Kino Now

Overview

Kino Now was Kino Lorber's transactional VOD platform, launched in late 2019 to offer digital rental and purchase of arthouse, international, and classic cinema. The platform debuted with over 600 titles, with an additional 600 films scheduled for rollout. In November 2023, Kino Lorber launched Kino Film Collection, a subscription streaming service at $5.99/month, and Kino Now was closed and folded into the new product. Customers who purchased films on Kino Now could download personal copies through November 30, 2024.

Kino Film Collection now serves as Kino Lorber's primary owned digital platform. It is available in the United States and Canada on web, mobile, Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, Roku, and as an Amazon Prime Video Channels add-on. A 7-day free trial is available, after which subscriptions cost $5.99/month or $59.99/year. New films from Kino Lorber's theatrical slate are added monthly, alongside curated library titles and restored classics.

The service 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 Film Collection provides access to the Kino Lorber catalog specifically: the company's 4K restorations, contemporary international acquisitions, and library titles from its 4,000+ title collection.

What Kino Film Collection Offers

The Kino Film Collection catalog includes:

• Kino Lorber's theatrical acquisitions of contemporary international and arthouse films, added fresh from theaters
• 4K restorations of classic cinema produced by Kino Lorber's restoration program
• Films from the Kino Classics label covering canonical world cinema (Metropolis, Nosferatu, Battleship Potemkin)
• Documentary features from Kino Lorber's documentary catalog (Fire at Sea, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Bill Cunningham New York)
• Cult film selections from the Kino vault for genre audiences
• New streaming premieres monthly, including festival titles direct from their theatrical runs

At launch, Kino Film Collection featured new 4K restorations including The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Taxi (Jafar Panahi), Poison (Todd Haynes), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour). The launch lineup also included canonical silent and early cinema: Metropolis (Fritz Lang), Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene), and Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein).

Lisa Schwartz, Chief Revenue Officer at Kino Lorber, oversaw the launch. She positioned the $5.99 price point at less than 50% of competitor pricing, citing the need to keep the service accessible as mainstream streaming platforms raised their rates. The service targets the next generation of film lovers who encounter classic and arthouse cinema through repertory theatrical programming.

Kino Lorber's Streaming Portfolio

Kino Film Collection is one of three streaming services operated by Kino Lorber:

• Kino Film Collection (SVOD, launched November 2023): Arthouse, international, and classic film from the Kino Lorber library. $5.99/month or $59.99/year. Available in the US and Canada.
• MHz Choice (SVOD, acquired 2022): International television series from France, Germany, Italy, the Nordics, and other countries. Merged with First Look Media's Topic streaming service in 2024.
• Kino Cult (AVOD, launched October 2021): Ad-supported streaming of genre and cult films from the Kino Lorber vault.

This portfolio covers three revenue models: subscription (Kino Film Collection, MHz Choice), ad-supported (Kino Cult), and transactional (Kino Film Collection also offers rental and purchase options for select titles). Kino Lorber also licenses content to 40+ third-party streaming services including the Criterion Channel, MUBI, Netflix, Hulu, Tubi, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV.

What Filmmakers Should Know

Kino Film Collection is not a separate acquisition entity from Kino Lorber. Films appear on the service as a result of Kino Lorber's theatrical and home entertainment acquisition activity. Filmmakers seeking distribution should approach Kino Lorber directly. Kino Lorber releases approximately 30 titles theatrically each year and more than 350 titles annually to the home entertainment market, garnering 15 Academy Award nominations since 2000.

For filmmakers whose films are distributed by Kino Lorber, Kino Film Collection represents the owned digital platform window: the streaming destination where the film lives within the Kino ecosystem beyond its theatrical and physical media release. The service provides a direct revenue stream from the distributor's own catalog without depending solely on third-party platform licensing deals.

The audience on Kino Film Collection 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. The $5.99/month price point is low enough to attract casual arthouse viewers while the curated catalog retains serious film enthusiasts.

Filmmakers should understand that Kino Film Collection revenue is separate from theatrical and physical media revenue. The streaming window typically follows the theatrical run and may overlap with physical media (Blu-ray/DVD) release. Revenue from the streaming service flows through Kino Lorber's distribution accounting, subject to standard distribution fees and recoupment terms defined in the filmmaker's distribution agreement.

Historical Context

Kino Lorber launched Kino Now in late 2019 as a transactional VOD platform, offering digital rental and purchase of its catalog titles. The platform debuted with over 600 titles and planned to add 600 more. When COVID-19 forced theater closures in March 2020, Kino Lorber built the Kino Marquee virtual cinema platform on top of Kino Now's infrastructure, allowing arthouse theaters to sell streaming tickets with a 50/50 revenue split.

The pandemic accelerated Kino Lorber's streaming strategy. By November 2023, the company launched Kino Film Collection as a subscription service, recognizing that the transactional VOD market was declining while subscription streaming was the dominant consumer preference. Kino Now was closed, and its catalog and customer base transitioned to Kino Film Collection. Kino Marquee customers were offered 20% off annual subscriptions using the code NOW20 through December 31, 2025.

Kino Lorber was founded in 2009 through the merger of Kino International (founded 1977 by Donald Krim) and Lorber HT Digital, led by Richard Lorber as President and CEO. The company has been a leader in independent arthouse distribution for over 45 years, introducing American audiences to films by Wong Kar-wai, Michael Haneke, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jia Zhangke, Yorgos Lanthimos, Chloe Zhao, and Jafar Panahi, among many others.

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. For Kino Lorber's theatrical and home entertainment operation, see the Kino Lorber directory entry. For understanding how distribution fees and recoupment affect filmmaker receipts from streaming windows, see What Does a Distributor Keep?.