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It’s hard to believe that it’s been barely a week since we were singing “Auld Lang Syne” and expressing cautious hope that 2026 might somehow prove better than 2025. (Spoiler: it has not.) Still, for anyone with any sort of interest in culture, there’s at least one reason to celebrate December ticking over into January: Public Domain Day!
The arrival of a new tranche of works of art into the public domain means different things to different people, but perhaps the most immediate benefit is that it means there’s a new list of classic films that you can watch for free. And happily, there’s a resource devoted specifically to making public domain films available to watch online: WikiFlix, which draws on Wikimedia Commons, the Internet Archive, and YouTube, and provides a convenient place to watch videos from all three sources.
US copyright law is kinda complicated, but as a rule, films generally remain under copyright for a period of 95 years, starting from the year in which they were released. As a result, at the end of any given year, copyright protections will expire on a whole bunch of films released 95 years beforehand.
Perhaps the best-known films on this year’s list are the Marx Brothers’ pleasantly anarchic Animal Crackers and the 1930 adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, and both are ready to watch right now. Helpfully, WikiFlix allows you to browse its catalog by year of release, so the easiest way to browse this year’s newly liberated filmography is to see what’s available for the year 1930.
Films aren’t the only things to pass into the public domain, of course: January 1 also marks the expiration of copyright on various works of literature, sound recordings, and so on. We should note, however, that different rules can apply to these media.
Copyright can also cover characters; this year, for instance, marks the entry into the public domain of the character Betty Boop. Again, the rules here can be complicated, especially when it comes to characters whose distinguishing features have evolved over time. The canonical example is Mickey Mouse, who transformed from the silent star of Steamboat Willie into the falsetto-voiced star of popular imagination, and whose copyright odyssey commands its own page at Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Similarly, there was some debate a year ago—who stomped into the public domain at the start of 2025—could or could not be depicted eating spinach, with some commentators suggesting that there could be a further two years’ copyright on the surly sailor man’s fondness for a green substance that was absolutely not weed.
Basically, if you’re planning on making use of something that appears to have just entered the public domain in your own work, it’s always worth getting legal advice to ensure that you’re not walking into a copyright minefield. But if all you want to do is settle down with a bowl of animal crackers and watch, um, Animal Crackers—knock yourself out!
English (US) ·