Is there a weirder streaming service than Amazon Prime Video? No. No, there isn’t. Because how do you even describe it? It’s like Netflix, but also not like Netflix. It’s a “free with your subscription” service, but also very much not free. It’s woven into an interface that also incorporates movie and TV rentals and purchases, along with other streaming services you can subscribe to. Forget weird; Prime Video is kind of a mess. But it’s also a pretty solid value, especially considering everything else that’s bundled with it. Strap in, because this is going to get wild. Here’s my Amazon Prime Video review.
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Rick Broida/Yahoo
VERDICT: Annoying though it may be in certain areas, like suddenly charging extra for ad-free viewing, it’s hard to deny Prime Video’s bang for the buck — because it’s woven into Amazon Prime, all for less than the price of Netflix.
- Price includes 4K and up to three simultaneous streams
- Extensive library of quality movies and TV shows, including originals and exclusives
- Over 500 ad-supported live TV channels
- Price break if you pay annually
- Multiple options for closed-captioning text
- Now plays commercials — unless you pay extra
- Interface displays lots of content that’s not included in subscription
- Misleading ratings system
- Poorly designed search tool
- No way to browse by category
Amazon Prime Video: Is it free or isn’t it?
There are two ways to think about Prime Video. First, as something included with an Amazon Prime subscription, the one that nets you fast shipping, unlimited photo storage, discounted prescription drugs, GrubHub+ and so on. If you’re already subscribing to Prime anyway for one or more of those things, Prime Video feels like a free extra.
Second, you can think of it like Max or Netflix: A streaming service that’s home to loads of classic and modern TV shows and movies, along with a generous helping of exclusive, original content (such as Reacher and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). It’s priced in the same ballpark as those other streamers — but you also get all the aforementioned extras.
In other words, Prime Video is either a free perk of your Amazon Prime subscription or vice-versa. However you choose to look at it, you’ll pay $14.99 per month — or $139 for an annual subscription, which amortizes out to $11.58 per month.
Wait, you can watch Severance on Prime Video? Yes, if you subscribe to Apple TV+ — by way of Amazon. If you already have an Apple TV+ subscription, you can’t access it here. Yes, this is confusing. (Rick Broida/Yahoo)
To put that in perspective, Netflix (which is just a streaming service, let’s remember) charges $17.99 for its Standard plan — which, incidentally, limits you to 1080p streaming on two devices. Same deal with Max, except $16.99. A Prime subscription, on the other hand, includes 4K and allows up to three simultaneous streams.
Now for the bad news: In 2024, Amazon started added commercial breaks to nearly all content — this despite a long history of ad-free streaming. (Enough users were furious about the change that they filed a lawsuit, but it was dismissed earlier this year.) If you want to reclaim that commercial-free viewing experience, it’ll cost you an extra $3 per month.
I’m as annoyed as anyone about this surcharge, but will grudgingly admit the numbers still work out favorably: $17.99 per month is less than the Netflix and Max Premium plans ($24.99 and $20.99, respectively) that include 4K and extra simultaneous streams.
Of course, content is king; it doesn’t matter if Prime costs less if it also delivers less. Let’s see “what’s on” at Amazon.
Amazon Prime Video: What you can watch
As noted above, the Prime Video streaming library contains a wealth of movies, TV shows, documentaries and so on, mixing both modern and classic fare with a robust collection of Amazon originals. Want to rewatch all eight seasons of Monk? Settle in for Oscar winners like Oppenheimer and Poor Things? Indulge your Lord of the Rings fandom with original series The Rings of Power? Prime streams all of that and lots, lots more. (Do yourself a huge favor and put The Outlaws, another original, at the top of your watchlist.)
While it’s silly to say one streaming service or another has “the best content,” I do think Amazon does a good job of curation: There’s a lot of quality stuff here, with little of the D-grade “filler” you often see elsewhere. And if you like old movies, Prime’s library includes more classics than you’ll find on Netflix, Hulu or Paramount+. I’m a huge Charlie Chaplin fan; at this writing, Prime Video has City Lights, The Gold Rush, Modern Times and more. (Interestingly, the oldest movie currently available on Netflix is 1973’s The Sting.)
The service now offers a mix of live sports as well, including soccer, Thursday Night Football and, starting later this year, around 60 NBA basketball games and the NBA playoffs.
Prime Video is home to over 500 (!) live TV channels — all ad-supported, of course, but also arranged within a neat, easy-to-navigate interface. (Rick Broida/Yahoo)
Speaking of live, Prime hosts a whopping 500-plus ad-supported live channels across 20 categories: movies, reality, food, family, comedy and so on. There are numerous local- and headline-news stations, dozens of Spanish-language channels and countless “thematic” ones: PBS Drama, Family Feud, SNL Vault, HBO Boxing, Modern Marvels, etc. It’s reminiscent of Pluto TV, Philo Free Channels and so on — but Prime’s channel count is significantly higher.
Prime is also a video store: You can rent and/or buy movies and TV shows, most notably newer releases that aren’t yet streaming on the likes of Netflix, Hulu or Max, but also plenty of older titles as well. (I recently rented the superb documentary, Searching for Sugar Man, which didn’t have a free-streaming option elsewhere.) Of course, you don’t need a Prime subscription in order to rent movies from Amazon.
Finally, you can add a-la-carte subscriptions to many other streaming services — major ones like Apple TV+ and Max, smaller ones like BritBox and PBS Masterpiece — the idea being to bring more of your viewing options under the same roof. There’s usually no price advantage — Apple TV+ costs $9.99 per month whether you get it from Apple proper or Prime Video — but Amazon does occasionally have deals on short-term subscriptions. During Prime Day or Cyber Monday, for example, you might be able to add PBS Masterpiece for just $1.99/month for the first two months.
For anyone frustrated at having to constantly jump from one service to another and struggling to remember which content is where, adding these subscriptions to Prime could be useful.
But there’s a downside to all these integrations and extras, and it mostly has to do with how they’re presented. Read on.
Amazon Prime Video: Is it easy to use?
In testing Prime Video, I spent most of my time in the Google TV and Roku versions of the service’s app. I loved how easy it was to sign into my account using an onscreen QR code and my phone, and wish every other streaming service would adopt this method.
On the flipside, I wish Prime Video would take interface cues from other streamers and collect all its menu options in one place. As it stands, you’ll find Search, Main Menu, My Stuff and Settings on the left, and categorical viewing options — Movies, TV Shows, Sports, etc. — up top. Why the separation? Why not put everything on the left? (I don’t like top menus because they disappear once you start scrolling down.) Prime Video’s UI, while attractive overall, is illogical.
It’s also missing a few key staples, including support for voice-powered search (this is the company behind Alexa, after all) and filters you can apply to the movie and TV pages. If you want to see all of Prime Video’s comedies, for example, you can’t; you simply have to scroll down and try to find a Comedy row. And from there you can only scroll right to peruse the selection; there’s no “view all” subsection.
Prime Video’s search feature is surprisingly bad, with no support for voice and no dynamically displayed results (except for the tiny text row up top). (Rick Broida/Yahoo)
The bigger problem is the way Prime Video content — the stuff that’s included as part of your subscription — is mixed together with content that costs extra: stuff you can rent, stuff you can buy, stuff available only with a subscription to another service.
Indeed, it feels a bit like a bait-and-switch: You subscribe to Prime, open up the Prime Video app expecting something akin to Netflix, then see countless movies and TV shows that require more money. I will say Amazon has made much clearer what’s “included with Prime” and what requires a purchase or subscription, but I can understand users’ indignation over seeing nearly as much of the latter mixed in with the former.
One other nitpick: If you already have, say, an Apple TV+ subscription through Apple, you can’t access those shows via the Prime Video app. That’s possible only if your subscription is paid for via Prime. But you’ll still see Apple TV+ shows in the menus, which can be either confusing or infuriating.
Not everything that’s available on Prime Video is included with a Prime Video subscription. Many titles must be rented or purchased. Yes, this is confusing. (Rick Broida/Yahoo)
I should also note that if you own a Fire TV streaming device or a TV with the Fire TV operating system built in, be prepared for even more confusion, because that interface reflects yet another mixture of Amazon Prime content and that of other streaming services — Netflix, Hulu, Max, etc. — along with their apps. But, wait, there’s more: Within that Amazon-created (but very different) Fire TV interface lies a Prime Video app, same as the one found on Google TV and Roku. This is the Möbius strip of streaming; it makes my head hurt.
Thankfully, the actual nuts and bolts of the Prime Video interface are solid, with a large, detailed preview of any item you select and a familiar, easy-to-navigate playback menu once you start it. I was especially impressed by the numerous closed-captioning options: You can choose from four styles and five sizes for the onscreen text.
I’ve also long appreciated Prime Video’s X-Ray feature, which is great for answering those inevitable Where do I know that actor from? questions. Available in most (but not all) movies and TV shows and accessible just by pressing pause, X-Ray provides names, photos and brief bios of the actors in a particular scene or the entire production.
I’m not saying you can’t live with Prime Video the way it is now, just that it’s unnecessarily complicated in certain respects. Anyone who struggles with TV technology is likely to encounter some aggravation here.
And there’s one other issue that bugs me nearly as much.
Amazon Prime Video: What’s up with the reviews?
I noticed something curious while browsing the Prime Video catalog: Nearly every movie and TV series showed at least a 4-star rating (out of 5). That includes such notorious flops as John Carter (4.5 stars, according to Amazon) and The Adventures of Pluto Nash (also 4.5 stars). I found only a handful of entries with 3.5 stars, and zero with any fewer than that.
The Joker sequel (which is not included with Prime Video but is available to rent, buy or watch on Max, with optional subscription) has a 31% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but Amazon’s rating is 4.5 stars. Indeed, nearly everything on Prime Video has 4, 4.5 or 5 stars. What’s that about? (Rick Broida/Yahoo)
So, what’s going on here? How is it that an Adam Sandler bomb like Little Nicky scores 5 stars? (And for that matter, why does Apple’s smash-hit Severance show up with only 4 stars? Why is Oscar-winner Anora among the few with 3.5?) This is Amazon’s verbatim explanation for how ratings are calculated: “We don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness.”
Um, what? Many, if not most, people make quick judgments about entertainment based on the number of stars listed below the title. And it’s generally accepted that a star rating absolutely is a “simple average” based on either critics’ or audience scores. But recency? And whether or not it was purchased? I’m scratching my head over why those factors would be part of the calculation.
I’m also flummoxed by “analyzing reviews to verify trustworthiness.” Amazon has long been criticized for allowing fake reviews to influence product ratings; I question exactly how the company is evaluating video reviews and what impact that analysis has on the final score. (And are “untrustworthy” movie/TV reviews even a problem? Did Adam Sandler-loving hackers conspire to make Little Nicky a 5-star film?)
Bottom line: It find it misleading — if not outright deceptive — that almost every movie and TV show in the Prime library has 4, 4.5 or 5 stars. For what it’s worth, if you click through to the “info” section for a title, you’ll usually see an IMDb score as well — frequently a much lower one. That score is a “weighted average of all user votes,” which is exactly what you’d expect. (To make it even weirder, Amazon owns IMDb.)
I’ve reached out to Amazon for clarification on all this and will update the review if and when I get a response.
Amazon Prime Video: Should you subscribe?
Like the company behind it, Prime Video is not without its problems. Navigating the interface requires more clicks and scrolling than I’d prefer, and the surfeit of additional content that’s not included in a subscription leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I’m also still irritated that Prime Video used to be commercial-free but no longer is — unless you pay extra.
That said, If I’m judging the service solely on the merits of its content and value, I’m obliged to give it high marks. There’s an abundance of good stuff to watch here, plus the convenience of quick and easy access to rentals and purchases. Even if you pony up the extra $3 for ad-free viewing, it’s still cheaper than comparable plans from Netflix and Max. Plus, you get all the amenities afforded to you by an Amazon Prime subscription.
