When Demi Moore won one of the US film industry’s most prestigious honours in 2025 for her performance in the body horror film “The Substance,” she made a special point of thanking the streaming platform MUBI and its founder and chief executive, Efe Çakarel.
Accepting the top prize for a female leading role at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Moore lavished praise on Çakarel for his “love of cinema” and called him “an unwavering support to me and this film.”
But what exactly is MUBI? The company is a niche movie streaming service – available in 190 countries – as well as a production company and film distributor dedicated to visionary films. The New York Times has described MUBI as having “catapulted … into a real Hollywood player.”
Headquartered in London, MUBI has 15 offices worldwide and employs more than 400 people, according to the company.
A streaming subscription and cinema ticket in one
For urban film lovers, the MUBI GO subscription combines streaming with the cinema experience. At $19.99 or €19.99 per month, subscribers – referred to as “members” in keeping with the company’s club-like approach – receive access to the streaming platform as well as a weekly cinema ticket.
MUBI GO is currently available in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Mexico as well as in select cities in Germany and the United States.
MUBI was founded in 2007, originally under the name The Auteurs, by Efe Çakarel, a film enthusiast and entrepreneur born in 1976 in Izmir, Turkey.
In earlier coverage of MUBI, its founder was often at the centre of attention. Çakarel holds an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MBA from Stanford University.
Today, the 50-year-old prefers to keep a lower public profile and politely declines press requests. In July 2026, Çakarel told dpa via the company that he would not answer personal questions about himself.
The business focus, he said, was increasingly on strengthening MUBI as a brand and distinguishing it more clearly from him as an individual.
From a Tokyo café idea to a global film company
One story the entrepreneur has previously shared dates back almost 20 years. Sitting in a café in Tokyo, Çakarel was frustrated that he could not watch Wong Kar-Wai’s masterpiece “In the Mood for Love” via video-on-demand, despite Japan already having high-speed internet access.
The question of film availability and rights stayed with him. In 2007, he founded his company – the same year Netflix began streaming films and television series.
From the beginning, however, Çakarel’s ambition was not only digital distribution but also a celebration of cinema itself. The original concept of offering one new film every day, with each title remaining available for just 30 days, has since been discontinued.
The principle of focusing exclusively on high-quality cinema, however, remains at the heart of MUBI’s identity.
In 2025, the New York Times quoted Çakarel recalling his early negotiations with major studios: “I would say, ‘These are the 32 titles that I would like to get.'”
Then, “they would say: ‘No, this is not how this business works. If you’re getting those titles, you need to also get these titles,'” he was quoted as saying. He recalled that “they would literally throw me out of their offices.”
MUBI films are festival favourites
Persistence eventually paid off. Over time, distributors including Sony, Paramount and later Universal Pictures agreed to provide MUBI with artistically ambitious films.
Today, MUBI releases – alongside a growing catalogue of classics – regularly attract critical acclaim. The company’s films receive nominations and awards at major festivals and industry ceremonies.
Examples include Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun,” starring Paul Mescal, and Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” featuring Jacob Elordi as Elvis Presley.
Other notable titles include Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” with Daniel Craig portraying the alter ego of US writer William S Burroughs, and Jafar Panahi’s politically charged Iranian drama “It Was Just an Accident.”
MUBI boycott: What happened?
Just as MUBI’s steady rise seemed unstoppable, the streaming service became the subject of a major boycott campaign over its perceived association with the Israeli military.
At a time when independent research showed more than 10% of Gaza’s population had been killed or injured as a result of Israeli military attacks on homes and infrastructure, it emerged MUBI was taking funds from an investment company also backing an Israeli AI defence firm.
After open letters in mid-2025 from entertainment industry figures and MUBI staff criticizing the $100 million in funds, the streaming platform issued a statement distancing itself from the “beliefs” of the investment firm, Sequoia Capital.
However, by the end of the year, the PR disaster had cost the company around 200,000 subscribers, according to an April report in the Wall Street Journal.
Upcoming films with Sandra Hüller and Gillian Anderson
The streaming platform is keen to push through the debacle with good content: MUBI’s forthcoming productions include “Fatherland” by Paweł Pawlikowski, starring Sandra Hüller as Erika Mann, the daughter of German novelist and Nobel Prize literary laureate Thomas Mann.
Other upcoming projects include “Let Love In” by Felix Van Groeningen and “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” by Jane Schoenbrun, starring Gillian Anderson, which won the Queer Palm at Cannes in 2026.
MUBI distinguishes between productions and releases: films it helps create itself and films it acquires for distribution.
In the case of productions, MUBI invests in projects from an early stage and works closely with filmmakers throughout development.
For acquired films, it secures exclusive rights to completed films or works still in production – sometimes even while a screenplay is being written.
Regardless of how a film enters the MUBI catalogue, it may first receive a cinema release. After a “reasonable theatrical run,” it becomes available on the streaming platform.
One example is Paolo Sorrentino’s presidential drama “La Grazia” (Grace). The film by the Oscar-winning director of “The Great Beauty,” starring Toni Servillo, opened in German cinemas on March 19 and became available to stream on MUBI as early as May 8.
Films can also bypass cinemas and be released exclusively on the platform. According to the communications agency representing MUBI, every release is “carefully and thoughtfully planned.”
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