View Old Movies and TV Shows for Free at These Internet TV Stations and Video Streaming Sites

Everything old is new again! Nowhere is this more true than on the internet. You wouldn't think that there'd be a place for anything vintage in the brash, new world of cyberspace. But believe it or not, not only have classic shows and movies found a home here, they've actually found new life here as well, as a new generation of young people, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers clamor each year for more access to all things retro.

Thanks to this growing demand, hundreds if not thousands of full-length videos of classic TV shows, B movies, vintage films, and ephemera have made their way to the web. But where exactly can you find all this stuff? You could of course hunt and peck for them across more well known sites like Hulu, You Tube, Veoh, and Joost. But there are better alternatives, namely internet TV stations and video sites that specialize in this type of content. As you can expect, these sites number in the hundreds. But in this article, I'll be listing the ten best resources for old TV shows and films. Not only are they guaranteed to satisfy your craving for past entertainment, they will definitely be a trip down memory lane for those old enough to have remembered seeing these programs and movies the first time around.

Old Fashioned TV
Oldfashionedtv.org is exactly as its name says-- an internet television station that broadcasts vintage TV shows from the late 1940s to the recent present. What's great about this particular station is that it not only broadcasts the usual fare (like the Beverly Hillbillies, the Lucy Show, and Dragnet) it also airs some rarely syndicated programs and TV specials from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, such as Sky King, One Step Beyond, The Bob Cummings Show, The Secret Life of Machines, and Suspense. This playlist makes Old Fashioned TV not only a great station to watch classics shows, but a terrific way to discover stuff you've never seen before or haven't viewed since their original airdate.

AmericaFree.TV
America Free TV is an internet TV station that hosts many channels ranging in everything from comedy to independent flicks. In spite of showing modern day content, the bulk of its content is dedicated to vintage movies, classic comedy shorts from the 40s, and cult classics such as Bucket of Blood and DOA. Out of all the stations listed here it's the most fun to watch, because its site provides real time chatting with other viewers and an interface that mimics channel surfing. There's even a TV Guide-style grid to find out what's playing when, as well as a system to notify you by email when a favorite movie of yours is about to air. A cool station all around.

Moving Image Archive
Home of the Wayback Machine, the Internet Archive is also home to an incredibly huge archive of public domain vintage movies, shorts, TV shows, and cartoons dating back to the 1920s, including the infamous Prelinger Archives, a collection of instructional films that used to be shown in schools throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s. To say that it's comprehensive would be an understatement. Everything's here, from classic foreign films like Rashomon and Night of the Living Dead to stuff like Private Snafu shorts and Duck and Cover, the infamous 1950s film that was shown to schoolchildren during the height of the Cold War. As an added bonus, not only can you view films online, you can download them to your hard drive for later viewing or archiving.

B Movie Drive In (Classic Radio Network)
Available through the Classic Radio Network, B Movie Drive In is pretty self explanatory-- it's an internet TV station that streams cult B movie classics. As cool as it is, it takes some maneuvering to find its stream. When you first enter ClassRadioNetwork.com, go to the "Features" content box on the left hand side of the website and click on "BMovieDriveIn Video Stream." This will take you to the live stream. If you don't want to watch video embedded in your browser, follow the instructions on how to watch it using WinAmp.

ToonHeads
Toonheads.TV is a small but growing collection of shorts, TV shows, and curiosities from the 1920s to the 1960s. As you can guess from its name, its primary content is animated shorts and cartoon shows, and they star such popular characters as Betty Boop, Popeye, Gumby, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and even the infamous "Private Snafu". Cartoons aren't the only type of content on this site, however. If animations aren't your thing, you can watch Toon Head's library of live action series from the 1950s, such as Dragnet and Federal Men.

Google Video
On the surface, Google Video looks like nothing more than just a search engine for pre-existing videos hosted at other sites. But looks are deceiving, as it hosts tons of full length movies and TV shows not found elsewhere on the web, especially some rare TV broadcasts from the early days of television. Since Google Video has short video clips, finding complete movies and shows can be a bit frustrating, so here's a tip: when doing a search, click "Show options" located in the top of the page, then select the "Long (20+ min.)" link located in the lefthand column. This will filter out the shorter clips.

Retro Junk
In spite of its name, there's anything but junk at this site, especially if you're a member of the generation that grew up watching television during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Chock full of opening theme songs, television commercials, and TV bumpers, this site will be sure to bring back some wonderful memories for anyone who remembers Hanna Barbera cartoons, Sid and Marty Krofft shows, toy action figures, and the endless stream of Saturday morning cartoons that were produced from the 1970s to the late 90s.

AMC TV B Movie Classics
This site not only streams some great B movie cult classics, it has the entire collection of the 1960s series, The Prisoner, available for viewing. There's another reason why you might want to check this site out: if you're a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, quite a few movies that appeared on the show are available in original format here, including Devil Doll and Horror at Party Beach. Simply click on the genre tabs (sci-fi, i.e.,) to access them.

Retrovision.TV
Unlike all the other sites on this list, Retrovision is not a site that hosts videos, but a blog that points to and embeds them from other web sites. Don't be quick to write it off, though, because it has an exhaustive collection of links to and embedded video of practically every show and movie made under the sun, making it a great resource to locating that hard to find title you've searched hill and dale for.