Documentaries are hot right now. The whole earth seems to be obsessed with Making a Murderer, and movies like What Happened Miss Simone?, Man on Wire and Jiro Dreams of Sushi have been big hits in the last few years too. I’m not surprised, considering I’m a sucker for a great documentary too. So I’m excited to dive into the new website CuriosityStream, which features more than a thousand truly high-quality, well-produced, documentaries, all of them streamed to you without commercials.
Related: Cutting the cable cord: 5 things that happened when I finally did it
Now, the documentaries on CuriosityStream skew more educational and fact-based than the pop-culture docs you’ll see on Netflix, but that’s fantastic for kids — and adults — who are fascinated by the true stories about topics as diverse as volcanoes, Mars, D-Day, Stonehenge, viking women, or the man who murdered Sherlock Holmes.
There are full length features, as well as episodic series ready for your binge-watching pleasure. And they’re amazingly well-curated; not surprising considering the founder was the former chairman at Discovery.
To find a movie, you can search by any topic or browse their categories — science, technology, civilization and human spirit — with dozens of subcategories in each one. How much would a science-loving kid adore the science documentary category which offers the easiest way to find tons of relevant titles in such narrow categories (biology, earth, genetics, space, nature) of any streaming service I’ve seen.
Then, watch online on your computer, phone or tablet, or stream through their app if you have a Chromecast, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and more.
Doing my own quick search, I think that Transhumanism, which imagines what our future with technology will be like, sounds fascinating. My animal-loving son wants to watch Operation Doolittle with me, which examines the noises animals make to see if there are language patterns there.
And then, I’m really interested in When Bjork met Attenborough, in which the odd pairing of the Icelandic musician and naturalist David Attenborough get together to discuss the history of music and how technology will change it going forward.
Now of course you have to be a serious docu buff to spend the $2.99 a month for a documentary-only service, when of course there are so many options on other streaming services you might have. However for my family, we’ve followed our other editors’ advice on how to ditch cable and switch over to individual streaming site and this would be a nice addition to our current crop. We’d definitely get our money’s worth, even if we watch one film a month, and it’s still less than even a single rental on a service like YouTube or Amazon.
Plus, engaging educational documentaries are a nice alternative if you’re snowed in, listening to the thousandth episode of Jessie and are about to lose it. Not that I’d know anything about that.
Try CuriosityStream free for the first 30 days. After that, it’s $2.99 per month for unlimited, commercial-free documentaries.
The curiositystream website does not provide potential customers with content areas of the documentaries and immediately wants a person to sign up for a free month…..very poor approach. Would you first pay for a car and then see what it looks like?
I was not only disappointed, but felt misled, when I was told that curiositystream is not available on smart TV’s (other than Apple). I believe big screen tv would be the most desired vehicle to use this program. It appears that management has made some serious errors in releasing this product without smart tv capability. Perhaps there are competitors who will be able to provide smart tv programming, etc., etc., etc.,……….
I believe the mass advertising on various media, both in print and visual, is not only misleading, but omits crucial information for one to make an intelligent decision. In addition, if one “signs up”, that person automatically will be billed after one month of free service. That is too steep a price for me just to find out about the program.
Robert W Brooks
—-
Hi Robert, thanks for your comment. Sorry you’re having a hard time. It sounds like you may not have complete info about the service.
As we mentioned in our own editorial post about this (it’s not advertising, just something we liked and wanted to share), you can try the service free for the first 30 days. You provide your cc number — standard practice for any free trial — but will not be charged. Not sure that any car company would allow you to own a car free for 30 days first but that would be awesome!
In other words, you’re not paying any price at all. That’s not really a “steep price to pay.” And if you do keep it after 30 days, the standard plan starts at $2.99/mo.
On the website, there is a list of exactly which apps allow you to use the service: https://help.curiositystream.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001807107-Where-can-I-download-the-CuriosityStream-apps-
They include iDevices, Apple TV, Android TV, Google TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire Stick. You can also watch it on any laptop or desktop with a basic web browser. So this is definitely not limited to Apple TV.
However if you only want to watch it through a Smart TV, and can’t watch it on your own model, this message is on their site:
While our Smart TV apps are still in development, there is a way you can view CuriosityStream on most Smart TVs! Please reach out to us directly at 1-844-778-8999 or help@curiositystream.com and we would be happy to assist you with this based on what type of Smart TV you have. https://help.curiositystream.com/hc/en-us/articles/209260738-What-platforms-do-you-currently-support-
Perhaps try reaching out?
Sometimes you just need to hit the company website to look at the FAQ, and a lot of questions will be answered. No advertising for any product or service in the world can ever provide all the details and answer all your questions.
Hope that helps, and best of luck. -Eds