Legal free full movie downloads are available through websites, whereas illegal downloads often takes place through file sharing networks. Websites offering legal downloads often provides movies whose copyright period has expired, and therefore can enter the public domain. These websites are unable to provide the latest blockbuster films. Lack of such movies often tempts people to use alternate ways such as peer to peer (P2P) networks for searching and downloading the latest movies. These networks were originally intended for file sharing between computers, but now are widely used for downloading movies, games and software.

Various technologies are used to reduce the size of movies, as a large size movie takes almost a day for users to download, even with a high speed broadband connection. Most companies use codecs such as DivX and Xvid to convert movies to a low file size version, for speedy downloads. These codecs can reduce a 4.8 GB movie to sizes less than 1 GB with absolutely no loss in the clarity of video or sound. To view these movie formats, users need to install these freely available codecs in their computers.

While downloading free full movies, it is often recommended to use softwares called download managers. These softwares were designed for managing scheduled downloads and are also capable of resuming broken downloads. So even if the internet connection goes off during download, your downloaded data is safe and can be resumed from where it left off.

Free full movie downloads include movies in various languages, with both older films and new ones which are no longer running in theatres. Often, these movie collections may contain classics and hits of a particular era. There are also websites which provide recently released movies, where users are required to pay a one time payment for registration.

The facility provided by P2P websites for anyone to upload a film for others to download, can pose a serious threat to movie makers, particularly if the film print was leaked and has not yet been released in theatres. As production companies are facing losses in their DVD sales due to online movie downloads, they are also starting their own movie download services for users, but with a fee. However, the free full movie downloads provided by many websites are a boon to those who cannot afford to buy physical copies of all the movies released.