How to Watch Movies With Friends on “Movies Anywhere”
Movies Anywhere recently introduced a new Watch Together feature that allows multiple people to meet to watch movies in sync over the Internet. The new feature works on your computer or through the Movies Anywhere apps for iOS, Android and Smart TV, and all movies in the service are group-viewable if you own them yourself.
How to Set Up a Watch Together Session in Movies Anywhere
First, everyone will need to sign up with their own Movies Anywhere account – even those who will be watching as guests. Each account requires permission to view at least a PG-13 movie, and this setting can be changed using parental controls.
The total number of people who can participate in a viewing session depends on whether everyone already owns the movie. Up to nine people can watch together, provided the feature presentation is unlocked in each person’s Movies Anywhere collection, which requires you to either purchase the title on Movies Anywhere or unlock it by activating the code included in the physical copy. Once you have all of that, you can skip to the “Start Watching With Movies Anywhere” section below.
If the movie doesn’t belong to everyone, you can only watch it with three other guests. None of these guests have to own the movie, which is cool, but you need to loan it to each of them first with the annoying new ‘Screen Pass’ feature.
Movie rentals with Screen Pass in Movies Anywhere.
The Movies Anywhere rental feature is currently only available to Screen Pass Beta users and only certain titles can be rendered at this time. Movies from well-known franchises like Marvel and Star Wars are not included right now, which means that everyone will have to have their own copy of Avengers: Endgame if you want to watch the whole group.
However, anyone can request and receive the provided copies, even if they are not in beta. Screen Pass lending is not limited to Watch Together; users can watch movies they “borrow” at any time — alone or in a group — within 14 days of receiving the movie, or up to 72 hours after clicking the Play button.
- To assign a title, go to the Movies Anywhere Locker in the Movies Anywhere app, or open it at moviesanywhere.com.
- Scroll down to the My Screen- Suitable Movies section.
- Select the movie you want to share from your library.
- Click / tap the “Details” button, then select “Screen Pass”.
- Copy the link and share it with three other users.
- Other users can accept rented movies from the Movies Anywhere app or the website.
Start a Movies Anywhere Sharing Session
After everyone has a Movies Anywhere account created and copies of the movie are purchased or borrowed, you can finally start your Watch Together session.
- To share a movie sharing session, open Movies Anywhere or go to moviesanywhere.com in a browser on your desktop.
- Go to your movie locker.
- Scroll through the list and select the movie you want to watch, then select Watch Together.
- The URL will appear; copy and share the link with whoever you want to watch.
- The presenter can start playing the movie at any time. All playback – pause, rewind, fast forward – is controlled by the host, but guests can send requests to pause, rewind, etc. All attendees and click or touch the emoji menu if they want to react to the scene.