Free on Roku

American stories, worth the evening.

Madison Movie Channel is a free channel for people who love the films Hollywood used to make, and the new filmmakers who want to make them again.

Classic films introduced by a host. A free companion guide for every featured film. New work from independent and AI filmmakers who share the same values.

Early version running on Roku. Full schedule coming.

A sample evening

Tonight on Madison

This is how a weeknight will run once the full schedule launches. Titles marked Essential are being licensed now. Public-domain films are cleared and ready to air.

Time (ET)	Program
7:00 pm	The Madison Hour: host introductionHost Two minutes on tonight's film: what to watch for, with no spoilers.
7:02 pm	Film of the Week: Meet John Doe (1941)Public domain Frank Capra, with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. A newspaper invents a hero, and the man hired to play him has to decide whether to mean it. Free companion guide below.
9:05 pm	Curator Night: a guest picks the filmCurator Each week, a writer, scholar or filmmaker chooses a film from the Madison Essentials and tells you why it matters to them.
11:00 pm	New from American filmmakersOriginal Short films and series from independent and AI creators, before they reach anywhere else.
11:30 pm	Westerns after darkPublic domain Classic westerns from the public domain, already on the channel today.

Sundays are Faith & Family. All day, films from the Faith, Family, Courage shelf, with a host introduction before the evening feature.

The canon

The Madison Essentials

Ninety films that show how it has been done: films about freedom, and what freedom asks of us. They come from many studios and many decades. What they share is a way of seeing, not a period.

A rotating selection will air each season, each with a host and a free companion guide. Licensing is under way; nothing from this list is on the air yet.

The Madison Movie Finder

Find a film

735 films chosen by writers, scholars, filmmakers and organizations who share Madison's values, including the 90 Essentials. Search by title, by who recommended it, or browse a shelf.

Essentials only

How we watch

The Madison Lens

Every featured film is watched through one question: what does this character have the right to do, what do they owe, and what does choosing cost them?

IThe right

What is this character free to do, or entitled to claim?

IIThe responsibility

Whom do they owe, and what? Family, community, country, God, their own word.

IIIThe choice

At the turning point, which do they honor, and what do they give up to honor it?

IVThe cost and the fruit

What does the choice cost them, and what does it build or break in the people around them?

Not a checklist of approved values, and not a demand for heroes. A character who chooses badly, and pays for it, teaches as much as one who chooses well.

Everyone in this film has a right they are eager to claim. The right to earn a living. The right to speak. The right to be heard. Watch how quickly each of them reaches for that right, and how slowly they notice what they owe in return: to the truth, to the people who believe them, to each other.

And watch Gary Cooper's face. He plays a man who is paid to stand for something, and who slowly realizes that he actually has to.

From the host's introduction to Meet John Doe. Each featured film comes with a one-page guide for families, classrooms, churches and film clubs, free from Madison Media Fund.

The next generation

New films, coming to Madison

Madison is also the home for a new breed of American filmmakers. Many work with AI, and they learn from the same films we show. Stories that prove themselves on the ArchTV app come here as feature-length films.

These are series in development. Each one is waiting for its creator and its backers.

What else is on

More than the classics

Curator Nights

Each week a guest picks a film from the Essentials and hosts the evening. Our curators are writers, scholars and filmmakers who already recommend these films; we will announce them as they sign on.

Documentaries with a point of view

Madison carries documentaries and arguments about the country, its founding and its future. We don't pretend to have no opinions.

Free, with a way to give

The channel is free with ads, or ad-free by subscription. The Essentials program and its companion guides are supported by Madison Media Fund, a 501(c)(3), and gifts to the fund are tax-deductible.

Straight answers

Where we are

Madison is being built in the open. Here is what is real today, what comes next, and what we are working toward.

Now

An early version of the channel runs on Roku.
Six public-domain westerns, plus Buster Keaton's The General, are cleared and loaded.
Trailers for upcoming Madison films are on the channel.
The Madison Lens, host introductions and the first companion guide are written.
The Essentials list of 90 films is chosen.

License the first Madison Essentials, a rotating selection of about a dozen at a time.
Launch the full evening schedule with a host.
Start Curator Nights.
First films from ArchTV creators.
Ad-free subscription.

Later

One million monthly viewers.
A new film from an American filmmaker every week.
The Madison Lens taught to filmmakers, craft by craft.