How to host a Discord movie night

Your server already hangs out together, so movie night should be easy. It usually stalls for the same three reasons it does in real life: no set time, no agreed film, and nobody sure how everyone is supposed to watch. Here's a setup that handles all three.

Set up a channel and a server event

Give movie night a voice channel for watching and a text channel for announcements and chatter. Keeping the commentary in text means the voice channel stays quiet once the film starts. Screen sharing is on by default in voice channels, and you can limit who can stream in that channel's permissions, under Video.

Then schedule it as a server event: open the menu under your server's name, choose Create Event, and point it at the voice channel. Members who click Interested get a notification when you start the event, so it doubles as a reminder. Creating events needs the Create Events permission. Same night, same time every week is the easiest schedule for a server to remember.

Vote on the film ahead of time

Picking the movie at showtime is how movie nights start late. Settle it a day or two before. The Movie Night Polls bot runs the vote right in your server: add it to Discord, run /movienight link once to connect your account, then /movienight create and list the films one per line. Members vote by clicking a number, and /movienight close announces the winner. Hosting is free for up to 5 polls a month, and voting is free for everyone in the server.

Prefer the web? Make a poll and paste the link in your announcement. Nobody needs an account to vote, and each film shows its poster and, where there is one, its trailer. Discord's built-in polls also work for a quick text vote: they take up to 10 answers and stay open for up to a week.

Keep the shortlist to four to six films. If the server can't agree on what goes on it, here's how to settle it. Stuck for ideas? Theme the night: an 80s throwback, a horror night, or one of our other movie night themes.

Copy this announcement

Fill in the blanks, post it in your announcements channel and pin it: "Movie night is Friday at 8pm ET in #movie-night. Vote on the film before Thursday at 10pm: [poll link]. We press play at 8:05, so grab snacks early. Once it starts, mics stay muted, chat goes in #movie-night-chat, and no spoilers. Click Interested on the event to get a ping when we go live."

Post the result as soon as the vote closes, so people who missed the poll still know what's playing.

Set a few house rules

Five rules cover almost every server: mute your mic once the film starts (push-to-talk helps); keep commentary in the text channel; no spoilers, including for anyone who joins late; start on time, with a countdown so everyone presses play together; and the vote is final, so save the relitigating for next week's poll.

Pin the rules next to the announcement. A short list people read beats a long one they don't.

Choose how you'll watch together

Press play together. Everyone watches on their own streaming account, sits in the voice channel, and the host counts down. It's the most reliable option for picture quality and the cleanest legally, as long as everyone has access to the film. Check where it's streaming first, or start from what's on your services.

Screen share. The host goes live in the voice channel and everyone watches the stream. On a free Discord account a stream tops out at 720p and 30fps, and Nitro raises that limit. Up to 50 people can watch one stream at a time. Only use it for films you have the right to show (see below).

Watch Together. Discord's Watch Together activity syncs playback for YouTube videos, so it works for anything you can watch on YouTube, but not for films on other streaming services.

Keep it legal

Screen-sharing a film into a server is where movie nights get into trouble. Discord's Community Guidelines say not to share content that violates anyone's intellectual property, and most streaming subscriptions are licensed for personal viewing. Netflix's terms, for example, limit its content to personal, non-commercial use within your household.

The safe default is the press-play-together approach: everyone watches on an account they have access to, and Discord is just the room you hang out in. The bigger and more public the server, the more this matters. This isn't legal advice; if you're running events for a large community, check the terms of the service you're streaming from.