any given time – especially during holidays – they’ll often curate a list of odd titles, like “Plex Picks”, “What’s on Now”, “Trending Trailers”, “Most watched this week”, “New for the family”, “Released this week”, “Coming Soon”, etc., and they even get pretty funny during special holiday periods with oddly-titled lists.

I could just use those lists to find and consume plenty of content, but I’d rather stay open to using as many other sources as I can, just to keep an open mind and see what’s out there, see what everyone else is watching, what they like and dislike, then I try to maintain my watchlist based on all of that input.

With so many streaming services available today – all fighting to get you to subscribe to them for a monthly fee – that alone can also be pretty overwhelming.  Personally – and surprising to some – I don’t keep a subscription to many of them.  I pick and choose which services to subscribe to at any given time.  Sometimes I’ll choose one streaming service and subscribe for a month, maybe two, watching everything I want from their service, then I’ll cancel or “pause” my subscription and move to something else.  This gives me a chance to learn their interface and see everything they offer, new and old, and watch all I can from them, to see how they stack up against the rest of their competition, then move on.

Pretty much the only streaming service I’ve kept for any length of time – and still have – is YouTube TV.  That name is pretty deceiving – YouTube TV has nothing to do with YouTube, it’s simply own by the same company – Google.  It’s actually just another streaming TV service.  But I’ve tried several others and I haven’t found one with better features that I like.  We only subscribe to the basic plan – about $65/month these days, but still a huge discount over cable TV.  Plus, it offers everything streaming with no actual cable wires, so you can watch it anywhere you have internet, and on a ton of different streaming devices and pretty much any device with a browser.  YouTube TV also offers the best DVR options I’ve ever found anywhere:  The DVR has unlimited capacity – record dozens – or hundreds – of shows and movies, and they all remain on your account, ready to watch at any time.  The limit they impose is “time” – 9 months.  Anything you record will stay for 9 months, guaranteed, then after that it will eventually expire and be removed from your recordings.  But thanks to reruns and movies that are re-aired, most of the time things will stay recorded much longer, and they also offer “VOD” (Video On Demand) versions of some shows, which are offered indefinitely, or at least don’t expire any time soon.

But enough advertising for YouTube TV, this post is about where I find my content.  IMDb.com is another source of mine.  Check the front page there to get started, or just search for any movie, TV show, actor, director… You’ll find plenty of rabbit holes there to keep you plenty busy, digging up some of the oddest and coolest content you never knew about before.

Google Play Movies & TV – This is another site I use often to see what just came out and what’s the most popular – especially the “Top new movie releases to rent or buy” list.  It scrolls, by the way, but they don’t make it obvious – hover over the last movie in the row and a “>” appears at the right edge – click that arrow to scroll another page to the right.  Do the same on the left edge to scroll the other way.  Those “$19.99” (or sometimes even higher) movies should be blockbusters… or at least you’d think so.

JustWatch – This page displays 201,018 titles (and rising).  Very simple, just sort the list whichever way you want:  Popularity, Trending, Alphabetical… I tend to use Popularity the most.  That’s the default setting when you visit the web page.  I think JustWatch even offers an app that you can use to customize the list based on just the subscription services you use, but I haven’t used it.

There are tons of other sources, but those are my primary go-tos.  In addition to those, I usually check out whatever “Gino at the Movies” suggests on Fox 6, what Happenings magazine includes in their many reviews, articles and lists each week, ads that come up on the Roku home screen, those appearing on my Nvidia Shield screen, and a few other sources, including friends and family.