Find Movies & Shows on the Web

More than 100 million people in the U.S. watch online video on an average day. But figuring out what to watch (and where it’s on) can take the fun out of Friday night before it’s even started – with some people checking as many as four or five separate sites and services before they find the movie or show they want to watch. By combining a comprehensive database of over 1 million titles with a dynamic mapping of where these movies and shows are currently available across 29 streaming services, Fanhattan is solving a problem that no other service is solving well.

In bringing the best of the Fanhattan iOS experience to the web, we’ve expanded from 16 providers on iOS to 29 on the web, with more than 1,000,000 shows and movies in our database, more than 150,000 shows and movies available to instantly watch now, and nearly three times more free shows and videos available to watch on the web than on iOS.

Jump Into Fanhattan:  Know What You Want To Watch?

Search by title or person for that TV series you want to catch up on, that Oscar nominee you haven’t seen yet, or your favorite actor. The first thing you’ll notice with any movie or show on Fanhattan (on top of the eye-opening backdrops) are two options: to WatchNow or add to your WatchList for later.  WatchNow tells you where and how to instantly watch a movie or show across the web.  If the title isn’t available yet on your favorite services, you can add it to your WatchList and get alerts whenever it becomes available.

Need Some Inspiration?

Not sure what you want to watch?  We don’t think you should ever settle for watching “whatever’s on.”  We curate daily the hottest movies and trending TV shows so you know what’s happening in the entertainment world. And on Fanhattan Voice, we present the latest entertainment news, celebrity interviews, reviews, box office takes, opinions, commentary, and trends to satiate your curiosity and spark your imagination.

Plus, if you log-in with Facebook, Fanhattan does the heavy lifting of processing your Facebook feed, and automatically creating a list of movies and shows your friends like.

Create & Share Your Own Lists 

Since we launched WatchLists on iOS last summer, people have added movies and shows to their WatchList more than 1,000,000 times. You’ve already told us you love curating and sharing the entertainment you love.

Starting today on both web and iOS, you can create, name and share Fanhattan lists of your all-time favorite buddy cop flicks, tear-jerkers, road trip movies, best picture winners for the last 84 years – or go wherever your entertainment taste takes you.  Lists are the easiest way to share what you love with friends.  The possibilities are endless, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it.

So whether you know what you’re looking for, want suggestions from experts and friends or like to share your own recommendations, you can get everything in one place on Fanhattan.

To join the beta simply sign-up with us and we’ll send you an email invite when we’re ready for you. If you’ve already signed up or are a Fanhattan for iOS user, check your inbox and grab a bowl of popcorn.

Cheers,

Gilles

Has Halloween put you in the mood for undead dramas and ghastly horror flicks? With TV shows and movies shifting in and out of availability in theaters, on cable, through video on-demand, via streaming media and within mobile apps, your head may start spinning faster than that girl’s in Poltergeist while you search for what to watch.

For Halloween 2012, you have more streaming choices than ever. But how many horror movies are out there now, lurking in dark living rooms and movie theaters, waiting to pounce onto the screen? With more than 100,000 TV shows and movies across 14 apps including iTunes, Hulu Plus, Netflix, iTunes, HBO GO, MAX GO, Amazon Prime and Crackle — plus theater listings — Fanhattan has a unique view into the scary number of horror films available this Halloween season. By our count: nearly 2,300 horror films are ripe for the streaming at this very moment. Plus another eight Halloween-appropriate movies are in a theater near you, with two more opening on Friday.

Where can you go to find those thousands of hair-raising, streaming sagas and watch your favorites? In short, they’re scattered all over the place. About 71% of the horror movies currently available are exclusive to a single digital media source and more than 22% can be accessed on only two sources, with the remaining less than 7% sliver of shiver-inducing movies available from three or more sources. What this means is that there’s no one-Trick-or-Treat-shop when it comes to finding your Halloween movies du jour.

Shockingly, only seven horror films are available from four or more services this Halloween.

The Scary Seven are:

1. Resident Evil: Degeneration
2. House on Haunted Hill
3.Cold Sweat
4. Unhappy Birthday
5. Aaah! Zombies
6. Dreamland
7. Cropsey

So this gives you the big, splintered picture. But what if you drill down into the data like the bolts in Frankenstein’s head and dissect the top films in the horror category this season? You would think that the most popular horror films would be available from more than one or two services at a time during the most haunting week of the year. Think again: of the 100 top Halloween movies our editorial team curated for Fanhattan users this year, about 65% are available right now from just one source, and about 25% are available from only two sources. Even with the most popular scary films we’re once again seeing more than 90% can be found in two or less places right now.

Looking to huddle up and enjoy an entire nail-biting series marathon? That gets hairier than a werewolf under a full moon. To watch a whole film series, you may need to rent, buy or subscribe to content on three or four platforms. For example, Hostel is available for rent on Amazon Prime and purchase on iTunes. But Hostel: Part II is only available on iTunes right now. Then to round out the spine-tingling trilogy, Hostel: Part III is available with a Netflix subscription and for sale on iTunes. Hoping to watch the first Scream or Saw III this week? Sorry, they’re not online, whereas the rest of those series can be found dismembered and strewn across multiple platforms at the moment.

A similar nightmare exists with TV: you can catch up on all the past seasons of The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural or The Walking Dead with a Netflix subscription or through iTunes purchases. But the latest seasons of The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural can be seen with the CW, Hulu Plus or iTunes services. And The Walking Dead season 3 is only available on iTunes.

Then there are those films playing on the big screen. Right now, the Paranormal Activity series is distributed across iTunes, Netflix, Amazon Prime AND movie theaters — with no one place to see them all.

The silver lining to all of this is that in years past you didn’t have nearly the amount of content choice and access to masterfully wrought horror films and supernatural TV shows that you do now. Whether you have a hankering for Hitchcock or a craving for Craven, you can search for an find just about anything if you know where to look. (Hint: try Fanhattan.) You can discover, watch and share more than 100,000 TV shows and movies across 16 different services including Amazon Prime, Crackle, HBO GO, Hulu Plus, iTunes, MAX GO and Netflix with the Fanhattan iOS app. And if you discover something you want to watch that isn’t in the world of the living at the moment, you can add it to your Watchlist and be alerted when it springs to life. The app has been downloaded more than one million times and upwards of 500,000 shows and movies were added to Fanhattan Watchlists in the first three months after the feature was launched in July.

So stop searching and start watching your favorite scary movies. Happy Halloween!

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UPDATE, 8:02amPDT, Thursday: We’ve fixed the problem some users were experiencing and have deployed the fixed version to the App Store where it is awaiting review from Apple. Thanks to our pals at Apple for their help in helping us resolve and expedite the issue. Remember, to monitor progress on the situation, please feel free to check in with our Help Center or follow up on Twitter (@fanhattan) for the latest updates.

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6:23pmPDT, Wednesday: This afternoon some Fanhattan users began experiencing errors with the social and sign-in functionality of the Fanhattan app. We are working with our friends at both Facebook and Apple to expedite a fix. If you have been affected by these errors, we apologize for any inconvenience. To monitor progress on the situation, please feel free to check in with our Help Center or follow up on Twitter (@fanhattan) for the latest updates.

"I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

Add more than 20+ Fall TV Shows to your WatchList

Fall TV Season Is Almost Here
We’re busy prepping our massive Fall TV Guide — which will be quite nice when it launches in mid-Sept — but in the meantime we’ve gathered 20+ shows for Fanhattan lovers to start adding to their WatchLists right now. More shows will be added as we firm up data and continue to gather more info from our partners. Simply go to your app and start adding! Please also encourage your Facebook/Twitter pals to stop by and start adding the newest of the new to their WatchLists.

Our Fall Movie Preview is up. Ready to watch some trailers?

Summer Movie Season Is Over
Now that kids are back in school and people have less time to go to the movies, studios start to trot out slightly more refined flicks. While the summer is loud and action-filled, the fall for the most part is more reserved, at least until the Halloween horror starts. Live in our movies section today is a handful of great fall films premiering between this weekend and Halloween. This list gives you more WatchList fodder and is a great way to catch up on the next 8 weeks of film.

We chatted with Dominic about his faves.

Celeb WatchLists Keep Growing
This week, Lost fans and Lord of the Rings junkies (right here!) will recognize our celeb: Dominic Monaghan. The Fanhattan Celeb 100 continues to gather steam. We’re hitting the town and chatting up your favorite film and TV actors on our way to building 100 celeb watchlists. Stay tuned for WatchLists from 2012 Emmys host Jimmy Kimmel, Drew Carey, Sean Astin, and more. Who is next?

Each week, we feature hand-picked lists of films for you.

Curated Panels Off and Running
If you haven’t seen the gorgeous lists hand-selected by your editors each week, you’re missing out. Usually tied into a current release, these lists and others on the way bring a whole new level for helping you decide what to watch. Coming soon: archives for these great lists so you can browse to your heart’s content.

How are we doing? Are you finding everything you need? Please comment below with feature suggestions, questions, comments.

Last week, HBO, NBC, Cinemax, and CW came to Fanhattan, bringing the total number of integrated entertainment apps on Fanhattan to fourteen.  In other news last week, an Amazon Instant Video app launched for the first time on iPad giving Amazon Prime subscribers the ability to watch tens of thousands of films and shows available on Amazon Prime.  Starting today, all these Amazon Prime titles are now available through Fanhattan.

The growing availability of movies and shows across more than 25 premium entertainment apps on iPad and iPhone is amazing.  Several years ago, entertainment fans were complaining about the lack of access to on-demand movies and shows.  In today’s world (at least in the US), the problem is less about availability and more about discoverability.

Fragmented Catalogs

How do you figure out where to watch a given movie or show across more than 25 premium entertainment apps offering movies and shows on iPad?  Without Fanhattan, figuring out where to watch becomes a giant game of entertainment hide-and-seek across iPad apps – Netflix, Hulu Plus, iTunes, HBO Go, ABC, NBC, and more.  Last week’s launch of Amazon Instant Video offers one more app to search when trying to figure out where your favorite movie or show is hiding.

Varied Navigation

On top of the fragmentation of movies and shows across apps, each app has its own unique features and navigation, only adding to the discovery problem.  For example, while the Amazon Instant Video app highlights hot titles and allows sorting, it doesn’t have a search box. As a result, finding a specific title to watch from the tens of thousands of films and shows in the Amazon Prime catalog is challenging and requires some external searching on the web if you want to find a title not currently being promoted in the app.

Fanhattan:  One Universal Tool to Organize Your Entertainment Life

With today’s addition of Amazon Prime to Fanhattan, loyal Amazon users can search for any movie or show they want to watch, and instantly launch into Amazon Instant Video playback with a single tap from Fanhattan.  If the title isn’t available on Amazon Prime, Fanhattan will direct you to where you can watch it across the 14 other apps integrated with Fanhattan.

Alternatively, add the movie or show to your Fanhattan WatchList, and we’ll notify you as soon as it becomes available on Amazon Prime, or any other of your preferred services.

Give it a try, and see how Fanhattan unlocks the power of Amazon Prime, right from your iPad.  New to Fanhattan?  Download Fanhattan here.  Existing Fanhattan-ites, Amazon Prime will now automatically appear in your Fanhattan app through some cloud jujitsu.

Cheers!

Gilles

We’re also launching the Fanhattan WatchList, a radically different approach to organizing your entertainment life.  Simply add any movie or TV show to your WatchList, and Fanhattan will send you an alert once it’s available to watch on one of your preferred services.  Download Fanhattan from the App Store on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

A Look Back: The Year in Entertainment Apps

Over the past year, the world of entertainment has gone mobile.  The number of big name entertainment apps offering movies and shows on your iPad have multiplied, and video consumption has continued to soar with 54% of tablet users and 33% of smartphone users regularly watching video on their devices (2012 Magid Mobile Content Study, Frank N. Magid Associates).

With the increasing use of multiple services, devices and apps, consumers can find it challenging to know where and when to watch their favorite shows. Take Parks and Recreation as an example: different seasons of the hit show are scattered across 4 different apps on your iPad, marketed under 3 very different pricing structures.

The pathway of a Hollywood blockbuster from theater to iPad can be just as complex – moving from theaters across the DVD window, the pay TV window, and finally reaching various digital stores in the on-demand window.

Introducing the Fanhattan WatchList:  What’s on yours?

To manage this complexity, we’re excited to introduce the Fanhattan WatchList. The WatchList lets you add any movie or show you want to watch – no matter what service it’s on – and sends you an alert once it’s available to watch on one of your preferred services.

Unlike queues and lists tied to specific on-demand services, your Fanhattan WatchList gives you one universal tool to organize your entire entertainment life. For example, keeping up with Marvel’s vast Avengers franchise is now incredibly easy. Add films like Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 to your WatchList, and get alerts when the movies premiere in theaters in 2013. Add The Avengers and Captain America to the same WatchList and you’ll get automatic alerts when the movies come to iTunes and Netflix.  You can add any movie or TV show ever produced to your Fanhattan WatchList – ranging from a pre-production movie to your favorite TV series from the 80s to today’s Emmy nominated shows.

WatchList simplifies a world in which your favorite entertainment is spread across release windows and multiple apps by keeping you informed when and where to watch your movies and shows.

A hint of things to come…

Fanhattan is thinking big about more ways to make it simple to find, follow and enjoy your favorite shows and movies.  Sign-up now for a beta invite to our upcoming web service (launching at the end of the summer).

Download the all new Fanhattan iOS app for free from the App Store on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore.

Thanks for watching!

Gilles

Our latest update is all about discovering and sharing the great movies and shows you love and dropping them directly into your Facebook timeline. We’ve also made significant improvements to search and optimized so that we look finger-licking good on the iPad’s all new retina display. Finally, our new update helps you get movie and show recommendations from your friends in record time.

Social On

Once you’ve signed into Fanhattan with your Facebook account, you can automatically share to your Facebook Timeline every time you fan a movie, show, or even a person. Pretty sweet. Simply tap your profile picture, tap settings, and toggle the “Share my activity” slider.

Look right below your profile picture to see if social sharing is on or off.

Control Your Own Flow

Trying to impress with your film IQ but are secretly addicted to 80s action films? Rolling deep with old episodes of Gilmore Girls? Accidentally fan Showgirls instead of Best in Show? Relax. You’re the boss and have the ability to edit each item you share.

Simply touch your profile pic to see your recent activity and tap the X to remove anything you wish.

Sharing Is Caring

So why should you care to share?  It’s a great way to further your Facebook Timeline story and pay your awesome movie and show discovery forward to your friends. Sharing broadcasts the shows, movies, and people you’re into at the moment while at the same time helping you effortlessly keep track of your entertainment diet.

Make movies and shows more social -- and reap the rewards of great discovery.

Still don’t have Fanhattan? It’s free and easy to download. Click here!

The grip of new shows now available include titles like Pretty Little Liars,  Switched at Birth, Melissa and Joey, and Make It Or Break It. Let’s take a closer look at a few:

Open Fanhattan and start enjoying great content right now!

 Pretty Little Liars is based on the popular set of young adult novels by Sara Shepard. The show follows the unfolding mystery of a clique of girls whose “leader” Alison disappears and the echoes it has in their lives. Years after the disappearance, strange texts start appearing with secrets only known to Alison and the girls work to figure out the mystery. The show won a People’s Choice Award in 2012 for Favorite Cable TV Drama.

 Switched at Birth tells the story of two girls who were … yep, switched at birth. Bay and Daphne come from completely different worlds: one of privilege, the other of daily struggle. When the switch is discovered, the two girls and their families live together and attempt to get along all while staying grounded in the worlds in which they were raised. The show was the highest rated premiere ever for ABC Family and continues to attract new viewers.

 Melissa and Joey stars Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence. Mel (Hart) is a politician who takes in her niece and nephew after a family scandal. Suddenly faced with an instant family, Melissa hires Joey (Lawrence), a down and out former commodities trader, to become the family’s male nanny.

Other available shows include The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Jane by Design, and The Lying Game.  Enjoy them today!

Fan Feed brings top entertainment news to Fanhattan to help you discover more entertainment you'll love.

Entertainment Discovery Through News

Starting today, Fanhattan has partnered to include a personalized news feed with the best brands in entertainment to help you discover the movies and TV you want to watch. As you browse articles of interest in Fan Feed, you can launch directly into Fanhattan to dive deeper into any related movies and TV shows mentioned in the article. As a result, the day’s top entertainment news becomes an entertainment discovery launchpad.

Fan Feed: As you browse articles, launch directly into Fanhattan to dive deeper into any related movies, shows, or stars mentioned in the article.

Be A Fan

In addition, Fan Feed gets progressively smarter in delivering personalized news based on your entertainment preferences. Simply swipe through Fanhattan, and Be a Fan of movies, actors, directors, and TV shows with a simple tap of your finger.

Tap "Be a Fan" on any actor, movie, or show.

Instantly, and going forward, Fan Feed returns a list of articles custom curated from the entertainment you care about, called My News. The more movies, actors, actresses, directors, producers, screenwriters, and shows that you like, the more spot on your daily Fan Feed will be.

Once you become a fan of celebs, films, and shows, your Fan Feed populates with a personalized feed of the news you care about.

A nice side benefit: The more films you like, the more your personal Fanhattan social experience widens. See what films your friends like – including the most popular films among your friends.

The more movies and shows you like, the more your personal Fanhattan social experience widens.

Putting the Fan in Fanhattan

Fan Feed represents a killer leap forward for Fanhattan. Now, in addition to entertainment discovery through smart algorithms and friends, you can use the top brands in entertainment news to discover what to watch.

Update Fanhattan for iPad and iPhone in the App Store, and let us know what you think!

Cheers!

Gilles