How to Watch Movies Together Long Distance (8 Tools That Work)

Everyone tries the same thing first. You count down over the phone, you both hit play, and for about four minutes it works. Then one of you buffers, or pauses to find a snack, and from then on you’re narrating a film to someone watching a slightly different film. It’s the small, stupid kind of friction that makes people quietly give up on movie night.

The fix is a tool that keeps both screens in step, so a pause on your end pauses theirs too. Here are eight that work, what each one is best for, and which streaming services they actually support, because that’s the part that decides it. If you want things to do rather than watch, our free online games for long distance couples all run in a browser tab.

The one thing to know before you start

None of these share an account. They sync playback, so you each need your own subscription to whatever you’re watching. That surprises people often enough that it’s worth saying plainly up front: if only one of you pays for Netflix, a watch-party tool doesn’t solve that. What it solves is the timing, which is the actual problem.

The other thing worth deciding early: do you want to see each other while you watch, or just hear each other? Some tools build a call in. Otherwise keep a normal phone call running on a second device, which honestly works fine and is what most couples end up doing.

The best watch party apps for couples

Roughly from widest coverage to most specific.

Teleparty: best for covering the most services. A free browser extension for Chrome or Edge that syncs playback and adds a chat sidebar, and it supports Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime and YouTube. Two caveats worth knowing: it’s desktop-browser only, and Netflix sync has been known to break for a while after Netflix changes its playback protection.

Scener: best if you want to see each other’s faces. It does the same syncing job but puts video chat alongside the film, which is the closest thing to actually being on the same couch. The core watch-together service is free, and it works with Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu and YouTube.

Rave: best on phones. Native iOS and Android apps with voice chat built in, so you don’t need a second device for the call. Free with ads, with a paid ad-free tier. This is the one to reach for if you both watch in bed rather than at a desk.

Disney+ GroupWatch: best if you’re both already on Disney+. It’s built into the service, so there’s no extension to install and nothing to set up beyond starting a GroupWatch and sending the invite.

Amazon Prime Watch Party: same idea inside Prime Video, built in rather than bolted on, and it works on phones as well as desktop.

Hulu’s built-in watch party: worth knowing because Hulu is currently the only one of the big services that still ships its own. It runs on desktop and in the browser rather than on mobile.

Watch2Gether: best for no setup at all. It runs in a browser with no signup and no extension, and it’s built around YouTube links, which makes it the fastest way to share something silly at 1am without either of you installing anything.

Hyperbeam: best for watching something that isn’t on a streaming service. It gives you a shared browser you both control, so whatever one of you opens, the other sees.

Honest caveat, and it matters more here than in most lists: watch-party features get discontinued, change tiers, or quietly stop working with a service after an update. Most of the big streamers dropped their own party features, which is exactly why third-party tools like Teleparty exist. Check the tool before you plan a whole evening around it.

How to watch Netflix together long distance

Netflix has never had its own watch-party feature, which is why this question comes up more than any other. The practical answer is Teleparty or Scener on a desktop browser, with both of you signed into your own Netflix accounts. If sync keeps slipping, it’s usually Netflix’s playback protection rather than anything you did, and the reliable fallback is embarrassingly low tech: start together, and whoever drifts skips to the other’s timestamp.

Making it feel like a date, not a video call

The tool is the easy part. What turns watching movies together online long distance into something you look forward to is treating it like plans. Give it a real start time instead of “maybe later,” because a vague intention loses to whatever else is on your phone. Take turns picking, and let the other person’s choice be unarguable. Eat the same thing if you can be bothered, which is sillier and better than it sounds. And keep a call running so the reactions land live, since the reactions are most of the point.

Afterwards is where the actual closeness tends to happen, when you’re both still on the call with nothing left to watch. That’s a good moment for a few long distance relationship questions, or for the kind of thing our FaceTime games for couples are built for, since they need nothing but the call you already have open. For a whole planned evening rather than one film, our virtual date ideas for couples go further, and a standing movie night is one of the simplest ways of keeping a long distance relationship strong: it gives the week a shape, and a shared thing to look forward to. For the nights you would rather hear something than watch it, our guide to how to listen to music together long distance solves the same problem for songs.