Free & in the Public Domain
Night of the Living Dead is one of the most famous public-domain films in history — and it got there by accident.
Under United States copyright law as it stood in 1968, a film had to display a proper copyright notice to be protected. The movie was originally titled Night of the Flesh Eaters. When the distributor changed the title to Night of the Living Dead and swapped the opening title card, the copyright notice was left off the new prints. With no notice, the film immediately entered the public domain.
The upshot: no one owns the original film. Anyone may watch it, copy it, share it, and build on it — which is exactly why it has been endlessly re-released, studied, colorized, remixed, and preserved by fans and archivists the world over. It’s also why we can host the entire feature here for you, free.
Stream it in the CRT player, or download your own copy to keep forever:
▶ Stream the Film ⬇ Download MP4 (~96 min)
Our copy is a web-friendly H.264 MP4 re-encode of the public-domain source, so it plays on everything from a modern phone to an old desktop.