Plex is rapidly trying to become a one-stop shop for all your media. It’s long been a great way to catalog and stream ripped copies of your own personal media collection. The addition of the Universal Watchlist feature turned it into a central place to connect all the different streaming services. And now, Plex is gunning for the media that’s not available on streaming services by allowing users to start renting movies.
Plex is starting small, offering a catalogue of around 1,000 movies, including some notable releases from last year. You’ll find the likes of Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Wonka, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, Barbie, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and more already available, alongside older favorites.
Plex isn't exactly reinventing the wheel here, with a model that mirrors digital rentals on other platforms like Prime Video or Redbox. Once you start watching a movie, you’ll have 48 hours to finish it before it disappears from your library. The pricing is similar too; most titles will cost you between $3.99 and $5.99, depending on the movie.
The big sell, according to Plex, is that a movie you rent on Plex can be played on any platform you choose, as the Plex app is quite literally available everywhere. Plex is also promising that the process of renting movies will be possible on almost every platform, including smart TVs, though if a platform is not supported, you can always open Plex’s web app to do the deed. All the details are outlined in their support article. Currently, movie rentals are only available to Plex users in the U.S. market.
It’s also important to note a feature Plex isn’t rolling out: the ability to buy movies outright. In an interview with TechCrunch, Plex CEO Keith Valory explained, “We’re looking at the purchase use case because that creates some additional wrinkles—now you’ve got to keep this locker for people long-term, and does that really make sense [for us]?”
Clearly, Plex is not ready to create the infrastructure to sell and store the media long-term, which brings complex licensing issues into the mix. Similarly, Plex is not providing rentals of TV shows, based on feedback from their users.