Kino Now

Overview

Kino Now is the streaming and digital distribution platform operated by Kino Lorber, the New York-based independent distributor and home entertainment label. Launched in 2017, Kino Now provides SVOD (subscription) and TVOD (transactional rental and purchase) access to the Kino Lorber catalog of arthouse, international, and classic cinema. The platform is available in the United States and Canada and serves as the owned digital window for Kino Lorber's distribution catalog.

Kino Now sits alongside the Criterion Channel and MUBI as one of the three primary owned streaming destinations for curated arthouse and world cinema in North America. Where the Criterion Channel focuses on the Criterion Collection's canonical selections and MUBI covers a global curated rotation, Kino Now provides access to the Kino Lorber catalog specifically, including the company's 4K restorations and its contemporary international acquisitions.

What Kino Now Offers

Kino Now's catalog includes:

• Kino Lorber's theatrical acquisitions of contemporary international and arthouse films
• 4K restorations of classic cinema produced by Kino Lorber's restoration program
• Films from Kino Lorber's Kino Classics label covering canonical world cinema
• Documentary features from Kino Lorber's documentary catalog
• Educational and archival content with filmmaker interviews and supplements

The platform offers individual title rental and purchase (TVOD) alongside a monthly subscription option (SVOD) that provides access to the streaming portion of the catalog. Not all Kino Lorber titles are available for streaming due to rights restrictions; some titles are TVOD-only.

What Filmmakers Should Know

For filmmakers whose films are distributed by Kino Lorber theatrically and through home entertainment, Kino Now represents the owned digital platform window -- the streaming destination where the film lives within the Kino ecosystem beyond its theatrical and physical media release.

For filmmakers researching digital distribution platforms, Kino Now is an example of a distributor-operated streaming service that provides a direct revenue stream from the distributor's own catalog without depending on third-party platform licensing. The model is similar in structure to MUBI's owned platform and the Criterion Channel: a distributor uses its catalog as the basis for a subscription service that generates revenue directly from subscribers rather than through platform licensing deals.

The audience on Kino Now is specifically cinephile -- subscribers have chosen the platform because of their interest in arthouse and world cinema, making it a high-quality audience for films that fit those categories.

Relationship to Kino Lorber

Kino Now is not a separate acquisition entity from Kino Lorber. Films appear on Kino Now as a result of Kino Lorber's theatrical and home entertainment acquisition activity. Filmmakers seeking distribution from Kino should approach Kino Lorber directly; Kino Now is the platform through which Kino's catalog is digitally distributed, not a separate acquisition operation.

See Also

For how distributor-operated streaming platforms compare to third-party platform licensing, see Streaming vs Theatrical Revenue. To compare the revenue models of owned platforms versus SVOD platform licensing deals, use the Revenue Forecast Calculator.