Over the last couple of years the quality of watching movies at home has improved quite a bit. Netflix and On Demand have led the way, but there's many other services now available. Here's a quick rundown of some of the best options and how they can be accessed.
We also rate the best and worst part of the services below
Free Services
These services do not cost anything and can be accessed in a few different ways
Crackle
Crackle has about 300 movies availble and there's a few decent ones sprinkled in there. The catch here is that there are commercials at various spots through the film. It is available on your computer, iOS and Android devices, Roku, and some Smart TV's and Blu-Ray players. A couple of movies I've watched on this lately are "Big Fish" and "Stranger Than Fiction."
On Demand (Various Cable providers)
There's a bunch of free movies available On Demand. The selection depends on the cable provider you have. Comcast has much wider selection than other services like Verizon. Depending on the service you are using these movies are available on your TV, iOS and Android devices, and your computer. I have Comcast right now their iPad app has a whole bunch of movies and all the episodes of many TV Shows.
Subscription Services
These services let you pay a fee and then give you an access to their movie library. Right now there's three big players in this area, and a few small ones. We'll skip over the small ones as their selections overlap the others for the most part.
Netflix – Watch Instantly ($7.99/month)
This is by far the best service of all that available. It is realitively cheap, the quality of the streaming is the best, and the seleciton is strong, but could use some work. And it is available on just about every device and TV appliance.
Some of the best movies new movies that are available:
Some older movies that are great (There's tons of good stuff from the 70's and 80's):
- The Bad News Bears
- Trading Places
- Beverly Hills Cop II (is awesome!)
I was having trouble finding good Watch Instantly movies so a while ago on the Netflix site so I built out an app to more easily search for movies. Here's a list of the top rated movies I found on there. You can play around with the app to get the top comedies, actioners and a few other categories.
And here's a list of alot more streaming options that you can filter by year, subject, actor, or director.
Amazon Prime ($79/year, $6.67/month)
Amazon offers free streaming of good amount of movies and TV shows that are freely available to subscribers of their Prime service. This service is available on iOS and Android devices, Roku, and an increasing number of TV's and Blu-Rays.
Some of the movies available:
- Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
- Thor
- Hugo
- Crash
Hulu Plus ($7.99/month)
Hulu Plus has been a good challenger for the top 2. It is mostly geared toward TV Shows but also has a wide selection of movies. If you are looking for the newest TV episodes, this is your pick.
HBOGo (Comes with purchase of HBO through cable provider)
This service is free if you are a subscriber of HBO on any of the major cable providers and it is Awesome! Every episode for just about every series that has been on the network. Lots of movies also. Great stuff!
On Demand (For subscribed premiun channels)
On your TV the OnDemand carries some of the movies available on each channel. Some of the cable providers also have a tablet app that allows for even more access. Comcast's app in particular is very good. It has almost as much HBO conent as HBOGo!
Pay Per View Services
These services let you pay to rent (for a period of time), or buy, a movie from their library. There are more options here than the other places. Here's a quick run down on them. For the most part the prices on the different services are the same if you want to rent the movie.
Amazon
Amazon has a very wide selection of movies to pay for. You can watch on your computer, iOS and Android devices, Roku, and many smart tvs.
Apple
Apple has a wide selection that you can watch on iOS devices, your computer, and Apple TV. It works differently from the rest is in that you have to download the content which leads to a higher quality picture in many cases.
Google Play
One of the new players is this service that right now works on Android devices, a few TV's, and computers. A growing selection.
YouTube
They are now in this business and with their brand will likely be a major player going forward. For the most part it is limited to watching on your computer now. But it is expanding.
Rating The Best of These Services
Here's a quick list of what I see as the best performer is differnent areas.
The Best All Around: Netflix Watch Instantly — Good selection, great video quality, works everywhere, best overall watching experience. And if you have kids, it works out great for when you are on the road as they have a decent seleciton for children and it works on your Android or iPhone.
Best Price: Amazon Prime — at $79/per year, it is the cheapest of the streaming options and for that you get free shipping on most Amazon purchases. it is hard to beat that.
Best for the Price: Netflix Watch Instantly at $7.99/month is a great deal. Especially as they improve their selction.
Highest Quality Picture: iTunes — iTunes uses a downloaded file so the picture quality is higher in most cases.
Widest Selection: Amazon — They have tons of movies available. iTunes probably is second.
Best New Release Availability: iTunes, OnDemand, and Hulu Plus — These have the widest selection of newer titles as they become available.
Worst New Release Availability: Netflix Watch Instantly — Very few quality movies are available when they first come out.
Most Accessible: Netflix Watch Instantly — It works seemlessly on just about any device. HuluPlus comes in a close second
Least Accessible: iTunes/Google Play/Youtube — For the most part iTunes only works with Apple products or on computers with iTunes and it will probably stay that way. Google Play and Youtube are limited right now but will likely extend to more devices in the near future.
Most Addictive Service: TV series on Netflx Watch Instantly and HBOGo. You can watch whole series through these services and it will melt your mind if you are not careful.