Whether you’re a movie buff, or just someone who enjoys a good film now and then, here are utterly essential 30 tools and resources which will help you make the most of your movie experience.

1. How to download famous movie scripts for free

it’s always interesting to see how something so abstract on paper gets translated onto the big screen.  IMSDb is one of the biggest collections of movie scripts available anywhere on the web where you can read the scripts for all your favorite movies.

2. How to download free movies – legally

No matter if you’re into drama, classics, cartoons, action movies or Westerns – you can find legal downloads of classic movies for free on EMOL.  Granted these movies are pretty old, but you get a lot of good classics as well starring actors like Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor.

3. How to get short movie reviews from twitter

Flixpulse looked to be an excellent tool which interpreted Tweets about movies, assigned each one as a positive or negative tweet, and aggregated them.  Though promising, it looks like the project has stopped development.  An alternative would be to use blippr, which is a twitter clone which focuses mainly on reviews.

4. How to summarize reviews from professional movie critics

When it comes to movie review sites, few sites come close to Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.  Both services aggregate professional movie critic opinions and summarize them to a single movie score.  Well known for exceedingly high standards, if a movie does well on both sites, it would be hard to go wrong with it.

5. How to quickly check ratings through your iPhone

There are plenty of iPhone apps for movies, but ‘Movies’ by Flixster is my personal favorite.  Just look up any film and you’ll get a ‘rotten tomatoes’ rating neatly summarized for you, together with quick links to the trailer, poster, and movie showtimes.  It’s free, and incredibly easy to use.

6. How to search Rotten Tomatoes directly from your browser search box

Rotten Tomatoes is a popular reviews site which aggregates professional movie critic reviews.  Now you can search for movies directly from your browser search box rather than visiting the site first by installing this Firefox plugin. 

7. How to catalogue your movies on your desktop for free

EMDB is a small utility to keep track of your DVD collection. With an automatic import from the database of IMDB, thumbnail cover preview, a loan tracker, and search function.  Extremely lightweight in resource hogging, but packs a great punch. 

8. How to analyze your rental habits on NetFlix

If you’re a user of DVD rental service NetFlix, FeedFliks is a free service which allows you to visualize your Netflix rental habits showing you your DVD returns per week, relative cost per movie, and average time you keep your DVDs.  It also helps you compare what other NetFlixers are doing as well.

9. How to find movies you want to watch, playing on TV

The idea behind LocateTV is simple – to let you find TV shows available where you live in the world.  Type in the name of a TV show, movie or actor, and LocateTV will find it for you: On TV, Online and on DVD so you know how and when to catch it.  Currently only works in the US, UK and Ireland.

10. How to discover movies you would probably enjoy

Liveplasma is a free service which maps out related movies based on your input.  Just put in a film you enjoy, and it will show you films which are like it, and help you find and discover films you may enjoy.

11. How to connect with other movie fans

Movietally is simply a collection of movies. Catalogue, share, and discover the movies you like and hook up with movie fans around the world.

12. Where to find the ultimate movie guide

Just like 99% of the Internet population, You’ve probably used or heard of IMDb before – the site which contains info about all things movies….but since this is a definitive list – an ultimate guide, it would be a sin to leave out what is practically the Internet’s default movie guide.

13. The quickest way to search IMDB through your iPhone

The IMDB for Springlets app is a free iPhone app which allow you to quickly search IMDB.  Simply tap the icon on your home screen, and a search box will pop up where you can search right away.  No need to wait for the IMDB site to load up.

14. Where to download movies which have fallen into public domain

Films which copyright period lapses, fall into public domain and are free for download.  Public Domain Torrents is a website which hosts almost a thousand bittorrent files which you can download for free.  As you might imagine, most of these files are very old, but you’ll be able to get your hands on some classics like Night of the Living Dead, and Charlie Chaplin flicks.

15. How to view movie trailers online

 TrailerSpy is a great way to watch movie trailers online.  Also, it has expanded its content to even include, game trailers, TV trailers, book trailers, and even music trailers

16. How to participate in an open source film

Stray Cinema is an open source film. Here you are able to download and re-edit raw footage from a film shot in Barcelona. This will provide people from all over the world with an opportunity to create their own version of the film.

17. How to help fund an indie film

Movie Mogul Fund is a community-generated film fund which invites its members to select and back new filmmaking talent and claim their slice of the pie should that film become profitable. 

18. How to share reviews of movies with your friends on facebook

Flixter movies is by far my favorite Facebook app for movies.  You can rate movies and share what you saw or want to see with friends, compare your movie taste and take over 100,000 movie trivia quizzes.  Also important to note, is that the app is the most popular movie app out there, which means it has the highest possibility of your friends are using it and you can interact with them there.

19. How to make Wikipedia links appear in IMDb pages

If you’re using Firefox want to add another layer of quick reference links when you’re looking up movies, this greasemonkey script adds Wikipedia links to IMDB movie pages.

20. How to download the most ambitious Star Wars fan films ever

An action packed 47 minutes with absolutely wonderful CGI and special effects, Star Wars Revelations is a milestone in fan films.  Since its release in 2005, it was produced on a shoestring fan budget.  Absolutely free, you can stream it, or download it from the site. 

21. How to save time and effort getting info from IMDb

IMDb Preview is a Firefox extension which allows you to save time when looking up info from IMDb. Just stand on an IMDb link (from ANY site) and a handy popup will show you all the information you need so you never need to pop open the IMDb website.

22. How to Turn a Video File (DivX, AVI etc) into a DVD

I’m fortunate enough to own a DVD player which can play video files like DivX and AVI directly on my TV, but what if you just want to create a proper DVD or VCD so it would be able to run on regular players?  Avi2DVD is the perfect tool for that task.  What it does is convert your video file into a ISO file which you can then burn into your disk with any basic DVD Burner.

23. How to join a movie lover community

Whether it’s connecting with other movie buffs, tracking your movie collection or discussing a film, iheartmovies is a great platform to complement your movie experience.

24. How to participate in a cool movie ranking experiment

When people rate movies individually with some sort of point value – using stars, a 1 to 10 scale, percentages, or even tomatoes – They tend to have different standards and benchmarks when assigning their point system.  This is why all-encompassing "Best Movies Of All Time" lists, seem to fall short all too often.  FlickChart runs a pairing system that shows you two movies, and you decide which of the two you prefer.  The more you play, the more it learns more about your tastes.  FlickChart is in private beta – but you can sign up directly here (Thanks LifeHacker).

25. How to quickly grab subtitles for your movies

Subdownloader is an elegant solution which can update all your movies within any given directory with subtitles at one go.  It claims to be so fast it can plough through 27 GB movies in 7 seconds and get entire series seasons subtitles in less than 1 minute.

26. How to learn what DVDs your friends own, and show off your own collection

More than a vanity trip, Swagroll helps you and your friends understand what each other owns.  This of course means easier DVD swapping between friends.  Swagroll also lets you handle music and books.

27. How to quickly look up movie showtimes on Google

If you just type in ‘showtimes’ in Google, you’ll be taken to a page which shows you movie showtimes from all your local cinemas.  Google auto-detects where you’re coming from based on your IP Address and will filter our only cinemas near you.  Not only does it show you movie schedules for the next 4 days, it also summarizes movie reviews for you.    

28. How to generate an RSS feed of what’s playing in your favorite local theatre

Take the Google tip above one step further, and isnoop has generated an RSS feed which helps you get live updates of whatever is playing so you can throw your local theatre’s screen times in your favorite RSS reader.

29. How to download movie trailers in FULL HD

Trailerfreaks is a straightforward site which allows you to watch and download movie trailers in 480p, 720p and 1080p resolutions. 

30. How to find out endings of films

Have you ever fallen asleep and missed the ending of a show?  The movie spoiler is an excellent site which reveals the entire story from head to tail.  Not only is it good for endings, it also helps you understand crucial bits in confusing films. It is also a great reason for walking out of films which are really bad – at least you know what happened in the end.

What movie resources do you use?  Tell us in the comments!