What streaming services are good these days?

[olliebean]

Thinking about exchanging Netflix for something cheaper. The housemate has Prime, so I already get Prime Video for free. I presume it's between Apple and Disney, or is there anything else worth looking at?

[Proactive]

Now TV has got some good stuff.

[mjwilson]

I think it's probably worth switching over every so often - get Apple (say) for a few months until you've seen what you're interested in then swap to something else.

I only have Netflix at the moment for Better Call Saul, then I'll be on Now for House of the Dragon.

[Pink Gregory]

BFI Player is quite good, there's a healthy variety of films in the subscription which is still only £4.99 a month.  Mostly old stuff though.

Quite underdeveloped compared to other services, they've only recently added a watchlist and of course there's far less content than any of the big services.  But for that price it's hard to argue with.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm a big fan of Mubi. Mubi Go's a pretty good del as well if you live near a competing cinema.

[olliebean]

I think it's probably worth switching over every so often - get Apple (say) for a few months until you've seen what you're interested in then swap to something else.

Yeah, I guess that's why most of them (not Netflix) offer cheaper prices if you pay for a whole year.

I'm mostly looking for something with good telly series on it; films are a bonus, but I don't watch them often enough to get a films-only service.

Apple has Disney beat on price; also I guess Disney is mostly films and Marvel shit, or am I wrong about that? No free trial and no browsing the catalogue before paying rubs me up the wrong way, frankly.

[Dex Sawash]

They're all so easy to turn on/off I cycle through 6-7 different ones 2-3 at a time.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I guess Disney is mostly films and Marvel shit, or am I wrong about that?

I think that's the case in America, where stuff for adults is shunted into Hulu. It's better here in blighty, as it's got the stuff from the Fox merger (but not all of it, yet).

[shiftwork2]

Apple has one series definitely worth your time - Severance.  Other than that there are myriad 3/5 efforts (Shining Girls, For All Mankind) that may cut it if you have a particular interest in the genre.  Ted Lasso was initially promising but woefully lost its way in S2.

In short - worth a fiver for a month or perhaps two.

[Sebastian Cobb]

They're all so easy to turn on/off I cycle through 6-7 different ones 2-3 at a time.

And some of them will offer you upto a years half price as a retention beg if you try to leave.

[mjwilson]

Apple has one series definitely worth your time - Severance.  Other than that there are myriad 3/5 efforts (Shining Girls, For All Mankind) that may cut it if you have a particular interest in the genre.  Ted Lasso was initially promising but woefully lost its way in S2.

In short - worth a fiver for a month or perhaps two.

Servant's quite fun.

[Captain Z]

Slsk

[mjwilson]

I think that's the case in America, where stuff for adults is shunted into Hulu. It's better here in blighty, as it's got the stuff from the Fox merger (but not all of it, yet).

The Americans, Only Murders in the Building, Atlanta, The Orville,  Dopesick, Blackish, American Horror Story, Malcolm in the Middle, all on D+ here.

[olliebean]

Come to think of it, if I pay for the whole year I can get Apple and Disney together for less than the cost of Netflix.

[steveh]

Prime Video has got worse since Amazon launched their ad-supported Freevee service as I believe distributors can make more money from that now than with Prime so a lot of things have moved.

BFI Player I like, but it's not very consistent in adding films so some months you get a lot of things and others almost nothing. There's usually one or two recent-ish new films a month to make it worthwhile. If you go direct I think it's still only available over the web but there is an Amazon channel. That and Mubi I usually subscribe to for a few months each year.

Have recently subscribed to Arrow Player, from the distributor of the same name, which is only £4.99 a month. It pushes the horror side but there's a lot of other interesting films from their archive and some TV shows, including a lot of Scandinoir stuff. You don't get the full range of extras as if you'd bought one of their Blu Rays but you can watch the films from a box set for way less than buying it. They have Amazon channels too, but going direct gets you lots more films and TV shows for the money - think it's around 650 titles.

Now TV are I think the only service that offers retention deals. If you cancel the service and say it's too expensive they will usually offer you a better price. I think I'm currently paying £5.99 a month for the entertainment pack rather than £9.99. With the rise of other services, the film pack is a lot less attractive in its range of titles than it once was, but they do have regular deals.

[dissolute ocelot]

Prime Video has got worse since Amazon launched their ad-supported Freevee service as I believe distributors can make more money from that now than with Prime so a lot of things have moved.

Prime seems to rely on a small number of "event" things rather than the depth of content you get with Netflix or Disney+. So there's some big genre series like The Boys and Jack Reacher, and the upcoming Lord of the Rings, some mediocre "big movies" like The Tomorrow War, and a few series like The Wheels of Time that failed to be the next Game of Thrones. It also seems to skew more "male" than Netflix with its romcoms.

I think All4 is probably the best in range and for British content, if you can stand the same few adverts repeated over and over. (There is pay-for-ad-free though.)

[Uncle TechTip]

Slsk

An alternative is kodi plus one of the many add-ons eg th3 crew. I'm working my way through Seinfeld, I don't have to download a thing. Plays straight from file lockers.

[Joe Qunt]

I enjoy Plex. It's free and has a wide variety of very shit films with the occasional decent film thrown in. If you can find it, there was a film about killer monkeys starring the old hotel guy from Grand Budapest Hotel.

[Replies From View]

The Americans, Only Murders in the Building, Atlanta, The Orville,  Dopesick, Blackish, American Horror Story, Malcolm in the Middle, all on D+ here.

One quarter of all their titles have "American" or "Americans" in them, not just this sample.  It gets quite wearying with The American Bootlicker and Americans Unite and American Hodder and American Loitering Tinderswarks all currently in the top ten.

[Dex Sawash]

On the apples, S2 of See is coming up.
The entire world, except me, hated it. I thought it was a solid 3/5

[Ignatius_S]

...Apple has Disney beat on price; also I guess Disney is mostly films and Marvel shit, or am I wrong about that? No free trial and no browsing the catalogue before paying rubs me up the wrong way, frankly.

There are quite a few sites that list what's on Disney+ and also what's being added. Used to find these sort of sites very useful when I watched Netflix more as it was the best way of finding out what's leaving the service.

[olliebean]

There are quite a few sites that list what's on Disney+ and also what's being added. Used to find these sort of sites very useful when I watched Netflix more as it was the best way of finding out what's leaving the service.

Yeah, I found one, tbh there wasn't enough on the list that I'm interested in to make it a worthwhile proposition for me.

[Replies From View]

They should just have one service with everything on, and make it free and without advertising.

[Captain Z]

An alternative is kodi plus one of the many add-ons eg th3 crew. I'm working my way through Seinfeld, I don't have to download a thing. Plays straight from file lockers.

Thanks for the tip, I'm vaguely aware of kodi but never looked into it.

[olliebean]

I've tried those Kodi addons before, but found them very frustrating - it's awkward trying to find the thing you want, and then loads of things don't load, or turn out to be crap quality. It's easier just to download things on the torrents, and play them locally via Plex.

[thenoise]

TROMA Now! is good if you have terrible taste.

[Dr Rock]

I think Netflix is pretty shit and I cancel it every few months, but it does have a lot of stand-up specials and I've discovered some good ones amongst the dross. Do any other streaming things have a good selection of this sort of thing?

[olliebean]

I think Netflix is pretty shit and I cancel it every few months, but it does have a lot of stand-up specials and I've discovered some good ones amongst the dross. Do any other streaming things have a good selection of this sort of thing?

https://nextupcomedy.com/ will be what you're after, I should think.

[holyzombiejesus]

Quick question about Mubi. Would a subscription direct to the Mubi site carry across so I can watch through Prime or would I need to watch via my Mubi account (ie laptop)?

[notjosh]

Apple has one series definitely worth your time - Severance.  Other than that there are myriad 3/5 efforts (Shining Girls, For All Mankind) that may cut it if you have a particular interest in the genre.

For All Mankind is a 5/5 in my book - one of my favourite series of the last few years. Season 1 was a little slow, but the world-building and character investment really pays off.


No one has mentioned ITVX. I got it cheap (£4/m) for a year after it absorbed the Britbox catalogue. Feels like it has every classic British comedy from the 70s-90s, loads of classic dramas (House of Cards, Our Friends in the North, Tinker Tailor etc etc) and some decent British films too.

Also features a few specials from NextUp, some modern US comedies like Community and Superstore, and a rotating selection of newer Hollywood films, along with whatever shite gets broadcast on ITV nowadays.