Watch out, Netflix! Google has gone and updated its YouTube Movies service with thousands of new titles from major studios, including plenty of recent blockbuster releases like Inception, Green Hornet, The King’s Speech, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, and The Social Network.
The newest releases are available to rent for $2.99-$3.99 a pop, although there are still a number of free movies and old classics on offer. (Those old classics, incidentally, are all folks outside the United States will probably have access to. Up here in Canada, none of the new blockbuster releases even show up on the main page.) Google says the films “can be watched with your YouTube account on any computer.” Payment is handled through Google Checkout.
I’m surprised by just how much the YouTube Movies interface looks like Netflix. As Google points out, however, there are some added perks. Title pages include reviews from Rotten Tomatoes (complete with a Tomatometer bar), and you can purportedly enjoy YouTube Movie Extras such as “free behind-the-scenes videos, cast interviews, parodies, clips and remixes from YouTube’s unique community of content creators.”