Archive Watch

About this app

Archive Watch turns the Internet Archive's vast public-domain moving-image collection into a cinematheque you can wander from your couch — feature films, classic television, silent cinema, animation, newsreels, and the strange, wonderful world of vintage commercials and ephemeral film. Every title is presented with the care of a great repertory house: real posters, cast, synopses, and genres, so a 1920s silent and a 1950s sci-fi B-movie look as considered as anything on a modern streaming service. LIVE CHANNELS — A REAL TV GUIDE - A programmed, scrolling channel guide: see what's on now and next - Tune in and it plays straight through, one title rolling into the next - Vintage public-domain commercials play between programs — the 1990s-TV feel - Build your own channel from any mix of genre, type, and era A REPERTORY HOUSE, NOT A FEED - Hand-curated shelves alongside the most-watched titles from the Archive - Browse by decade, genre, and collection - Classic TV with real series, seasons, and episodes - Surprise Me — for when you'd rather be delighted than decide BUILT FOR THE LIVING ROOM - Native Apple TV experience, full-screen and focus-driven - Resume right where you left off - Search with the Siri Remote or your voice - Favorites and playlists in your Library - Cartoon Mode, Party Play, and a cover-art screensaver FREE, AND RESPECTFUL OF YOU - No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads - No account required to watch - No tracking, no analytics — nothing about you is collected - Optional Sign in with Apple syncs your favorites and progress across your household's Apple TVs using your own iCloud All content is sourced from the public domain via the Internet Archive. Metadata and artwork come from TMDb, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and the Library of Congress. This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb. If you'd rather wander a well-stocked repository of curated cinema than doomscroll a recommendation feed, Archive Watch is for you.

Tonight: one film a day, the same for everyone, now leads Home. Channels run on one clock, so every viewer sees the same program at the same moment, shown in your own time. Change channel without leaving the picture with the up and down buttons over the video. Scenes: frames from the film on its page. Choose one to start the film there. Browse by length, and a new An Hour or Less row on Home. Continue Watching shows the time left and your progress, and its widget tiles now start the film. iPad adds an extra-large widget. Search puts the title or director you typed first, and a pasted archive.org link opens the film. Collections made by archive.org members, in their own words. Touch and hold a poster to favorite it, share it or open it in a new window on iPad. iPad: a sidebar of places, a menu bar with keyboard shortcuts, films in their own windows, drag and drop into Favorites and playlists, and a Clip Studio with the picture beside its settings. iPhone: picture-in-picture keeps you in the app while the film floats, and Library, Browse and Channels are simpler to find your way around. Siri and Shortcuts can open a film by name, and Handoff continues a film's page on your other devices. "Something Wrong with This Film?" on every film's page. Watch Together: the host chooses the copy everyone watches, and can show a card in their own words. Plus many fixes to captions, titles, dates and the catalog.

Momentum comes from crawler snapshots for the tracked storefront. “Viral growth signal” means unusually fast recent rating gains; it is an indicator, not download data.

1. First observed Sep 17, 2026 · 4:19 AM Free