The Best Movie Apps for the iPhone – August 2017

While you can use iTunes to watch movies and TV shows, it isn’t the only way. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of movie apps for iPhone and iPad. Choice is important, especially in an ecosystem that likes to control everything like Apple. Here are some of what I think are the best movie apps for iPhone.

I have tried to include as many free movie players as possible as that is the best price. A couple have both free and premium versions and where this happens, I make sure the free version is fully functional and will work in most circumstances. All of these movie apps work with a variety of video formats, are malware free and just work.

VLC Media Player – Free

VLC Media Player is the king of movie apps as far as I am concerned. It plays just about every audio and video format in popular use, works very reliably, is small, light on resources and works across operating systems. I use it on my Windows PC, Android phone, Android tablet and iPhone 7. Best of all, it’s free and very powerful considering its size.

Everyone should use VLC Media Player, it is that good. It works on iPhone, iPad, iPad Touch and Mac. It can encode video, play it, edit it, add effects and do all sorts of clever things with it. All from within a simple yet very effective UI.

PlayerXtreme Media Player – Free/$4.99

PlayerXtreme Media Player is another very accomplished movie app that supports a huge range of formats. It supports streaming, HD, Chromecast and AirPlay and lots of other features. The UI is clean and intuitive and uses a similar layout to Finder. It is slick and fast and considering its small size, is quite feature-rich.

There is a free and a paid version. The free version of PlayerXtreme Media Player provides the basic movie playback features while you will need the premium version at $4.99 to use AirPlay or Chromecast.

Infuse – Free/$6.49

Infuse is as good as PlayerXtreme Media Player although slightly more expensive. It does play nicely with cloud storage and streaming in return for that extra investment though. The UI is nicer to use than PlayerXtreme Media Player as it uses a familiar icon layout rather than folders. It works much the same way through.

If you use a new iDevice, Infuse supports picture-in-picture, DTS audio and other neat features. The free version provides a good video player but the premium version, at $6.49 a year provides all the bells and whistles. You can buy it outright for $13 if you don’t want a subscription.

MovieBox – Free

No list of the best movie apps for iPhone would be complete without mentioning MovieBox. Legally dubious but a very credible streaming and movie player app for iPhone, this is well worth trying out as long as you take precautions. It will work without jailbreak too which is good news for all of us. You will need to sideload the .apk to get it working but this takes but a minute.

Use a VPN if you use MovieBox as it is technically illegal in some territories to stream content without paying for it.

KMPlayer – Free

KMPlayer is another app that has a Windows and Mac version that work the same across devices. It is a simple, no-nonsense video player app that works with many video formats but does not work with DivX or DTS due to licensing. Other than that, this is a very capable movie player that works with locally stored media, streams and cloud storage.

The UI is simple and uses a mixture of folders and icons. It isn’t quite as good as VLC or PlayerXtreme Media Player but it is worth a try if you don’t want to use either of those.

8Player – $5.99

8Player is a premium best movie app for iPhone but does a good job of managing multiple media types and content delivery. It works with streams, FTP, local sources and cloud storage. The UI is very colorful and uses icons to navigate. It has to be one of the best looking video players and works well across devices.

While it isn’t free, the modest cost is offset by ease of use, flexibility and appearance. It doesn’t do anything these other apps will do but what it does, it does well.

Those are some of what I think are the best movie apps for iPhone. Got any suggestions for others? Have any issues using any of these? Know of a player that works with AC3?