Looking for a film (or show) and cannot find it? Read on!

This guide, styled in the same way as the Guide to Finding Articles/Chapters, is designed to help
locate films (and shows).

Background

● Don’t (paid) streaming services cover most films?

○ Au contraire. Netflix has between 2,501 and 4,179 films (depending on your
country) whereas PassThePopcorn (generally considered to be the largest torrent
movie database in the world) had 197,476 films as of April 2020. (For reference,
there are about 500,000 films in existence.)
● Can I get in trouble for illegal downloading?
○ Probably not. Your Internet Service Provider may indeed be monitoring your
traffic, and if you use public torrent trackers, it may be wise to use a virtual
private network (VPN)—instructions here—but it is unlikely you would receive
anything harsher than a warning.
● Is piracy ethical?
○ Big can of worms. Some discussion here. For the purposes of this guide, yes.
● What about television shows and series?
 ○ This guide can be applied to those pretty easily as well. The specific sites may be
different, but Part IV (arguably the most useful and important part of the guide)
remains more or less the same.

GUIDE TO FINDING A FILM

This guide systematically goes through every option listed in the flowchart with detailed
explanations. First a quick table of contents with brief descriptions of each part.

Part I - IMDb Scout: An essential film piracy tool that automates many of the steps below.
Part II - Streaming: Overview of streaming sites (pirate and legal) and how to navigate them.
Part III - Torrent Sites: Overview of common torrent sites with usage instructions.
Part IV - Effective Search Engine Usage: Film-specific tips for using search engines effectively.
Part V - Direct Download Sites: A short list of databases of films, rare and otherwise. Following
the instructions in Part III often obviates the need to consult them (since search engines lead
there anyway).
Part VI - Private Trackers: A quick overview of private torrent trackers.
Part VII - Groups: A small list of groups for soliciting and sharing films.
General Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Part I - IMDb Scout

● What’s IMDb?
○ The Internet Movie Database. Alongside Letterboxd and FilmAffinity, likely the
most comprehensive list of films on the web along with reviews (user and critic),
production details, etc.
● What’s IMDb Scout?
○ A browser plugin (primarily for computer browsers) that searches public and
private pirate sites for films by IMDb identifier (the nine-character code for every
film starting with tt that comes at the end of an IMDb URL). It displays a neat list
of sources where the film is available right on the IMDb page of a particular film,
thus obviating the need to manually search (covered in the rest of this guide). See
below for a screenshot.
1. Install Tampermonkey for your browser. After installation, put it in your browser toolbar
for easier access. (Note: Tampermonkey is designed to work on computer browsers.
Mobile users can Google search for Tampermonkey iOS/Android/etc. to try to find
workarounds, but they are not guaranteed to work.)
2. Install IMDb Scout. (This version also works but does not get updated as frequently—use
the first link (IMDb Scout Mod) for the latest updates.)
3. To configure, go to any IMDb page (example), click the Tampermonkey icon in your
browser toolbar, and then click Preferences under IMDb Scout.
4. You can add public sites and private sites (i.e., private trackers, see Part VI), choose
whether to display icons or text, etc. As a basic minimum, enable RARBG, Rarelust,
RuTracker, The Pirate Bay, 1337x, and YggTorrent. Enabling more sites may increase
the load time of a page slightly (no more than a few seconds), but it will be useful
nonetheless to exhaust all options.
5. You can even enable private sites (see Part VI) to which you do not have access, for even
if you cannot get it yourself from there, you could ask a friend to or request it on a group,
 knowing that it is (exclusively) available there. Be sure to click Save at the bottom of the
preferences pane, then close the preferences pane and refresh the page.
6. Next time you are looking for a film, come to the IMDb page for the film, let IMDb
Scout load, and click on any of the sites in which the film is found to go directly to that
pirate site. This is the easiest way to download (not stream) a film and saves you the
trouble of following all of the subsequent steps in the following parts of this guide.
7. You can choose to display the download sites as icons or as text. If you choose icons, a
green border generally indicates that the site has the film, a yellow border indicates not,
and a red border indicates a search error. NOTE: RARBG may show a red border
when you first load IMDb Scout—to overcome this, click the RARBG icon (for any
film) and enter the CAPTCHA as prompted. Then, refreshing the IMDb page (forcing
IMDb Scout to reload as well) should fix the error.
8. You can also enable subtitle search by enabling the 2nd search bar in IMDb Scout
preferences and enabling subtitle sites (again, in preferences) accordingly.

Part II - Streaming

● What’s the difference between streaming and downloading?

○ Streaming is playing a video file directly from a website whereas downloading it
involves transferring it onto your hard drive (after which an Internet connection is
not needed to play it). Neither one is inherently advantageous, but quality is
usually (but not always) superior with downloading, and there is immunization
from network difficulties interrupting your film-watching.
● Is streaming illegal?
○ No, and neither is downloading. Streaming just refers to videos being played in
browsers as opposed to being downloaded to your hard drive. Streaming and
downloading are agnostic and orthogonal to piracy: you can stream and download
both copyright-free and copyright-protected content (and everything in between).

1. Legal streaming sites: Though this is not in the infographic, don’t forget legal streaming
sites! Amazon Prime Video has a lot of mainstream films (and there are ways to get free
trials), as does Netflix (use uNoGS to search for Netflix movies without country
restrictions). MUBI (for which all students with an institutional email address are eligible
for free membership) often has more off-the-beaten-path films—use What’s On MUBI to
search for which films are available in which country. The Criterion Channel is another
good resource. Kanopy (see here for how to gain access for free, and request to join the
Facebook group if you are not already a member—your request will be approved soon)
also has a diverse library and is free and legal. Alexander Street has a lot of
documentaries, as does DocuSeek. Ina MEDIAPRO has a great deal of French
audiovisual material.
2. Putlocker/123Movies: As implied by the flowchart, the more “mainstream” a film is, the
more likely it is to have reached the (arguably) lowest common denominator of film
piracy: Putlocker (and its cousin 123Movies), a streaming site with numerous mirrors
notorious for its ad-ridden interface but generally reliable performance. Given the cat-
and-mouse game these sites play with copyright scouts, Google blocks most results for
Putlocker and 123Movies, hence the suggestion in the flowchart to use DuckDuckGo
instead. Instead of navigating to these sites’ homepages (a tricky task with the myriad
mirrors) and then searching for the film, it is simpler to search in DuckDuckGo
something of the following formats:

a. “film name” “putlocker”

b. “film name” “123movies”
c. “film name year” “putlocker”
d. “film name year” “123movies”

Quotation marks around a phrase tell the search engine that results must have a match of
that exact phrase whereas quotation marks around a single term tell the search engine that
that term must appear in every result. They are quite useful for films with long names.
(Searching for Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles with or without
quotation marks yields different results, for instance.) Once you have located the film on
a Putlocker or 123Movies mirror (warning: there are fake mirrors too—it is fake if it asks
you to log in), you may have to click through some ads and close some popups to start
the film (AdBlock Plus may help), but after that, it ought to be smooth sailing. Use
Substital to add subtitles of your choice.
3. YouTube/Vimeo: Fairly self-explanatory. The quotation mark syntactical rule applies to
these search engines as well. YouTube geoblocking can be visualized here (for specific
videos) and circumvented easily with a virtual private network (VPN) or proxy. Vimeo
on Demand often has newer films that can be rented/purchased for nominal fees. As with
YouTube, sometimes Vimeo on Demand videos are geo-restricted, but this can be easily
circumvented with a VPN (and Vimeo even tells you which countries the film is available
in). Always rent (never buy) because the films are easily downloadable with Vimeo
Video Downloader. (Note: Using Video DownloadHelper with Vimeo causes this
playback error in some media players so is not recommended.)
4. Leonflix: No longer being updated (last update: September 2019), and sometimes buggy,
but otherwise a nice app for streaming films (usually sourced from Putlocker and
123Movies) and circumventing popups and ads.
5. Popcorn Time: An app with a similar interface to Leonflix, except instead of streaming,
it downloads films via BitTorrent and then plays them in its integrated media player (a
sort of ‘simulated streaming’ because of the interface). Ideal for those who value ease of
use over video quality.
 6. Odnoklassniki (aka OK.ru): Однокла́ссники (“classmates”). Russian video streaming
site with lax copyright enforcement. Searching in Cyrillic may yield better results.
7. VK: Short for ВКонта́кте (“in contact”). Russian social media network which also hosts
a lot of videos and often full films. Same advice as with OK.ru.

Part III - Torrent Sites

● What’s BitTorrent? What’s torrenting? Is it illegal?

○ BitTorrent (often abbreviated as BT) is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol.
Torrenting is the practice of downloading and uploading files via BitTorrent.
There is nothing illegal about sharing files or BitTorrent per se. It has acquired
notoriety for illegal downloading because it is easy for torrent websites (called
torrent trackers) to circumvent anti-piracy laws since they do not actually host
the files on their sites—only the snippets of code (.torrent files) to facilitate the
connection between peers.
● So what’s a torrent tracker?
○ Essentially an index of .torrent files, ideally with descriptions of the files. Public
trackers (e.g., The Pirate Bay, RARBG, etc.) are accessible to anyone without
any registration needed, semi-private trackers (e.g., RuTracker) can be used by
anyone without registration, but certain additional features (e.g., searching,
viewing file lists, etc.) are unlocked for registered users, and private trackers are
closed to non-members. The difficulty of obtaining an invitation to a private
tracker is often but not always correlated with the quality of the content on the
tracker.
● How do I download torrents?
○ First, you will need a torrent client, an application on your computer that
interprets .torrent files, allowing you to connect to other peers (collectively called
the swarm) and download the file(s) in your .torrent file. Transmission is a clean,
simple one. (Note: some private trackers ban certain torrent clients—be careful
and read individual trackers’ rules. This is not relevant for public trackers.) Then,
you can download .torrent files and open them in your torrent client, specifying
the download location for the files. Alternatively, you can click or copy-paste
magnet links on trackers to load torrents into your torrent client—this does not
require even downloading a .torrent file.
● Why does my torrent client say I’m uploading? I’m just trying to download a file.
○ BitTorrent is peer-to-peer. Don’t be a leech and only take from others without
giving back! (Yes, downloaders are literally called leechers in BitTorrent
terminology.) Especially for larger swarms, it is not uncommon that there will be
other peers who haven’t finished downloading the file(s) of the same torrent you
are downloading, so if you have pieces of the file(s) that they do not, your torrent
client will upload it so that they can get those pieces from you. Once you finish
 downloading a torrent, you can leave it in your torrent client to continue seeding,
i.e., uploading after one has finished downloading. Your ratio is the ratio of the
amount of data you have seeded to the amount of data you have leeched (i.e.,
downloaded). Private trackers have strict ratio requirements to ensure that users
give back fairly. If uploading really slows down your internet connection, then
you can manually throttle (i.e., cap) your upload speed (per individual torrent or
client-wide) or even set it to 0 in your torrent client’s preferences.
● I loaded the .torrent file into my torrent client (or clicked the magnet link), but my torrent
is not downloading?
○ Ensure you have enabled distributed hash table (DHT) and other methods of
automatic peer discovery. If you still have no luck, the most likely explanation is
lack of seeders. One of the reasons public trackers are not as good as private
trackers is because seeding is not incentivized (since users do not have personal
accounts on the tracker’s site with ratios to uphold, there is no accountability (let
alone reward) for seeding). Most public trackers will show you the number of
seeders and leechers on a given torrent so that you know if you will be able to get
the files before you even download the .torrent file.
● I want to learn more about torrents and torrenting in-depth.
○ Read §4.1 (pp. 98ff) of Handbook of Peer-to-Peer Networking.
● Do I need to check these sites if IMDb Scout told me that they don’t have it?
○ Not the ones that are in IMDb Scout’s database, no. (Though IMDb Scout isn’t
infallible, so you could double check just in case.) However, not all of the sites
below are in IMDb Scout’s database, so you can check the ones that aren’t. It is
unlikely that the torrent exists on a public tracker if IMDb Scout doesn’t have a
hit for it on a public tracker. Hint: Even if you do not have access to a private
tracker (see Part VI), you can use IMDb Scout to identify films exclusively
available there in order to ask a friend on a private tracker to get them for
you.

1. RARBG (RAR (Roshal Archive) Bulgaria): A public tracker with a wide selection of
films, TV shows, and other files. Search for the film you need, and if RARBG has it, it
will likely have a few different copies at different resolutions. Read here for the
differences between different resolutions. More pixels means better quality (but also
larger file size).
2. RuTracker: A Russian tracker (use Google Chrome for automatic translation) with a
very large library of music, films, shows, etc. The search function is better when logged
in, so you can create your own account for free or use an existing account from
BugMeNot.
3. 1337x: Large general-content public tracker similar to RARBG.
 4. The Pirate Bay: One of the oldest torrent trackers around (founded in 2003). RARBG
usually covers all you need, but The Pirate Bay can occasionally dig up things not found
in other places.
5. YggTorrent: French semi-private tracker (searching is free, downloading is members-
only) with a lot of French and foreign content.
6. Multi-tracker torrent search engines: These sites function as search engines for
torrents, which can be useful for finding torrents without searching in individual trackers:
a. TorLook
b. MagnetDL
c. BTDB
d. Torlock
e. DaMagNet
f. BTDigg
g. Torrentino
h. Skytorrents
i. Zooqle

Part IV - Effective Search Engine Usage

● Google is the world’s largest search engine and is quite useful and reliable for many
things, but it has many piracy sites (like Putlocker and 123Movies) blacklisted such that
they do not show up in search results even if you search for them. Hence, it is wise to use
both Google and DuckDuckGo, a newer search engine that does not block piracy sites.
Another useful one is Yandex Search, which often has full films under video search as
well.
● Use the video option in search engines to search for videos, and then use the length filter
to filter for long videos. Google video search can be futile because of copyright blocks,
but DuckDuckGo and Yandex have powerful video searches.
● As mentioned in Part I, quotation marks in search queries on Google and DuckDuckGo
search for exact phrases, which can be useful for films with longer names or films which
share names with films made in a different year. Quotation marks around a single search
term tell the search engine that that search term must appear in every result.
● Another useful tip is using the hyphen just before a word you do not want in your search
results. For example, you might search “employee of the month” “2005” -2006 to
indicate that you want search results that have exact matches with the phrase “employee
of the month,” contain 2005, and do not contain 2006 (in order to find the 2005 film
Employee of the Month). You might also put the director’s surname in quotes and the
2006 film’s director’s surname just after a hyphen to exclude it. Search is not case-
sensitive.
● Sometimes you might find a removed YouTube/Vimeo video or a page where the video
was hosted at one point in time but no longer.
 ○ To retrieve older versions of (most) webpages, you can use various internet
archive and cache tools. This is a useful Chrome plugin that serves that purpose,
or you can copy-paste the website URL into sites like the Wayback Machine and
archive.today to retrieve old/cached versions of pages (if they have been saved).
RSSing.com is also useful for accessing defunct pages (via RSS feeds).
SignalHire can also be useful for looking up contact information on webpages for
film distributors that no longer exist, etc. Using Inspect Element to find links of
embedded videos or even removed videos (that might still have links in the
HTML page of a website) can also be useful.
○ BitChute also has a lot of videos that have been removed from YouTube:
conspiracy theory videos, hate speech videos, etc.
● Don’t forget to try searching for films with their original-language names (both with
original scripts and Romanized)! Wikipedia and Letterboxd can be useful for finding
original-language names in their native scripts. Google Chrome is useful for automatic
translation (of the results). Utilize quotation marks in the same fashion to force exact
matches.
○ Tip specific to Chinese films (or even other films on Chinese download sites):
Baidu Wangpan is a very popular Chinese cloud sharing service that is used by
most Chinese piracy sites to share films. In order to download films from it, you
will need to create a free account on Baidu and install Baidu NetDisk on your
computer (a Baidu Wangpan page for any particular file will instruct you to do
that if you try to download the file).
○ Baidu NetDisk downloads Baidu Wangpan file painlessly (albeit slowly) to your
computer at a throttled speed (unless you purchase a premium membership, which
is possible through Alipay Tour Pass for non-Chinese residents, or find a
cracked/patched version of Baidu NetDisk). Following the search engine tips here
(especially when searching with original-language original-script names) will
likely lead you to Baidu Wangpan links for Chinese films, but you can also search
for such links through PanTianXia.
○ Many Chinese piracy forums require registration and sometimes even a small
payment (“VIP membership” or an invitation that must be bought) in order to
view download links. This is not a scam—it is quite common in many forums
(e.g., 爱笑聚, 余斗余斗的, etc.) and you can purchase it (often quite cheaply)
with Alipay Tour Pass if there are no other options available (don’t forget to
check BugMeNot).
● For newer films or those still doing film festival showings (i.e., not yet commercially
released):
○ Use the search time tool in Google (click Tools and then Any Time after
searching for something) or DuckDuckGo (click Any Time after searching) or
Yandex Search (click the settings icon after searching) to search for recent hits
that can lead to online screenings in the recent past or immediate future.
 ○ Sometimes it pays off to find out where a film has been screened and if those
festivals or places have a streaming service. For example, a lot of films that
played on International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), will appear on IFFR
Unleashed. Letterboxd can also be useful: go to the page of a film, click the blue
squares icon under the film poster which shows lists that the film appears in, and
then see if the film appears in festival lists or in a 'online'/'for free'/etc. list
(sometimes you can even find private Vimeo links with passwords). Letterboxd
also allows sorting by service.
○ If you're a film professional and have a FestivalScope Pro account, it is worth
checking there.
○ Searching on Twitter and Facebook and other social networks can be a useful way
to find screenings of the film or even contact information for the director.
LinkedIn (paired with SignalHire) can also be an effective way to find contact
information for directors in case their films are not available anywhere else (often
the case for films that never got commercial releases and were only shown at
festivals, etc.). And emailing directors (especially independent filmmakers)
asking to see their film is often successful.
● For older films (e.g., those only released on VHS) or other restricted-distribution films
(e.g., those only available for institutional purchase: example), it can be helpful to search
for the film on WorldCat, an online database of library catalogs around the world. If you
are unable to find a film through any of the methods in this guide but find a DVD (or
VHS) in a library on WorldCat, you may be able to ask a friend (or friendly stranger on a
piracy-friendly group, see Part VII) located near the library to go there and make a rip for
you. Even current students and faculty of most universities may be able to access it
through interlibrary loan.

Search terms:

1. “film name” “mkv”: MKV stands for Matroska (from матрёшка, the Russian tea doll)
Video and is a popular video format that is used quite frequently in pirate movie releases.
(In fact, some private trackers, like Karagarga, have an MKV-only rule.) So, putting an
exact phrase query along with forcing MKV to be in every search result will likely catch
any pirate releases of the film if there are any. Note that there are plenty of fake sites that
will show up with queries like this, but they are harmless—it should be fairly evident that
they are fake.
2. “film name” “mp4”: MP4 is short (and the actual file extension, i.e., .mp4) for MPEG-4
(Moving Picture Experts Group Phase 4), a video format that is quite popular for sharing
short videos, etc., although not quite as common with pirate releases. Nonetheless, it’s
worth a search (if previous options have failed).
3. “film name” “avi”: AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is a video format common with older
pirate releases (e.g., with aXXo), so it is also worth a search.
 4. “film name” “dvd9”: A DVD9 (Digital Versatile/Video Disc 9) is a dual-layer DVD
with 8.5 GB of capacity. DVD9 is often appended to pirate releases of untouched DVD
transfers (as opposed to rips, which are encoded versions of just the video, stripped of the
DVD menu, options, etc.). Movieworld is a pirate site that only has untouched DVDs and
Blu-Rays, and Cinematik is a private tracker that also only has untouched discs (i.e., rips
are not allowed to be uploaded).
5. “film name” “dvd5”: A DVD5 (Digital Versatile/Video Disc 5) is a standard DVD with
4.7 GB of capacity. DVD5 is also often appended to pirate releases of untouched DVD
transfers which are sourced from basic DVDs.
6. “film name year 1080p”: 1080p is a resolution format indicating 1920 by 1080 pixels.
Notice that the search query is enclosed by one set of quotation marks (unlike the
previous several search queries), i.e., it is looking for search results which will have
1080p directly after the film year. That is because many pirate rips have names in this
format. (You can verify this for yourself with a quick search on RARBG).
7. “film name year 720p”: 720p is a resolution format indicating 1280 by 720 pixels. Same
logic as above.
8. “film name dvd”: Especially if the above options fail, this one is useful for finding out if
a DVD of the film even exists. If it does, it’s likely it has been pirated, but if not, your
only option may be to buy it.
9. “film name vhs”: Many films (particularly not very successful ones released prior to the
advent of DVDs) were only ever released on VHS. VHSRips are not unheard of in the
piracy world (there is even a private tracker dedicated to them) but are generally much
less common than DVDRips (given the special equipment needed to make them).

Part V - (Rare) Film Websites a.k.a. Direct Download Sites

● There are many independent websites dedicated to hosting films (or links to file sharing
websites hosting them), rare and not—a good compendium can be found here and also
here. The below list is by no means comprehensive. It is also mostly favored towards
sites that are not (yet) covered by IMDb Scout (see Part I).
● The reason that this section comes after Part IV as opposed to before is that clever search
engine usage usually turns up these results without having to search each database
individually.
● A file sharing site (e.g., NitroFlare) is requiring me to purchase a premium account in
order to download files, what do I do?
○ Sometimes this can be circumvented with premium link generators like
HungryLeech, Leech.Ninja, and TurkDown, but usually only up to a certain file
size (e.g., 500 MB). If a premium link generator does not work, then you might
have to find the file on a different site, ask a friend with a premium account, or
buy one. (Tip: especially if you find yourself using multiple filesharing sites
requiring premium, it is more cost effective to buy a membership with a service
 like Real-Debrid or AllDebrid which allows you to download premium from
many different sites.) Don’t forget to check BugMeNot.
● I found a file split into multiple RAR files which will take forever to download manually,
what do I do?
○ RAR (Roshal Archive) files are simply compressed files, like ZIP files. They can
be decompressed with common applications found on Google. Multi-part RAR
archives can be irksome, but JDownloader, a download manager where you can
paste in a list of links, might help.

1. Cinema of the World: Many rare films from around the world. Uses NitroFlare links.
2. Rarefilm: Rare films. Uses NitroFlare links (some of them too large to be downloaded
without a premium account).
3. Hawkmenblues: Spanish-language rare film site. Typically has multiple download links
per file (e.g., Mega, MediaFire, NitroFlare, Upstore).
4. Reviviendo Viejas Joyas: A Spanish-language blog with many rare films. Uses 1fichier
links.
5. Francomac: French-language forum with many French and other films. Uses Uptobox
and MultiUp links.
6. Rarelust: Rare films. Uses FileBoom links. Included in IMDb Scout, so enable it there.
7. My Duck is Dead: Lots of films (including pornography), rare and others. Uses
NitroFlare links.
8. Ulož.to: Czech and Slovakian free file sharing service that often has rare films.
9. UbuWeb: A database of avant-garde films, poetry, audio, etc.
10. Patio de Butacas: Spanish-language forum (invitation-only) with lots of rare films,
mostly MEGA links.
11. Exploradores P2P: Spanish-language forum (login required for some pages, can create
own account or use BugMeNot) with eD2k (eDonkey) links (similar to BitTorrent—
eMule and aMule are the clients).
12. DivX Clásico: Spanish-language eDonkey forum with lots of classic films.
13. DocuWiki: Index of documentaries on the eDonkey network. Also often has links to
MVGroup for concurrent torrent releases (login required but available via BugMeNot).

Part VI - Private Trackers

● As suggested by glamorous articles like this, private trackers for films often do have
access to gems unavailable virtually anywhere else since members of such trackers often
have access to archives or other private spaces from where films are not usually leaked.
● This wiki helps explain the concept of private trackers and the mystique behind them,
along with practical tips on entering the scene.
● Nota bene: The reason that private trackers are not featured in the flowchart is because
(1) most people are not members and (2) those who are members are likely already
 familiar with the best places to find films. This is not meant to discourage anyone from
attempting to gain membership, though.
● So how do I get in?
○ Getting into top-tier (sometimes referred to as cabal) trackers can be difficult and
require seedboxes and lots of time and dedication, but some “gateway trackers”
like MyAnonamouse and RED allow people to apply for membership, and after
some time on the tracker, access their invite forums, where users can solicit
invites to other trackers and work their way up.
○ There are also tracker invite trading and selling marketplaces like InviteHawk and
TorrentInvites where one can purchase invites or accounts to trackers, but with
significant risk (since that is prohibited by virtually all private trackers and can
result in banning if discovered). Use these at your own risk—they are not
recommended or endorsed by this guide but simply included for purposes of
providing complete information.

1. PassThePopcorn: Likely the single largest repository of films in the world. 197,476
films as of April 2020, and the request fulfillment rate is decently high. Also very
difficult to get into—only members who have uploaded 50+ torrents and have seeded a
certain amount of data are given invitations to give out. Recruitment occurs on four other
trackers as well, of which at least one can be joined without an invitation.
2. Karagarga: Likely the largest private tracker dedicated to rare, arthouse, independent,
and other non-mainstream films. 134,102 films (quite a lot, considering their stringent
content rules, see pp. 91ff here) as of July 2020. Invitations capabilities for existing
members (except for administrators) are frozen for the time being.
3. Cinematik: Large tracker dedicated to non-mainstream films. Untouched-only (i.e., no
rips, only full DVDs and Blu-Rays) rule. 63,949 torrents on the site as of July 2020.
Invitation capabilities are open for current members.
4. Cinemageddon: Tracker dedicated to B-grade and obscure films. Has plenty of
VHSRips. 174,876 torrents as of July 2020. Invitation capabilities for existing members
open.
5. BroadcasTheNet: Ratioless tracker dedicated to television shows, widely considered to
be the best for that genre.
6. There are many many more private trackers with varying levels of exclusivity and
accessibility—the wiki hyperlinked above is instructive.

Part VII - Groups

● Private groups, chans, forums, etc. are also important resources in finding films,
particularly rare ones.
 1. la loupe: Invitation-only Francophone Facebook group dedicated to sharing and
requesting films. Films that are available on DVD (with shipping to France) or French
video on demand (VoD) are prohibited. Many members are film professionals or have
archive access to share unpublished and otherwise inaccessible films.
2. Film Space: Facebook group dedicated to requesting films.
3. Echanges de films bis: Francophone la loupe breakaway group with no restrictions on
requested or shared content.
4. Chaotic Cinema: A Telegram channel for sharing films.
5. 8kun film request chan: An anonymous chan (Internet Relay Chat channel) for film
requests.
6. Discord servers for rare films: By invitation only. Ask someone who is involved to
invite you.
7. (Relevant to the last bullet point of Part IV) Ask for PDFs from People with
Institutional Access: Facebook group for literature piracy, but with
≈75,000 members, a much larger piracy-friendly community than
and of the above groups with members around the world who
might be able to access and share DVDs and VHSes exclusively in
certain libraries.

GENERAL FAQ

● What about Usenet?

○ A useful network, no doubt, but often unnecessary if one is armed with even a
fraction of the above tools. One advantage of Usenet might be that new content
(i.e., ongoing television shows) often reach Useneet faster than they reach, say,
RARBG. Some instructive reading here.
● Any other repositories of (video) piracy information like this one?
○ The r/Piracy subreddit has a lot of good information.
● What is a rip?
○ An encode of any source media. For example, if you grab the VIDEO_TS folder
from a DVD and convert it to an MP4 or MKV file, that is a rip. Same thing for a
Blu-Ray, or even a download from a streaming site. Hence pirate releases often
have tags like DVDRip, BDRip, WEBRip, etc. Rips are often but not always
lossy, i.e., some quality is lost in the encoding process (usually for the purpose of
reducing the file size). That is why you can find 1080p downloads of films (e.g.,
on RARBG) ranging from 2-3 GB to 20-30 GB. A good encode manages to
preserve most of the quality while streamlining the file size. A list of different
types of pirate releases can be found here.
● Sometimes I see REMUX or BDRemux in releases. What’s that?
 ○ Some good reading here. Remux (short for remultiplex) in the piracy world refers
to lossless rips of Blu-Rays to video containers, i.e., one-to-one transfers of the
main feature of a Blu-Ray disc (stripped of menus, etc.) to a video file, typically
MKV. Because there is no compression (not counting the compression of the
original Blu-Ray disc), remuxes are often 20+ GB. Encodes, on the other hand (as
explained above and below), are lossy and therefore smaller in size.
● So then, which should I get?
○ For most practical purposes, a 1080p encode is good enough for a computer or
even an ordinary television. If you have a 4K television or projector, it may be
worth getting a 4K rip/remux (also called 2160p) or a 1080p remux as to
minimize quality loss, since at that level you may be able to notice a difference.
● What is encoding/transcoding?
○ Encoding refers to taking raw, uncompressed media, and compressing it into a
container (e.g,. AVI, MKV, etc.). Transcoding refers to converting one media
format to another (usually preserving quality).
● Is there an advantage to getting DVD9s/DVD5s or full Blu-Rays as opposed to lossless
rips/remuxes of them?
○ In terms of video quality, no. The main reason someone might opt for the former
is if they want to burn their own discs to use in disc players. Or to have access to
the menus, special features, etc. (MKV files support multiple audio tracks and
multiple subtitle tracks.)
● Which media player should I use?
○ VLC (VideoLAN Client) is generally pretty reliable, though Movist Pro (cracked
version on InsMac) for Mac is sleeker. VLC has trouble with some files (see
here), which mpv is usually able to handle without problems.
● How do I find subtitles?
○ The easiest way is to enable the subtitle sites in IMDb Scout (see Part I). If you
are not using that, Subscene and OpenSubtitles are usually quite good. You can
also use the quotation mark search engine syntax to force include terms like “srt”
(SubRip Subtitle File, the most common subtitle format) to find subtitles. These
can then be dragged and dropped into your media player to accompany your
video, or you could even mux them into the video file (with MKVToolNix, for
instance) in order to not have to deal with multiple files. If you require subtitles in
a certain language but can only find subtitles in a different language, you can use
online tools like this one or this one to machine-translate the subtitles.
● How do I add subtitles on online videos (e.g., on Putlocker, etc.)?
○ Download Substital and add it to your browser as a plugin. It has its own subtitle
database, or you can drag-and-drop your own.
● What is DRM?
○ Digital Rights Management, or, in layman’s terms, copy-protection. It allows
authorized users (by login, by IP, etc.) to watch videos and prevents videos from
 being downloaded/decrypted easily. Most large commercial streaming services
like MUBI, Kanopy, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Filmin.es, Festival Scope
Pro, etc. (exceptions: Vimeo (on Demand), Tënk, Alexander Street, Docuseek,
FilminLatino) use heavy-duty DRM (usually PlayReady and Widevine) to prevent
their videos from being downloaded.
● So that means I cannot download videos from most commercial streaming sites?
○ Downloading the films may not be a problem (Video DownloadHelper can often
download video files), but decrypting it is often the catch—an encrypted MP4 file
of the film is useless if it cannot actually be played. Scene groups have access to
the heavy-duty DRM decryption tools but keep access tightly controlled because
decryption tools leaking would lead to the DRM being patched and updated by
the companies. So, long answer short, no, you cannot download from commercial
streaming sites. However, scene pirates hang out on private trackers (particularly
the cabal trackers) and fulfill requests made on those sites for DRM-ed content
unavailable elsewhere—sometimes they also respond to private messages. Some
people in the channels mentioned in Part VII are only one degree of connection
away from the Scene, so it is worth asking there if you need a download.
● I found a video on a streaming site and I’d like to download it. I think it doesn’t have
DRM (or I know it doesn’t as it’s in the list of exceptions mentioned above), but Video
DownloadHelper isn’t picking it up (or it’s picking many small fragments of the video).
How can I download it?
○ You can check for DRM by opening the Network tab of your browser’s web
inspector (either prior to loading the page with the video, or if you’re already
there when you open the tab, refresh the page) and searching for “drm” there.
(Other keywords that sometimes indicate drm: playready, widevine, manifest). If
something shows up, the video likely has DRM.
○ If the video doesn’t have DRM and Video DownloadHelper isn’t getting it (or is
yielding many small fragments), this may be because the video provider has split
up the video into many small fragments (which are spliced together in real time
when the video plays online) to make it more difficult to download. youtube-dl
(requires basic command line knowledge), TubeDigger for Windows, or Cisdem
Video Converter for Mac (cracked version on InsMac) may be able to get it. You
may have to (e.g., in the case of Cisdem Video Converter) provide the direct URL
to the .mpd/.m3u8 playlist file, the file which contains individual download links
to every fragment.
● I downloaded a film and now I’d like to share it with my friends (in particular, friends
who are not particularly tech-savvy). How should I do it?
○ Google Drive (here is a useful for creating shared drives that anonymize owner
details and provide unlimited storage here, and here is a useful explanation on
setting up shared drives for piracy) and YouTube (be careful of copyright blocks
on YouTube) are probably the most “user-friendly” ways to share videos and
films, but since they re-encode uploaded videos, some (usually marginal) quality
is lost (unless the user downloads the original file in the case of Google Drive).
Posting large folders or even individual Google Drive links to individual films
that subsequently receive a lot of traffic can alert Google to take down the film,
though it is not common. MEGA, AnonFiles, or 1Fichier might be easier ways to
share large files (without streaming).