Pros & Cons
-
- Excellent original content
- 4K and HDR streaming
- Select live sports
- Supports offline downloads, multiple viewer profiles, and audio descriptions
- Lets you rent or buy movies and TV shows
- Streams select movies currently in theaters
-
- Not as many high-quality original TV shows as competitors
- 4K content is locked to the Video Ultra tier
Amazon Prime Video Specs
| 4K Streaming | Yes |
| Ads | |
| Anime | |
| Audio Descriptions | |
| Concurrent Streams | 5 |
| DVR Storage & Retention | None |
| Live TV | |
| Monday Night Football | No |
| Offline Downloads on Mobile | |
| On-Demand Movies and TV Shows | |
| Original Programming | |
| Parental Control Tools | Device-based or Kids Mode |
| Rentals and Purchases | Built-in options |
| Sports Coverage | Thursday Night Football, plus National sports (via Channel add-ons) |
| Starting Price | $8.99 per month |
| Sunday Football | None |
| Sunday Night Football | No |
| Supported Platforms | Media Streaming Devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku), Microsoft Store, Mobile (Android and iOS), Game Consoles (PlayStation and Xbox), Smart TVs, and Web |
| Thursday Night Football | Prime Video |
| Top Original Movies | Blow the Man Down, Honey Boy, Manchester by the Sea, My Spy, Troop Zero, The Aeronauts, The Big Sick, The Sound of Metal, and The Report |
| Top Original Shows | Bosch, Catastrophe, Electric Dreams, Fleabag, Good Omens, Hanna, Homecoming, Hunters, Jack Ryan, Tales From The Loop, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Patriot, The Boys, Undone, Upload, and Utopia |
I cut the cord years ago, so trust me, you don't need to worry about missing the latest TV shows and movies. You can stay on top of the watercooler chatter by subscribing to Amazon Prime Video, a video streaming service that offers a vast library of high-quality original content, many movies and TV shows, offline downloads, and 4K streaming. On top of that, the service hosts an impressive catalog that's available for rent or purchase at reasonable prices. However, Amazon Prime Video doesn't have as many notable, high-quality shows as Editors' Choice winners Hulu and Netflix.
Plans and Prices: 4K Is Locked to the Prime Video Ultra Tier
There are two ways to get access to Amazon's video content: a standalone Prime Video subscription or an Amazon Prime subscription. A dedicated Prime Video subscription costs $8.99 per month and includes access to Amazon's streaming video library. Alternatively, you can pay $14.99 per month (or $139 per year) for an Amazon Prime subscription that includes Prime Video, as well as other perks such as free two-day (and same-day, when available) shipping, Amazon Music Prime (not to be confused with Amazon Music Unlimited), a Twitch Prime membership, and discounts at Whole Foods. Students can sign up for an Amazon Prime subscription at a discounted rate of $7.49 per month or $69 per year.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)Like many other video streaming services, Amazon Prime Video lets you add subscriptions to different content providers for a monthly fee. For example, you can find Cinemax, PBS Documentaries, and Starz add-ons for roughly $4 to $10 per month. Note that these Prime Channels are not available for standalone Prime Video subscribers; you need a full Amazon Prime account to add this content.
Prime Video includes commercials in its streaming content. To remove ads, you must pay an additional $4.99 per month for the commercial-free Prime Video Ultra plan, which is in line with many other recent streaming price hikes. That tier is now the exclusive home to Prime Video's 4K content, which is sure to annoy longtime subscribers. Amazon's move aligns it with other platforms, such as HBO Max and Netflix, which have paywalled their higher-resolution streams behind premium plans. To boost the appeal of Prime Video Ultra, the plan will support up to five concurrent streams, up from three. Ad-supported Prime Video users can stream concurrently on up to four devices.
Amazon offers a catalog of entirely free streaming content, largely drawn from its now-defunct spin-off service, Amazon Freevee. Housed within the larger Prime Video ecosystem, Amazon has a rotating selection of ad-supported free hit movies and TV shows, from Logan to Mad Men. It even features spin-offs of original Prime Video shows, like Bosch: Legacy.
Prime Video works on web browsers, Android and iOS devices, Windows, media streaming devices (including Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku), game consoles (PlayStation and Xbox), and smart TVs. If you no longer want or need your subscription, check out how to cancel your Amazon Prime account. This will also remove your access to Prime Video.
What Can You Watch on Prime Video?
Although Amazon's video push began as a place to purchase and watch movies and TV shows, it eventually embraced unlimited, buffet-style streaming for a single monthly fee. The streamer offers excellent original content, including Bosch, The Boys, Catastrophe, Electric Dreams, Fallout, Fleabag, Invincible, Jack Ryan, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In addition, Amazon is working on adaptations of acclaimed video games Disco Elysium and God of War. Although it's not as large as HBO Max's or Netflix's collections, many original shows are on par in terms of quality. Naturally, you can view more than Amazon's original shows on Prime Video, including The Americans, Chuck, Burn Notice, Hannibal, and Mr. Robot, at no additional cost.
Prime Video's library also includes a rotating library of popular movies, plus a surprising number of classic films. Like Netflix, it also produces original movies, including Blow the Man Down, The Big Sick, Honey Boy, Manchester by the Sea, My Spy, The Report, Troop Zero, and The Vast of Night. Many of these movies have not fared as well as Netflix's The Irishman, El Camino, or Roma, but Sound of Metal won an Academy Award.
Amazon owns MGM, expanding MGM+ and Prime Video's movie libraries. This means that Amazon is the rare streaming video service that lets you rent or buy MGM movies currently in theaters (like Zoë Kravitz's directorial debut, Blink Twice). Dedicated movie streaming services tend to offer more curated selections of titles, along with supporting content. The Criterion Channel and Mubi are both excellent options for cinephiles.
Amazon has cranked out original documentaries over the years; among them are All In: The Fight for Democracy, a documentary about voter suppression, and Citizenfour, which covers NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Lower-budget documentaries about spirituality and non-traditional medicine, such as Food as Medicine, round out its library.
Prime Video offers a good range of animated kids' shows, though the adult-themed Invincible is perhaps the service's most high-profile cartoon. Like anime? Crunchyroll is the Editors' Choice winner for anime video streaming services, thanks to its massive library of series and films (though Hulu and Netflix offer some anime titles, too). Netflix has many animated originals, such as Bojack Horseman and Disenchantment.
Live Sports: MLB, NBA, NFL, WNBA, and More
In addition to on-demand content, Prime Video is the exclusive broadcaster of Thursday Night Football games. That means die-hard football fans must subscribe to Prime Video in addition to one of several other NFL streaming services to see every football game. No longer does a single live TV service cover all your gridiron needs.
Amazon has streamed regular-season NBA and WNBA games, as well as the Commissioner’s Cup Championship Game. For New York residents, the service also began broadcasting select Yankees baseball games. Both initiatives hint at Prime Video's growing ambitions in live sports. For now, ESPN Select remains the better sports streaming service in this price range thanks to its extensive live coverage of college and international sports.
Amazon lets subscribers add sports-centric channels, such as MLB.TV, NBA League Pass, and PGA Tour Live, to their subscription. Of course, each channel adds a high cost to your monthly or annual subscription.
Some other primarily on-demand services have recently begun streaming live sports. For instance, Paramount+ lets you stream the UFC and all national sports events on CBS. Likewise, Peacock's premium tiers include coverage of IndyCar, Premier League, and NBA. HBO Max features live MLB and NHL games. YouTube TV lets you check out anything you'd get from the major over-the-air networks (and many cable channels like TBS and TNT for basketball coverage).
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)Renting and Buying Videos
Prime Video has an advantage over Hulu, Netflix, and many other streaming platforms: It lets you rent or buy TV shows and movies, similar to Google Play Movies & TV or iTunes. Notably, buying and renting are your only options for some content. Keep in mind that purchases and rentals come with restrictions.
Once you purchase a video on Prime Video, you can stream it as many times as you want and download it on up to four compatible devices. The three-video-stream limit remains for rentals, but Amazon does not let you stream the same rental to multiple devices simultaneously. If you watch a downloaded rental video on one device, you can still watch it on another (though not simultaneously). You typically get 30 days to download or start streaming a rental, but after you do, you usually have 48 hours to finish watching it. You can read the specific details on Amazon's Video Usage Rules support page.
Similar Products
Our Current Picks for The Best NFL Streaming Services for 2026
Renting a movie typically costs between $2.99 and $5.99, while buying it costs between $7.99 and $19.99, depending on how recent it is and the quality (SD or HD). Sometimes, however, the SD and HD options cost the same. The story is pretty much the same for TV shows, though not all are available to purchase outright. Individual episodes typically cost $1.99 to $3.99, and seasons run $22.99 to $29.99.
Interface: Fine, But Could Be Better
One of Amazon's biggest issues (not unique to its video services) is that it shoehorns all its services into the same interface. Like all of Amazon's other services, Prime Video lives in the drop-down to the left of the main search bar. Amazon should either create a dedicated site for Prime Video or better organize its many services.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)The homepage looks fine, but it can't match the minimal aesthetic of HBO Max or Netflix. At the top, users can select the following menu items: Home, Free to Me, Store, Channels, Categories, and My Stuff. Right below that, Amazon Video highlights a few notable shows or movies available for streaming, then organizes everything else in horizontally scrolling lists, such as Watch Next, TV Shows We Think You'll Like, and Blockbuster Movies, which run down the rest of the page. The Categories section is useful for finding new releases, originals, and 4K UHD content. There's also a Prime Video Explorer tool for finding additional recommendations.
If you can't find something to watch on the homepage, use the search bar at the top to find specific content by title, genre, release date, or channel. If you see something interesting, you can start streaming immediately (provided it is available for Prime Video) or add it to your watchlist.
Clicking a movie or TV show link opens a page showing the user rating, running time, release date, and other pertinent information. If you're on a TV show page, you can click the Preview button to watch a snippet; on movie pages, you can watch a trailer. One advantage that Prime Video offers over Netflix is user reviews. Mubi and Shudder also let you chime in about shows and movies. As expected, Prime Video gives recommendations based on the content you watch.
I particularly like Prime Video's Now Playing screen, as it looks clean and lays out the controls intuitively. In addition to the standard play, rewind, and forward buttons, Amazon Prime Video provides subtitle and streaming quality options on-screen. However, Amazon's biggest draw—and something no other streaming service I've tested currently offers—is its X-Ray feature (powered by IMDb). This transparent overlay populates useful information on the characters and actors in a scene, any soundtrack titles, and relevant show notes (such as continuity errors and important cultural references).
Mobile Apps, Accessibility, and Parental Controls
I downloaded Amazon's Prime Video app on an Android phone to test the mobile experience. The interface looks identical to the website's, albeit scaled down for a mobile screen. The app appears similar to many other video streaming apps, with a dark background and vivid content thumbnails. Tapping on a show or movie brings you to a page where you can view a show summary and read user ratings and reviews.
The app gives you a fair amount of control over the service, with settings for stream and download quality, parental control options, a list of registered devices, and the ability to clear video search history. Prime members (not Amazon Video subscribers) can also manage Amazon Channels subscriptions from the app.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)Streaming on a mobile device is quick and stable. I downloaded a 44-minute episode of The Expanse in the highest quality in under 1.5 minutes. If you have the time and storage space, the app lets you download an entire season of a show at once.
Audio descriptions are one step above regular dialogue-based closed captioning (CC). To find compatible content, you can search specifically for Amazon's Movies and TV Shows with Audio Descriptions. This search returned more than 1,000 results at the time of publishing. Most of Amazon's Original programming includes audio descriptions, and I hope that it continues to support and implement these enhancements. Apple TV, Disney+, HBO Max, and Netflix also support audio descriptions.
Prime Video lets you adjust CC settings directly in the video player, including changing the font size and text color. Acorn TV also lets you customize these options from the playback screen.
Regarding parental controls, you can require a PIN for all purchases and restrict streaming based on user age. You can designate specific accounts as a Kids profile, too.
Performance: Smooth Video Playback
I didn't experience any issues streaming over a home Ethernet connection (200Mbps download speed). Although Prime Video may take a couple of seconds to ramp up to full quality, the quality stays consistent once it does. The service is also pretty accurate at saving your progress while watching a video, in case you get disconnected or need to resume later.
Even if you upgrade to the ad-free tier, Amazon Prime Video still advertises in-house content at the beginning of a show or movie, similar to HBO Max. You can easily skip these ads, or if you're interested in the show, add it to your watchlist directly.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)Can You Watch Prime Video With a VPN?
A virtual private network (VPN) is an important tool for protecting your privacy online. Unfortunately, some video streaming services, such as Prime Video, make it difficult, if not impossible, to stream content while connected to a VPN. This policy could be due to content licensing deals, as many shows are restricted to viewers in specific countries. Prime Video did not work after I connected my phone to US-based Mullvad VPN servers.
You could try to find a VPN that works with all the services you subscribe to, but even if you do, it doesn't guarantee everything will work together in the future. Many video streaming services continue to close down the loopholes that VPNs currently rely on to avoid being blocked. Note that some VPNs do offer dedicated streaming servers, which may be more reliable for this purpose.