The story
Founded by Efe Çakarel in 2007.1
The Auteurs was founded in 2007 by Turkish entrepreneur Efe Çakarel. The next year, in 2008, the American home-video distribution company Criterion Collection partnered with The Auteurs to begin a video-on-demand service.
In 2010, The Auteurs changed its name to "Mubi" or "MUBI", a two-syllable word with no specific meaning that near-rhymes with "movie", its creators stating that they wanted "a name all audiences can say and spell, without the burden of exclusionary meaning."
In January 2022, Mubi announced the acquisition of arthouse cinema production and sales company The Match Factory.
Prior to the 79th Venice International Film Festival world premiere, Mubi entered the TV industry by acquiring The Kingdom Exodus miniseries and bringing out the first two seasons of the original series in director's cuts.
In 2023, the company announced Mubi Fest, its annual film festival, to be held in Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. The event was expanded to cities in Europe, the United States and Canada a year later.
In February 2024, Mubi acquired a majority stake in Benelux distributor Cinéart.
On September 20, 2024, Mubi released The Substance in theaters worldwide and received critical and commercial success, grossed $77 million as their highest-grossing film ever, which received a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy out of the 5 nominations at 82nd Golden Globe Awards, 5 Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 97th Academy Awards (eventually winning in the Makeup and Hairstyling category), and 5 nominations at the 78th British Academy Film Awards.
In February 2025, The New York Times published a major profile piece on Mubi and Efe Çakarel, positioning Mubi as "a real Hollywood player" following the success of The Substance.
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At the Cannes Film Festival in May 2025, Mubi made their largest acquisition to date, as well as the largest deal closed at the festival that year, by paying $24m for distribution rights across multiple territories to Lynne Ramsay's film Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.
Mubi set a 31 October 2025 date for the company's debut as a direct distributor in the Spanish market with the release of The Mastermind. The company had previously relied on third parties such as Elastica Films, Avalon, A Contracorriente Films, or Filmin for the distribution of its portfolio in Spain.
In 2026, the limited series, Mussolini: Son of the Century (also distributed by Mubi), won the prestigious Peabody Award.
From Wikipedia’s article on Mubi (streaming service), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4