Why Cinephiles Need to Have Amazon Prime Video
Forget the Criterion Channel, real cinephiles need Amazon Prime Video. As Jo Koy would shout into the Golden Globes ether: “Shut up! Slow down!” We’ll explain.
Prime Video has the most movies available of any U.S. streaming service, according to new data from streaming observer Reelgood — and it’s not even close. Amazon’s SVOD service (soon to be SAVOD; there’s also the fully ad-supported Freevee) has 11,923 movies in its present-day library. Netflix, a favorite destination of Sony Pictures, is next with 4,013; not far behind is Peacock with 3,939 movies.
More from IndieWire
Peacock is NBCUniversal’s streaming service, so it has a lot of Universal Pictures, Focus Features films, DreamWorks Animation movies, Illumination, and others.
Disney (Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century, Searchlight, Marvel, Lucasfilm) has a claim to leapfrog everyone but Amazon. Hulu has 2,422 movies (4th place) and Disney+ has 1,432 (6th); combined, as they are in beta form for Disney Bundle subscribers, Disney has 4,492 movies on streaming. Hulu and Disney+ will be formally merged on March 24.
Until then, Max has the fifth most movies on a single streaming service with 2,070. Paramount+ with Showtime has 1,173 movies, many of them from Paramount Pictures. Apple TV+ has a mere 75 films in its library. That’s not a typo.
Apple TV (not TV+) and Amazon Prime Video both have plenty of movies — including new releases yet to hit SVOD and AVOD — for rent or purchase. This study does not count those films, just the ones included with your monthly subscription.
But as any proper cinephile will tell you, it is quality that counts, not quantity. Prime Video does well here, but it meets its match in the Warner Bros.-fueled Max.
Max has the most “high-quality movies,” defined by Reelgood as averaging a 7.5+ rating on IMDb (with at least 300 votes), with 481; Prime Video is runner-up with 439. Amazon acquired MGM and its impressive library in 2022 for $8.5 billion.
Warning: Amazon also has a lot of crap. Prime Video has about 9,000 movies rated below a 6.0 (or with fewer than 300 votes, which is important.) Peacock is next with more than about 2,600 low-rated (or barely rated) movies.
It’s a new year, let’s get back to the optimism: Netflix has 375 high-quality movies, Hulu has 247, Peacock has 199, and Disney+ has 169. A Hulu/Disney+ combo would yield 416 high-quality films.
Here, we should point out that Reelgood did not focus on films exclusive to one platform, so there could be some crossover between various services.
Amazon Prime Video is also the value-play here. Per monthly-subscription dollar, Prime Video ($8.99/month) has 4x the number of films (1,327) as its closest competitor, Peacock (329 movies; Peacock Premium is $11.99/month). Netflix is third with 259 films per dollar ($15.49/month for the purposes of this study).
Reelgood exclusively focused on ad-free tiers for its per-dollar math. Ads are coming to Amazon on January 29; to remain ad-free will cost another $2.99.
On that basis, Prime Video has the most high-quality movies (49), Max is second (30), and Netflix (24) is third.
So save your money, watch some good movies, and enjoy fast, free shipping on batteries.
Best of IndieWire
The Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 54 Films the Director Wants You to See
Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
