Plex now offers thousands of free, ad-supported movies and TV shows

Starting today, the client–server media library platform Plex has taken a huge step into streaming service territory, adding a massive and diverse selection of movies and TV shows to the libraries of every Plex user at no extra cost.

The ad-supported initiative has been rolled out globally, with available titles varying greatly depending on your region. While Plex users in the US now have access to classic films like Raging Bull, Apocalypse Now, The Terminator and Bloodsport, users in other territories may not be so lucky.

Thankfully, the service has announced that it will be adding more free movies over time, promising "Oscar-winning Hollywood movies" and "the latest from India, Russia, China, Japan, Africa, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe", along with "really cool independent movies fresh off the festival circuit".

To access Plex's ad-supported content, simply launch the app and click on the new 'Movies & TV' tab in the side panel. From here, you'll get a very Netflix-esque set of genres and sub-categories, from 'Comedy' and 'Drama' to 'Awkward With Your Grandma' and 'Love Is In The Air'.

As with users' personal media libraries, Plex's own offerings aren't always correctly labeled or matched. In other words, a movie's title and description (a.k.a. metadata) may not reflect the actual movie that Plex has on file – as an example, we clicked on the 1984 slasher classic Silent Night, Deadly Night only for the 1972 film Silent Night, Bloody Night to start playing in its stead.

If you aren't an existing Plex user, you need only to sign up for a free account to receive instant access to the service's free library of movies and TV shows.