Subscribe to our newsletter!

Submit

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!

We’re excited to have you with us and will keep you updated with the latest news, insights, and updates straight to your inbox.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Back to Blog
October 9, 2020
|
Read time {time} min

Get Paid to Watch Movies (6+ Legit Ways)

Written by
Permission
Stay in the loop

Get the latest insights, product updates, and news from Permission — shaping the future of user-owned data and AI innovation.

Subscribe

What if you could get paid while relaxing and watching movies? Settle into the couch with a bit of popcorn and come out with a few extra bucks?

Well, while you won’t make a career doing it, it turns out that dream is possible. There are services based online and in-person around the country that pay people to watch movies. Sometimes these opportunities are officially through movie theater companies, other times they are through separate services like movie trailer review sites or loyalty programs, but you have options.

As you would expect in a “get money for doing nothing” style space, there’s a lot of noise and bad faith players. You have to be careful about whom you choose to work with and why. To make this a bit easier for you, we’ve done our research and found a handful of legitimate ways you can get paid to watch movies.

These fall into two major camps: passive and active. Neither option will make you rich, but as you’d expect, you can make more by choosing “active” services. This means you have to exert some sort of effort, whether that’s proactively choosing the videos they serve up to you or by going to physical locations, etc. Passive services are usually data collection panels that simply observe what you already do.

So take a look, see which options look most interesting to you, and get watching!

1. Get Paid to Watch Movies in Theaters by Becoming a Theater Experience Reviewer

This isn’t as big as it used to be, especially in the wake of COVID-19, but you could look into becoming a “Field Associate” via CertifiedFieldAssociate.com or through the movie companies themselves.

These companies pay you to sit in on movies in local theatres to make sure ads are being run, count customers, figure out what movies are most popular and when, etc.

It’s essentially a hands-on data collection position. The main issue with this gig is that you can waste a lot of time and get paid much less than minimum wage. This is because depending on your task, you may have to wait for a movie to finish or run into issues with the local theatre management, etc.

Lots of people who have done these types of gigs for a while only recommend taking gigs with a defined scope.

How Does Being a Movie Theatre Field Associate Work?

By either signing up directly with movie companies or through third-party sites, you can get paid a lump sum for attending movies at movie theaters and answering specific questions related to your experience.

How Much Can I Make?

The pay varies from job to job, but they usually pay a project fee. This means if you’re not careful about time management, you can earn less than minimum wage.

Pros of Being a Field Associate
  1. Can attend blockbuster movies for free.
  2. Good track record for payment.
  3. Can work near where you live.
Cons of Being a Movie Theatre Field Associate
  1. Some jobs make you hop in and out of movies and never sit through an entire experience.
  2. You have to explain what you’re doing to the local theater.
  3. If you’re not careful, you can spend 8 hours doing a $40 job and make less than minimum wage.
Where to Get Started
  1. Certified Field Associates – The website is pretty rough, but MarketForce Information is one of the most widely used field associate job sites.
  2. EntertainmentCareers.net – This is an entertainment-specific job site, so you can search for “Theatre Checker” or “Field Associate” here and see if anyone is hiring.
  3. Cinemark – You can also see if movie companies like Cinemark are hiring anyone directly.

2. Get Paid to Watch Movie Previews via “Online Task” Sites

There’s a whole internet culture around getting paid for surveys, small tasks, playing games, etc. Many of the large communities in this world also offer points and gift card opportunities for watching movie trailers or giving feedback on ads. This is definitely more of an “active” choice, but if you’re interested in making money online in your downtime, then the sites listed below are reliable places to start.

How Do Online Task Sites Work?

Popular “make money online” sites like Swagbucks and InboxDollars pay you in points to perform all sorts of online activities from playing games to watching movie trailers. You can then turn those points in for gift cards or cash.

How Much Can I Make?

You won’t make more than a few bucks a month, so it’s best to do this in your downtime or only when high point opportunities come around.

Pros of Watching Movie Previews on Online Task Sites
  1. You can make money on your phone or computer anytime, anywhere.
  2. Top online task sites are reliable and safe.
  3. Opportunities to combine movie trailer watching with games, surveys, and other digital tasks to make more cash.
Cons of Watching Movie Previews on Online Task Sites
  1. You won’t make more than a few bucks a month.
  2. It won’t feel like relaxing because you’re watching what they want you to watch.
  3. It requires consistent effort to see results.
Where to Get Started
  1. Swagbucks – Swagbucks is the top of the hill as far as “get paid online” sites go, so this is the best place to start.
  2. InboxDollars – InboxDollars is very similar to Swagbucks, so you could either split your time between the two or see which of the two has better movie trailer options.

3. Get Paid to Review Movies by Writing Articles or Creating Content

This is more on the active side, but if you have a passion for movies, then you could start reviewing movies you watch and submitting your writing to publications. Some of these will be paid, most won’t be. You could also start a YouTube channel and post your reviews there. There’s no sure path to becoming a paid critic, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

Your best bet is to find a different spin on what’s already being done. Look at the market and current popular movie reviewers and see how you can do something a bit different. Once you identify an opportunity, make a content plan, run a few tests, and ask your friends for their opinions before investing too much time.

How Does Reviewing Movies Work?

This is a creative pursuit that has no guarantee of success and requires passion. You will most likely start by writing your own reviews and refining your craft and eventually pursuing publications to work with. You could also create your own platform and publish there.

How Much Can I Make?

Most people don’t make anything, but successful critics can make a decent living doing a job they love. Like any creative pursuit, this will take a lot of time and effort before you reap any sort of monetary reward.

Pros of Reviewing Movies
  1. A chance to pursue your passion.
  2. Opportunity to think critically about movies.
  3. Fun networking and social opportunities.
Cons of Reviewing Movies
  1. No guarantee of payment ever.
  2. Very difficult to “make it”.
  3. Requires a lot of work upfront.
Where to Get Started
  1. Study.com – Take the time to read up on the life and career trajectory of a movie reviewer. It’s best to make career and life decisions with as much information as possible. Take some time to read over people’s experiences before you dive in.
  2. LiveAbout – Study the best movie critics of all time. If you want to be the best, then you need to know what the best did!
  3. Five Stars! – This book is written by film critic Christopher Null and offers advice on how to get your start.

4. Product Test TVs or Other Entertainment Devices

This is getting at it from a different angle, but you could look into product testing for TV companies. They want to make sure their new products work and are user-friendly, so there are ways to get paid for answering questions about new products.

How Does Product Testing TVs Work?

People can apply to studies through third-party sites (a few are listed below). If you qualify for a study, you’ll either be sent a TV or a product related to a TV that you’ll have to report back on.

How Much Can I Make Product Testing?

Payment varies from study to study, but you can usually make between $10-$25 an hour when you’re participating.

Pros of Product Testing
  1. Many established sites to use.
  2. Payment isn’t an issue once you land a gig.
  3. Variety in products and jobs.
  4. Decent pay for your time.
Cons of Product Testing
  1. You’ll have to search to find jobs that specifically involve watching TV.
  2. High competition for good gigs.
Where to Get Started
  1. Toluna – Toluna is a modern product testing site that’s easy to get set up on and is used by many major brands.
  2. Product Testing USA – Product Testing USA feels pretty 90s but is well-established and can offer some interesting opportunities with some searching.

5. Work for a Company Like Netflix to Tag Movies

These opportunities are rare and have a ton of competition, but there are editorial/movie analyst positions that Netflix, Hulu, HBO, etc. have where people tag shows and improve their service’s metadata (the data that the algorithm uses to know what to display).

How Does Getting Paid to Tag Movies Work?

You have to get officially hired through a particular movie company like Netflix. This means browsing job sites, sending in resumes — the whole nine yards.

How Much Can I Make Tagging Movies?

That depends on what is involved in your position, but these can be full-time positions at large companies, meaning you could make a liveable salary.

Pros of Tagging Movies
  1. Potentially a full-time gig.
  2. Work at an established company.
  3. There is no middle man.
Cons of Tagging Movies
  1. Gigs are extremely rare.
  2. You can’t just find these through a third-party service — you have to find a job at a specific company.
  3. Tagging and watching movies won’t be the only thing you do at your job. There are bound to be other responsibilities.
Where to Get Started
  1. Netflix – Netflix is the biggest streaming service out there, so this is your best bet for a position.
  2. Hulu – Remember there’s no guarantee in how the job will be posted, so keep an eye out for anything that sounds remotely like an editorial analyst.
  3. HBO – HBO has the biggest variety of U.S. offices, so if you have no interest in moving, then start here.

6. Sell Your Data and Keep Watching Movies Like Normal

This is the most passive option to make money while watching movies because you don’t have to change your habits at all. Major data collection and reporting companies like Nielsen will pay you to have access to your phone and computer. You can make an easy $50 a year and be entered into automatic sweepstakes depending on the panel, but the most popular and reputable company by far is Nielsen.

These companies turn this data into massive industry reports that businesses use to educate their strategies. Yes, you are giving up your privacy here, but you are also getting compensated for using your phone and computer like normal.

How Does Panel Data Work?

You download a piece of software, fill out an account, give the software a bunch of permissions, and voila.

How Much Can I Make Selling My Data?

If you’re selling via a single panel, not very much. Nielsen gives you around $50 a year and enters you into sweepstakes that could pay off but aren’t worth banking on.

Pros of Selling Your Data
  1. It’s a set and forget it type deal — you can use your computer like normal after installation.
  2. Companies like Nielsen are reputable.
  3. Opportunity to contribute to useful data analysis.
Cons of Selling Your Data
  1. You are letting someone have access to your device. Privacy cannot be a concern.
  2. Pay isn’t that great.
  3. The installation can be a bit annoying.
  4. The software will use up some of your CPU and potentially slow down your computer.
Where to Get Started
  1. Nielsen – Nielsen is the most reputable panel company by far, so I recommend using them. When you’re giving up this much data, it’s important to know who is getting it.

Bonus: Think Outside the “Get Paid to Watch TV” Box

Consider expanding your definition a bit and look for jobs that let you watch TV while you do them.

Babysitting comes immediately to mind. You could also consider house sitting, dog sitting, working at a parking garage, or finding some other position that is generally  “slow”. Not only will these pay you more, but you’ll probably enjoy them more because you can watch what you choose instead of being forced to watch specific content.

The Bottom Line on Getting Paid to Watch Movies, TV, and Previews

You won’t make much money simply watching TV or videos. Every option here has one thing in common: you have to provide value to the person paying you. It’s obvious, but it’s true. The less work involved, the less value you are typically providing. The more hands-on, the more you get paid. That’s how the game works.

Our advice is to use apps sites like Swagbucks alongside more lucrative product testing opportunities. In other words, mix your passive and active opportunities to keep things fresh and earn the most cash.

Good luck, and remember to make these services work for you and not the other way around. If you feel stretched and pressed for time, it’s almost certainly not worth it. You should approach these with a casual mindset and put your efforts toward other job opportunities if you are particularly strapped for cash.

Permission is working to get people just like you paid for the data you’re already giving away.  We are creating a new kind of internet that pays you for your time and data shared while engaging online as you normally do. The Permission Browser Extension suggests cool ads relevant to your internet browsing, and pays you cryptocurrency in return for watching.

See how we’re working to change the internet forever.

Recent articles

Your ASK Wallet, Now Powered by Coinbase

Sep 22nd, 2026
|
{time} read time

We've partnered with Coinbase to bring best-in-class wallet technology to our community.

Today we're updating the technology that powers your ASK wallet. Here's what's changing, what it means for you, and what stays exactly the same.

What's changing

We've moved your Permission wallet to Coinbase's platform. What that means in plain language is this: starting today, you are in full control of your ASK. When you click to send, redeem, or manage your balance, the transaction happens from your account, signed by your login. We no longer hold your wallet keys. Coinbase does, on your behalf, under your authority.

We chose Coinbase's embedded wallet specifically because it brings institutional-grade security to our users without requiring you to manage anything yourself. The infrastructure is Coinbase's. The wallet is yours.

Beyond the custody change, our users now have a wallet that can go wherever they go: exportable, cross-chain ready, and backed by a platform that serves millions of people around the world. We're proud to bring that to our community.

What it means to control your own keys

As Permission has grown, we felt strongly that your funds should be held by a platform built specifically for that purpose, with the security standards and regulatory rigor that come with it. Moving to Coinbase's embedded wallet reflects that commitment.

With today's change, Coinbase secures your private key inside their systems, and only your Permission login can authorize transactions. When you click to send or redeem ASK, the transaction is authorized by you, through your login. We are no longer part of that process.

What this means practically: your wallet operates on its own, independent of Permission. Treat your Permission login like you would a bank password. It is now the key to your wallet. If you ever want to take your wallet entirely outside of Permission, Coinbase supports key export and that option is yours.

What Coinbase sees

Because Coinbase is now part of the infrastructure, your email address, account identifier, and wallet information are shared with them for the purpose of operating the wallet. For details on how Coinbase handles this data, you can review their embedded wallet documentation and their privacy information.

For how Permission handles your data, our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy govern that relationship, as they always have.

What stays the same

Everything you experience in the app. Earning ASK, redeeming it, transferring it, viewing your balance, managing your family. None of that changes.

And, what does change, we're excited about: key export, cross-chain support, and institutional-grade security. These are capabilities that would have taken years to build in-house and that Coinbase has spent that time perfecting. We chose to partner with the best-in-class, and our product and users will be better for it.

If you have questions, support is always here.

The Permission Team 🤝

What Is Family Friendly AI™?

Sep 9th, 2026
|
{time} read time

Only 15% of people globally say they trust AI systems, and 72% of parents are concerned about AI’s impact on their children.

AI is quickly becoming part of everyday family life, but Big Tech wasn’t built with families in mind. Family Friendly AI is technology intentionally designed for families, giving parents visibility into their children’s digital lives, guidance when they need it, and tools to encourage positive behavior.

5 Things That Make AI Family Friendly

1. Your family owns its data.

‍Your family’s data is never sold. It belongs to your family, and you stay in control of it.

2. Parents know what’s happening online.

‍Family Friendly AI gives parents visibility into their children’s digital lives, helping them fully understand how their children use and interact with technology.

3. It motivates children with rewards and incentives.

‍Parents can set rewards and incentives to encourage positive behaviors and help their children build better habits around technology and beyond.

4. It gives parents coaching and inspiration.

‍Parenting in a digital world comes with challenges that screen-time limits alone can’t help with. Family Friendly AI gives parents personalized AI-insights and guidance to help them navigate what their children are doing online and decide what to do next.

5. It earns families' trust.

‍Technology for families should have a higher bar. The companies building it should stand behind it with an unconditional, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.

It’s time for AI, crypto, and the technology shaping our children’s lives to meet the family-friendly standard.

Big Tobacco Had Its Reckoning. Now It’s Big Tech’s Turn.

Aug 12th, 2026
|
{time} read time

The floodgates are open.

Thousands of lawsuits are moving forward. States are writing new rules for kids online. And lawmakers are beginning to tell AI companies what they can and cannot do when children use their products.

And you don't have to look far to see it happening...

The courts: 3,000+ lawsuits get the green light

On August 10, the Ninth Circuit allowed more than 3,000 lawsuits against Meta, Google/YouTube, TikTok and Snap to move forward.

The cases allege that the companies deliberately designed features of their platforms to be addictive, particularly for young users.

The tech companies had argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protected them from the claims. The court rejected their attempt to use Section 230 to stop the litigation at this stage, finding that it provides a defense rather than immunity from being sued.

At their core, these cases are allegations about the platforms themselves: how they were designed, how they kept people engaged, and what responsibility the companies bear for the consequences.

The companies will still have the opportunity to defend themselves against those allegations.

But with more than 3,000 cases now getting the chance to be heard, this is getting harder to argue away.

New Jersey: families get a way to enforce the rules

One day later, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed the New Jersey Kids Code Act into law.

The law establishes new design and privacy requirements for covered online services likely to be accessed by minors. Among other provisions, it requires high privacy settings by default, restricts certain push notifications, prohibits dark patterns for minors, limits how children's personal data can be used and retained, and places restrictions on targeted advertising.

But one provision in particular changes the accountability equation: a private right of action.

An individual under 18 who is injured by a violation can bring a claim under the law, with statutory damages of $5,000 per violation. Parents may also bring an action on a minor's behalf.

Which is legal language for something pretty simple: families don't have to wait around for a regulator to act. They can take companies to court themselves.

Colorado: AI safety starts becoming a legal requirement

Then there's Colorado.

Earlier this year, Governor Jared Polis signed Colorado HB 26-1263, establishing specific requirements for operators of conversational AI services.

And this one is worth paying attention to because the law doesn't simply tell AI companies to "keep kids safe." It starts defining what that actually means.

Operators must estimate users' ages. When dealing with minors, the law requires recurring disclosures that they are interacting with AI rather than a person and establishes protections around sexually explicit interactions.

It also addresses one of the most unsettling questions surrounding companion-style AI: emotional dependence.

The law requires safeguards designed to prevent conversational AI from producing statements that simulate emotional dependence. It also requires protocols for responding to suicidal ideation and self-harm, privacy and account-management tools for minors and parents or guardians, and reporting requirements intended to help regulators evaluate whether those safeguards are actually working.

The law takes effect January 1, 2027.

For companies building conversational AI, that's a meaningful shift. Child safety is moving beyond a set of voluntary guardrails companies write for themselves. In Colorado, some of those guardrails are becoming law.

It's no coincidence that this is all happening at once.

Big Tobacco didn't wake up one morning and discover the world had changed its mind. The reckoning came piece by piece, until lawsuits became regulation and an industry that had spent decades setting its own standards was finally forced to take responsibility for the harm its products caused.

We're watching that shift happen again.

For years, the responsibility for keeping kids safe online has fallen on parents.

Set the parental controls. Check the privacy settings. Watch the screen time. Know which apps they're using. Figure out who they're talking to. Keep up with every new platform, algorithm and now AI chatbot entering their lives.

All while the technology on the other side of the screen gets more sophisticated by the month.

Now courts and lawmakers are starting to ask the companies building that technology a much more uncomfortable question:

If children are using your products, what are you doing to keep them safe?

For families, that's the shift that matters most.

This isn't another round of false promises to "do better."

This is legislation. These are lawsuits. This is accountability beginning to have teeth.

Parents will always have the role of protecting their children online. We happen to believe they should have far more visibility and control over the technology entering their families' lives, not less.

But parents cannot be the entire safety system.

The law is making clear that the companies designing the products, writing the algorithms and building the AI our kids interact with have a responsibility, too.

And when they fail to meet it, they'll finally be held accountable.

ChatGPTs Births A Parenting Tool That Needs Some Image Repair

Aug 4th, 2026
|
{time} read time

Sam Altman keeps pitching AI as a co-parent. The reason parents aren't buying isn't nostalgia, it's the lawsuits.

Last Friday, Sam Altman had an idea he was excited about. Hook your family calendar up to ChatGPT, tell it what your kids are into, and every morning on the drive to school it'll produce a little podcast: one kid's soccer game that afternoon, another kid's birthday coming up, maybe some news. He called it a "cool use case."

What should’ve felt really innovative, landed like the opening scene of a bleak dystopian movie. Two kids in the back, one parent up front, and a smooth synthetic voice narrating, to everyone present, the lives of everyone present. "Later today, Maya has soccer." Maya, who has soccer, looks out the window. Nobody says anything, because the podcast is saying it for them.

The internet population caught what we caught. The reply that stuck came from Alex Hirsch, creator of Disney’s Animated series, Gravity Falls. It was seven poignant words: "What if you just talked to your children?" That was the entire rebuttal, and it traveled a great deal further than the thing it was rebutting. Altman's post drew somewhere around 9,600 likes. Hirsch's reply cleared 120,000. On the CEO's own platform, the crowd took a vote, and the crowd chose the small talk.

Now, we want to be fair here, because the easy thing is to dunk and move on. But we’re parents here at Permission and anyone who has done the 7:40 a.m. drive on four hours of sleep, refereeing a backseat dispute about who touched whom first, knows the exact fantasy of a button that handles the morning. That instinct isn't a character flaw. It's a Tuesday.

But this wasn't a one-off. Altman has been quietly auditioning AI for the co-parent role for a while now. On The Tonight Show in December 2025 he said he couldn't imagine having to "raise a newborn without ChatGPT" then added that people had managed the trick for a few hundred thousand years without it. Also, last year, in a podcast hosted by Andrew Mayne, Altman admitted that people might form “problematic parasocial relationships” to a chatbot. (You know, the one-sided kind that we usually reserve for celebrities we've never met.) He sees the hazards clearly. He's pitching the product anyway.

When visibility turns into vulnerability.

The reason parents flinched at the idea of carpooling with a chatbot for school drop off isn't that they're allergic to convenience. It's that the company making the offer is, right now, being sued by multiple families who say its chatbot played a role in their loved ones' spiraling delusions and, in the worst cases, their deaths. OpenAI says it is continually improving how its models handle sensitive conversations, and that work genuinely matters. But you can see the problem. "Let me into your calendar, your commute, and your kids personal details" is a big ask from anyone. It is a much bigger ask from a company currently explaining itself in court.

Trust isn't a feature you ship in the next update. It's something people hand you slowly, and take back all at once.

Here's where we should admit an interest. We build Permission on a belief that sounds boring until you sit with it: your data belongs to you. With Permission your kids’ browsing history doesn’t get shipped out to the open internet. Not to a model, not to a growth chart, not to whoever posts the next cool use case. And the closer AI creeps toward our kids (and it is creeping, because kids are already asking it everything) the more one question starts to outrank all the others:

Where is the line between parenting and outsourcing parenting?

Because "parenting tool" is doing a lot of quiet work in that phrase. A tool is a hammer. It lives in a drawer, it does one honest thing, and it does not ask to read your child's messages or move into the family calendar. When a company calls its chatbot a "parenting tool," it's worth asking, gently, which word they mean. The tool part, or the parenting part.

We happen to think AI can be genuinely, unglamorously useful to families. Not by doing the talking for you, but by handing you the context you'd otherwise miss instead of a thousand panicked notifications, and then getting out of the way so you can make the call. That's a real distinction, and it deserves its own piece.

So take this as Part One: the news, the flinch, and the reason the flinch is earned. In Part Two, we'll make the harder and more hopeful argument that you can let AI help you parent without completely handing over your family secrets. There is a version of this where the grown-ups stay in charge. We think it's the only version worth building.

For now, the seven best words anyone has offered on the whole affair still belong to Hirsch. So we'll give him the last one, too.

What if you just talked to your children?

‍