How to watch American Netflix in Canada

Access the full Netflix USA Movie Library with your Canadian Account

This article will help you understand why the American Netflix library of movies is so much more extensive than in Canada, and how you can access it from your Canadian account. Skip to the sections below to instantly find out the best and easiest way to do this.

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Why watch American Netflix in Canada
Best methods to watch American Netflix in Canada
Best VPN service to access the USA Netflix library from Canada

Why watch American Netflix in Canada with your Canadian account?

Canadian Netflix was introduced a couple years ago, and it now has a significant subscriber base. Millions of people direct their beady eyes to their bright screens watching virtually unlimited movies, tv shows, documentaries, comedies, etc, for one monthly price. And although Netflix continually introduces new titles while removing old and unpopular titles, 2 years of movie watching can leave the movie library pretty much scoured. It makes sense people are looking out their windows and over the borders at what their neighbours are watching.

In recent news reports and blogs Canadians are complaining that they can’t see all the movies that the Americans see in the United States. It’s true both ways actually; Americans can’t see all the same movies as we get in Canada either. Each country has an independent selection, generally with some overlap. However, the database of films in the U.S. is significantly larger than Canada’s - 10x larger by some accounts - and often there are those big Hollywood films available that you just can’t get in the Canadian version.

Best ways to watch American Netflix movie selection in Canada

Method 1: The official method of seeing American Netflix with a Canadian Netflix account is to physically go the United States and use an internet connection from that country. Netflix management has acknowledged that a Canadian Netflix account can watch American Netflix movies when you are in the US. (It's a licensing issue, they only pay for the rights to show the movies to people physically located in certain countries.) But there is a better way, see method 2.

Method 2: Sign up for a "virtual private network" service. Usually referred to as a VPN. In a nutshell, when you turn on your VPN service, you can pick what country your internet will be routed through. Your connection will “bounce" off of a server from that country. Just pick a server from the United States, and then load up Netflix.

You’ll instantly see that you are now directed to Netflix.com instead of Netflix.ca. When you log in, you’ll suddenly see suggestions for blockbuster films that were not available before. When I did this the first movie I watched on American Netflix was Tron (pretty good!).

Best VPN tunnel/proxy service

I personally have used VPN services from a few different

companies and have settled on using ibVPN for about a year. You want to choose a cheap VPN package that includes servers from the United States. You should be able to get 6 months for $20 (about $3/month) or you can just try it out for 1 month. Basically you can look at it like an increase to your Netflix subscription by about $3 per month, not bad for adding roughly 10x the movie selection!

Interestingly using a VPN/Proxy service to connect to the internet is traditionally used by those in oppressed countries who’s "leadership" block their population’s access to the internet. They don’t want them to have access to all those silly ideas like "freedom", "democracy" or "cheap unlimited movies on Netflix."

And yes as a side note, VPN services can be used to unblock access to any sites restricted based on country. Often American television networks such as NBC, ABC, CBS, as examples, might offer their television series online to watch for free, at your convenience. These are also blocked for anyone outside the USA. The VPN Tunnel solution works in this case as well.

If you want to unblock access to sites located in other countries, just make sure to choose a service that offers servers from those countries.

VPN services are great for helping the oppressed become free and, in Canada, the depressed free their mind with American Netflix.

Last Updated: November 14, 2012, Written by: L2internet.com