Can I save my own movie files to my icloud?

I've got a big hard drive of movies that I want to move into my icloud storage so I don't have to keep plugging in my external hd. Everytime I move the files to my icloud folder it saves to my mac's HD. From my understanding icloud isn't exactly an external cloud storage. It just backs up data that comes from your mac (not sure if I explained that correctly). So, is it not possible to move all my movie files into my icloud acount? Again, I think it will only allow me to access the movie files that are ALREADY on my macs hd. Some guidance would be great.