Reviewed and updated June 2026 by our cord-cutting team · 55 services
After Netflix cancelled its free trial, many popular services followed suit.
However, there are still some services that offer free subscriptions. The free trial period ranges from 3 to 30 days in some cases. For this list, we looked for the very best streaming services out there that still offer a free trial, and put them all in one place. This is the ultimate guide for free trials in streaming.
There are live TV services as well as on-demand platforms. It's all in here. Happy cord-cutting.
These are services we pay for and use, not ones we read about in a press release. For every one on this list we sign up, run the free trial, and time exactly how long it lasts and what it costs the day it ends, because the trial length in the ad and the one on your card don't always match. We watch how the app behaves, what's actually included before you hit a paywall, and how hard the company makes it to cancel before you're charged. Prices and trial terms move constantly, so we come back to this page about once a month.
I started A Good Movie to Watch in 2013, and we've kept paid accounts on more than a hundred streaming and live TV services in the US ever since. We hold onto them on purpose: the only reliable way to know a service quietly shortened its trial or raised its price is to be the one getting the bill. The rest of that work lives on our cord-cutting hub.
This guide has been up since 2021, and we update it whenever something we wrote stops being true. No company pays us to move up the list, and we hold no stake in any of them. The affiliate links here help keep the site free to read, but they have no effect on the ranking or on anything we say about a service, including the ones paying us a commission.
The free trial is the easy part. The thing nobody tells you is to set a reminder for the day before it ends, because that's the whole business model: services bet you'll forget. Sign up, watch what you came for, and cancel the moment the trial converts. You can almost always keep access through the end of the period you already started, so cancelling early costs you nothing.
Fubo is a comprehensive live TV service that carries a wide array of channels. Next to DirecTV Stream, it also has the most regional sports networks (RSNs) out of all the services, making it a top choice for sports fans. That said, Fubo does charge extra for RSNs. It's also missing key channels, including TBS, CNN, HGTV, and other Warner Bros. properties. If you're on the fence about subscribing, Fubo allows new customers to try all of its channels and features free for seven days.
Fubo is a live TV streaming service built for sports fans, with the Pro plan running $73.99/month for 200+ channels, unlimited cloud DVR, and up to 10 simultaneous home streams. It's essentially cable replacement that leans hard into live games, news, and broadcast networks rather than an on-demand movie library.
It's best for sports households that want a wide channel lineup with generous DVR and don't mind paying cable-level prices to watch games live.
Fubo advertises "no hidden fees," but nearly every subscriber pays a mandatory Regional Sports Fee that isn't disclosed until the final checkout page: $10.99/month for one regional network, $13.99 for two or more, and $14 if you sign up through the Roku app. That turns the $73.99 Pro price into roughly $86 to $90 a month, and the fee is unavoidable even if you never watch a local game. The 7-day trial requires a card up front and auto-renews into that full inflated price the moment the week ends, so set a cancel reminder for day six or you'll get billed the whole amount, fee included.
Grab the trial only if you have specific live games you need this week and you've confirmed your regional sports networks and broadcast channels are actually in your market. Be warned that NBCUniversal's entire lineup, including Sunday Night Football and Telemundo, has been off Fubo since November 2025 with no return date, so if you want those, Hulu + Live TV (which kept the NBCU channels through the same Disney parent) is the smarter pick for the same kind of money.
Hulu on-demand's free trial generally lasts seven days, but if you have a promo link like the one above, you can extend that trial to 30 days. In that time, you can enjoy Hulu originals like Shogun and ABC dramas like General Hospital, plus plenty of animation and films from various studios. Granted, Hulu's catalog isn't as deep as Netflix or Prime Video, but the trial can help you decide whether it's worth signing up for $9.99/month.
Hulu is Disney's on-demand streaming service, and the $11.99/month plan gets you the full library of next-day network TV, FX originals, and movies with ads. It's the deepest catalog of recent broadcast television anywhere, which is the whole reason to have it.
It's best for people who want to watch this week's network shows like Grey's Anatomy, The Bear, or Abbott Elementary the morning after they air without paying for cable.
The catch most people miss is that paying to remove ads doesn't fully remove them. Even on the $18.99 No Ads tier, a list of licensed shows including Grey's Anatomy, New Girl, Scandal, and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD still force a 15-second ad before and a 30-second ad after every episode, and you can't skip them. On the free trial itself, the 30 days auto-renews to $11.99/month the day it ends unless you cancel first, and Hulu only requires a valid card up front, so people who forget the date get billed before they notice. New and eligible returning subscribers only.
Grab the 30-day trial if you're trying to catch up on a specific network show, since that's the one thing Hulu does better than Netflix or Max, and a month is plenty of time to binge a season. If you mostly want Disney, Marvel, and ESPN, skip standalone Hulu and get the Disney+ bundle instead, especially since the Hulu app is being absorbed into Disney+ through 2026 anyway. Just set a calendar reminder to cancel on day 29.
DirecTV Stream is a comprehensive cable alternative that comes with everything a cord-cutter could need. It has an extensive channel lineup (which also comes in "genre packs" if you only want content that aligns with your interests), unlimited DVR, multiple streams, and HD picture quality. And if you're a channel surfer, DirecTV's interface doesn't stray too far away from traditional TV guides, making it easy enough for beginners to navigate. What gives customers pause, however, is the hefty price tag. Thankfully, DirecTV offers a five-day trial that lets you test all the abovementioned features, so you can see for yourself if the streamer fits your needs and is ultimately worth it.
DIRECTV Stream is the satellite company's live TV streaming app, no dish or installer required. The base Entertainment plan runs $89.99/month for 90-plus channels with locals, unlimited cloud DVR, and the highest customer-satisfaction score of any live TV streamer in 2026.
Sports and local-channel households that want a true cable replacement with a polished app and are willing to pay cable money for it.
The trial is new-customers-only, and anyone who disconnected in the last 12 months is locked out. The real trap is the hardware: if you order the Gemini device, billing can trigger the moment it ships and quietly skip your 5-day window, so people who thought they had until day 5 get charged on day 1. Even without hardware, you have to cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends or it auto-renews to roughly $86.99 to $89.99 plus tax for Entertainment, and the Regional Sports Fee plus the $15 receiver fee push the real first bill well past the sticker price.
Grab this trial if you specifically need your local RSNs and broadcast stations and have found YouTube TV's coverage thin in your market, because DIRECTV usually wins on that and the app is genuinely better for flipping between live games. The contrarian move most roundups miss: don't auto-renew into the $89.99 Entertainment tier, the MySports or MyEntertainment genre packs cover the same trial and cost less for a narrower lineup. If you don't care about regional sports, YouTube TV at $82.99 is the cheaper, simpler pick.
A good alternative to expensive cordless services is Philo. At just $28/month, a Philo subscription gets you more than 90 live channels—no sports or local channels, but it does cover plenty of entertainment, carrying HGTV, Food Network, A&E, and more. It also comes with AMC+, which has an on-demand catalog featuring films and shows from AMC, Shudder, BBC America, and more. You can try all this, plus Philo's unlimited DVR feature, free for seven days. Remember to cancel by then, otherwise you're charged the regular monthly rate.
Philo is the cheapest live TV streaming service worth naming, $25 a month for 70-plus entertainment channels like Hallmark, HGTV, AMC, MTV, Lifetime, and Comedy Central, plus a 75,000-title on-demand library and a full year of unlimited cloud DVR. There are no contracts and no hidden regional fees, but there are also no sports, no news, and no local broadcast channels.
It's best for someone who watches reality TV, lifestyle, and entertainment cable and wants to ditch a $100 cable bill without paying for ESPN they'll never use.
The trial runs on the $25 Essential plan and auto-renews to that same $25 the moment day seven ends, so anyone who forgets to cancel gets billed for a full month, the usual streaming surprise. The bigger catch is what's missing: cord-cutters repeatedly flag that Philo has no sports, no local stations, and almost no live news, so if you watch the nightly broadcast or any game you'll need an antenna or a second service on top of it. Note the cheaper trial only exists on Essential; the $33 Bundle+ tier with HBO Max and AMC+ has no free trial at all.
Grab the trial if your TV habits are HGTV, Hallmark, AMC, and reality shows, because nothing else delivers that lineup for $25 with this much DVR. If you need even one live sport or local channel, Philo will frustrate you, and a Sling TV or DirecTV Stream trial is the better place to spend your seven free days.
Hulu with Live TV's free trial only lasts three days. It's the shortest trial length in this list, but it's still enough time to test Hulu Live's extensive channel lineup, DVR features, and simultaneous streams (which, unfortunately, are limited to two at a time). With the trial, you can also test the Disney+ and ESPN+ subscriptions that come included at no extra cost.
Hulu + Live TV is a cable replacement that bundles 95+ live channels with Hulu's on-demand library, Disney+, and ESPN Select, plus unlimited cloud DVR that keeps recordings for nine months. After the trial it runs $89.99/month for the with-ads version, and that one price covers all four services whether you watch them or not.
It's best for a household that already lives in Disney's apps and wants local networks, ESPN, and a deep on-demand catalog in one login instead of stitching together separate subscriptions.
The trial is only three days, and you can't change a thing during it. Existing Hulu subscribers get no trial at all; the moment you add Live TV to a current account, Hulu charges you a prorated amount immediately and skips the free period entirely, a complaint that comes up constantly from people who assumed their on-demand plan would roll into the trial. If you do qualify as a new or 12-months-lapsed customer, it auto-renews to $89.99/month the instant those 72 hours end, so set a phone reminder for hour 70, not the morning it expires. Note the $88.99 figure is the stripped-down Live TV Only plan, which drops Disney+ and ESPN to save you a single dollar.
Grab the 3-day trial only if you're a new customer who actually wants the Disney+ and ESPN bundle baked in, because that's where the $89.99 earns its keep. If you just want live channels and a great DVR without the Disney tax, YouTube TV costs about the same and usually runs a longer trial, and a household that only cares about Hulu's on-demand shows should skip Live TV completely and pay $9.99 for the standard plan.
Paramount+ is a streaming service that mostly offers on-demand films and shows, including originals like Star Trek: Discovery, Showtime favorites like Yellowjackets, and programs from Paramount-owned channels like Nickelodeon, MTV, and Comedy Central. Upgrading to the premium tier also gives you access to your local CBS and live sports games. You can try either tier (but not at the same time) free for seven days. If you don't cancel after the trial period, you're charged the regular monthly rate of your chosen tier.
Paramount+ is the home for CBS, Star Trek, Yellowstone spinoffs, Taylor Sheridan dramas, and a deep catalog of MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon shows. The $8.99 Essential plan gets you the full on-demand library with ads, plus national NFL and soccer streams, but no live local CBS feed and no downloads.
It's best for people who want Star Trek, the Sheridan universe (1923, Tulsa King, Landman), or CBS shows the day after they air, and who watch NFL through the national feed rather than their local station.
The salesperson won't tell you that Paramount+ killed its direct free trial in early 2026, so the 7-day trial you're chasing now mostly lives inside Amazon Prime Video Channels or partner promo codes, and it only works if you've never used the service through that channel before. The bigger trap is what the trial actually unlocks: it gives you the on-demand library, but live NFL on your local CBS station, the single reason most people sign up, requires the $13.99 Premium plan, so the cheap trial never lets you test the thing you want. Whichever door you come in, it auto-renews to $8.99 (Essential) or $13.99 (Premium) on day 8, and people get surprise-billed because the Amazon channel renewal is buried under Memberships and Subscriptions, not in the Paramount+ app itself.
Grab the trial if you specifically want Star Trek or the Sheridan shows, because nobody else has them, but go in knowing Essential keeps ads and Premium still runs commercials on every live broadcast and sports event even though it's sold as ad-free. If you only want it for football and your local CBS station, the $7.50/month annual Essential plan still won't give you that local feed, so YouTube TV or a basic antenna is the cheaper honest answer for live local NFL.
Like Philo, Frndly TV is an affordable live TV streaming service that focuses on providing entertainment content. It has even fewer live channels than Philo, but for $8.99/month, it's quite the steal. You can test Frndly's channels, DVR features, simultaneous streams, and more for free for seven days.
Frndly TV is a $8.99/month skinny bundle built around all three Hallmark channels plus A&E, History, Lifetime, and INSP, roughly 50 live channels of lifestyle, reality, and comfort TV with on-demand to match. The 7-day trial unlocks the full lineup, but the cheapest tier you get billed for is bare-bones.
It's best for Hallmark and lifestyle-TV diehards who want a cheap, no-contract way to watch holiday movies and reality channels live without paying for sports or locals they'll never touch.
The trial auto-renews into the Basic plan at $8.99/month, and Basic is the catch most roundups skip: it streams in SD/720p, allows only one screen at a time, and has no DVR at all, so the actual usable plan most people want is Classic at $10.99. Returning customers don't get a second trial, they're charged immediately. And Frndly has a steady hike habit, the base went from $6.99 to $7.99 in 2023 and up to $8.99 in May 2025, with App Store and forum reviews repeatedly flagging buffering and freezing even on the paid plans.
Grab the trial if Hallmark, History, and Lifetime are what you actually watch, because nothing else gets you those channels live for this little. If you want it long term, skip the monthly plan and pay annually to lock roughly $6.99/month and dodge the next hike. But if you need locals, sports, or news, Frndly is the wrong tool entirely, and Sling or a $40 antenna will serve you far better.
Those with a new Apple device get to try AppleTV+ free for three months. However, if you own a different or older device, you can still try AppleTV+ free for seven days. The trial gives you access to the streamer's ad-free original titles, many of which are critically acclaimed, like Severance, Ted Lasso, Dickinson, and Slow Horses. Depending on where you live, you can also watch live MLB and MLS games on the platform.
Apple TV (the service formerly called Apple TV+) is a $12.99/month originals-only platform built around a small, high-budget catalog like Ted Lasso, Severance, Slow Horses, and Silo. There are no ads on any plan, everything streams in 4K HDR with Dolby Vision and Atmos, and a single subscription covers up to six simultaneous streams through Family Sharing.
It's best for people who want a couple of genuinely great prestige shows at a time and are happy to subscribe, binge, and cancel rather than keep it year-round.
The thing a salesperson won't tell you is that this is the most "cancel me" streaming service on the market. Reddit's cord-cutting crowd is near-unanimous that the right move is to subscribe, binge the two or three shows you actually care about, and cancel within a month, because there's no deep back catalog to keep you busy between new seasons. On the trial: the 7 days are free, but the day they end you're auto-charged $12.99 (it was $9.99 until the August 2025 hike), and people get surprise-billed because the trial quietly converts to monthly with no reminder. Set a cancel reminder for day six, since canceling still lets you watch through the end of the trial.
Grab the free week if there's a specific buzzy show you want to watch, then decide month to month rather than treating it as a permanent subscription. If you know you'll keep it all year, skip the monthly plan and pay $99.99 annually, which drops the real cost to about $8.33 a month for the exact same content. And if you mostly want a big library to scroll through rather than four or five standout originals, your money goes further on Max or Paramount+.
Along with Hulu, Amazon Prime Video offers one of the longest free trial lengths at 30 days. Within that period, you can watch Prime Video originals and a host of other titles (Prime Video has the largest number of movies, even more than Netflix), as well as try out the free shipping and discounts that come with a membership.
This is the standalone Prime Video subscription, not full Amazon Prime. You get the Prime Video catalog only (originals like The Boys and Fallout, plus a deep rental-and-buy store) for $8.99 a month, with no free shipping, no Prime Music, and no other Prime perks attached.
People who want Prime Video's originals without paying for full Amazon Prime, and who don't mind paying a little more to kill the ads.
The trial defaults you onto the ad-supported plan, and the ad-free upgrade costs an extra $2.99 a month that gets billed immediately, even during your supposedly free 30 days. So a "free" trial can actually charge you on day one if you tick the ad-free box. Amazon also promised a light ad load when ads launched in 2024 at 2 to 3.5 minutes per hour, then quietly doubled it to 4 to 6 minutes per hour starting June 17, 2025. One more catch: you only qualify for the trial if you haven't had a Prime membership in the last 12 months.
Grab the 30-day trial if you want to binge a specific Prime original like Fallout or the next Reacher season, then cancel before it renews at $8.99. But if you shop on Amazon at all, the math flips: full Prime is $14.99 a month and bundles free shipping, music, and the same video, so paying $8.99 for video alone only makes sense if you genuinely never order from Amazon.
Mubi is a movie-streaming service featuring a curated selection of 30 movies on a daily rotation, as well as a large library of movies from previous rotations. The subscription costs $14.99 per month or $119.88 for an annual subscription. If you just want to browse the database before paying up front, you can sign up for a free account for access. Mubi has a Now Showing section, with the newest entries to the library on a given day (the library is updated daily), and a Library section featuring a back-catalog of other highlights and previously “showing” movies. You may see a section called 'Live' for live broadcasts once in a while. Aside from the options to stream via web browser, Mubi also has mobile apps for Android and iOS, media streaming devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku), and you can subscribe to Mubi as a Prime Video channel. While Mubi is not available on the Xbox One, you can access the service on a PlayStation 4 console.
Mubi is a curated arthouse streaming service built around a "Now Showing" wall of about 30 hand-picked films that rotate daily, backed by a larger searchable library of roughly 800 past picks. For $14.99 a month you get festival winners, foreign-language cinema, and director-driven work you won't find on Netflix, not a deep all-purpose catalog.
It's best for the serious film fan who wants to be handed one great, unfamiliar movie at a time instead of scrolling 10,000 mediocre options.
The advertised "30 days free" is the catch worth knowing: Mubi's standard new-customer trial is only 7 days. The 30-day version exists, but you usually have to come in through a referral link or a film-festival promo to get it, so check exactly which one you signed up for. Whichever you get, it auto-renews to $14.99/month the moment it ends, and Mubi doesn't prorate refunds, so if you forget and get billed, canceling the next day still costs you the full month per its own help docs. Set a reminder the day you sign up.
Grab the trial if you actually love cinema and want a steady drip of films you'd never have picked yourself, then move to the $119.88 annual plan only once you've proven to yourself you press play and don't just admire the catalog. If you want the same arthouse taste with a much deeper permanent library you can binge at your own pace, The Criterion Channel is the better buy for most people at a similar price.
AMC+ is a streaming service that doubles as a bundle. Apart from streaming popular AMC shows like Interview with a Vampire on-demand, it also offers content from Shudder, Acorn, IFC, and Sundance TV. You can try it free as a standalone app for seven days. The trial also applies if you try it as an add-on channel on Prime Video or YouTube TV.
AMC+ bundles AMC, BBC America, IFC, and Sundance TV with full access to Shudder, Sundance Now, and IFC Films Unlimited under one login, so you get prestige cable dramas plus a deep horror and arthouse bench. You also get new Walking Dead universe episodes early, up to five simultaneous streams, and a catalog that rotates more than the big platforms.
It's best for horror and arthouse fans who also want AMC's prestige dramas like The Walking Dead, Dark Winds, and Mad Men reruns in one subscription instead of paying for Shudder and a drama service separately.
The trial is the standard 7 days when you sign up direct (some channel promos dangle 30 days), it's one per household with no email reuse, and it demands valid billing up front so it auto-renews the second the week ends. The catch most roundups miss: after a recent hike effective February and March 2026, it bills $7.99/month for ads or $10.99/month ad-free, not the older $6.99 you'll still see quoted, and subscribers on the Amazon forum report still getting ads even on the plan they pay extra to keep ad-free. If you cancel direct, you email [email protected] rather than clicking a button, so people who forget that step get billed in full.
Grab the trial if you want both horror and AMC's prestige dramas in one place and you're realistic about a clunky app. If you only care about horror, skip AMC+ and get standalone Shudder for $5.99 to $6.99/month, since it's cheaper, owned by the same company, and curated by actual horror fans. AMC+ only earns the extra dollars if you'll genuinely watch the dramas and indies too.
If you're a cinephile, you've likely heard of The Criterion Channel, a carefully curated streaming service that lets you watch critically acclaimed classics and indies on demand. Not only does the streaming service have one of the best catalogs in the market, it also offers exclusive commentaries from filmmakers, interviews with actors and directors, and a 24/7 streaming channel you can put on if you don't know where to begin. You can watch all this for free for seven days. You're charged the regular monthly rate if you don't cancel by then.
The Criterion Channel is an arthouse and classic-film streaming service from the people behind those famous Criterion Blu-ray box sets. For $10.99 a month or $99.99 a year you get a rotating catalog of more than 1,500 films, heavy on world cinema, restored classics, and director retrospectives, plus the extras and interviews Criterion is known for.
It's best for serious film fans who want curated classics, foreign-language cinema, and restorations they can't find on Netflix or Max, not for casual viewers chasing new blockbusters.
The trial is 7 days, but the catch is that it auto-renews to whatever plan you picked at signup, and if you chose annual to save money, that's a single $99.99 charge the moment the week ends, not $10.99. The other thing roundups skip: only the Criterion and Janus titles are permanent, while everything else is licensed for short windows, so on criterionforum.org and the official help pages you'll see regulars noting films leave on three- to six-month rotations. Set a calendar reminder before day 7 and watch anything time-sensitive first.
Grab the 7-day trial if you actually watch old, foreign, or restored cinema, because nothing else does this depth of curation for the money. If you mainly want recent movies and shows in 4K, this isn't it, and a service like Max or Netflix will serve you better. Treat Criterion as the add-on you keep for a month, binge a retrospective, and pause until the next one tempts you back.
Crunchyroll is a streaming service dedicated to all things anime. It has a tier that lets users watch select shows at no extra cost, but its paid tiers unlock even more features and content, including newer episodes, offline downloads, and access to games and merchandise. These plans, which cost $7.99/month and $15.9/month, can be tried free for seven days, but not at the same time. You can only choose one tier to try per account.
Crunchyroll is the biggest legal anime library going, with over 1,300 series and same-day simulcasts straight from Japan. The cheapest Fan plan now runs $9.99 a month and gets you ad-free streaming plus offline downloads, but only on one screen at a time.
It's best for anime fans who want to watch new seasonal shows the same day they air in Japan, with dubs that actually keep pace.
The trial auto-renews to whatever tier you selected at signup, and most people get funneled to the Fan plan, which is now $9.99 a month after the February 2026 hike and only streams on one device at a time. If you have a partner or want to watch on the TV and your phone, that plan won't do it, and you'll need Mega Fan at $13.99 for four streams and the Game Vault. The trial is new-customers-only and quietly bills your card on day 8, so set a reminder to cancel or downgrade before then.
Grab the trial if you're chasing this season's simulcasts or you want English dubs as they drop, because nothing else matches Crunchyroll's speed or breadth. But skip the $9.99 Fan plan unless you genuinely watch alone on one screen, and if you mostly want older or arthouse anime, HIDIVE covers the Sentai catalog for about $5 a month. Heavy viewers are better off going straight to Mega Fan than getting surprise-billed for a single-stream plan that can't keep up.
Horror fans curious about Shudder will be happy to know that the streaming service offers a weeklong free trial. With a trial, you can watch all of the service's original and licensed content, as well as the 24/7 stream it has on in case you're not sure where to start. Some favorites on the platform include Chucky, The Last Drive-In, Creepshow, Dragula, and When Evil Lurks.
Shudder is AMC's horror, thriller, and suspense streaming service, fully ad-free and uncut, with a tightly curated library plus a real bench of originals and exclusives you won't find on Netflix or Max. For $8.99 a month, or $89.99 a year, you get the deepest legit horror catalog out there, from arthouse to gory obscurities.
It's best for committed horror fans who want curated genre depth and exclusives, not the random scary titles the big services rotate in and out.
The trial is 7 days and new-customers-only, and it auto-renews to $8.99 a month (or $89.99 for the year) the moment it ends, so you have to cancel at least 24 hours early to walk away clean. The real trap is where you sign up: if you start the trial through Roku, Amazon, Apple, or Google instead of shudder.com, you cannot cancel inside the Shudder app, and Roku users have posted about getting charged because they couldn't kill it before the trial ran out. Cancel through whatever store you signed up with, not Shudder's own settings, or the charge lands.
Grab the trial if you're an actual horror obsessive and want to binge the exclusives in a week, Late Night with the Devil and the V/H/S films alone justify seven days. But here's what most roundups skip: AMC+ costs just $1 more at $9.99 and includes all of Shudder plus Sundance Now, IFC Films Unlimited, and BBC America, so if you watch anything beyond horror, AMC+ is the smarter buy. If you only want horror and want to spend less, Screambox runs $2 cheaper.
Co-created by British broadcasters BBC and ITV, BritBox is the ultimate streaming service for British TV shows in the US. ITV recently left the venture, but most of its properties, including Downton Abbey and Vera, remain available on the platform. Britbox has a seven-day trial that lets you watch all of its commercial-less content for free.
BritBox is the BBC and ITV joint venture that streams the deepest catalog of British TV anywhere, from classic Poirot, Pride and Prejudice, and the UK Office to current BBC and ITV dramas the week after they air in Britain. For $10.99 a month you get the whole archive ad-free, with up to five simultaneous streams.
It's best for the British TV obsessive who burns through BBC and ITV dramas, period pieces, and panel-show comedy faster than any general service can stock them.
The trial is 7 days, new customers only, and it auto-renews straight into $10.99 a month (or $109.99 a year if you picked annual) unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. The trap people hit on the Roku and Amazon forums is that cancelling does not pause the trial, it ends your access on the spot and you forfeit whatever days were left, so there's no reason to cancel the moment you sign up. There are no refunds once you're billed, and if you started the trial through Amazon Prime Video Channels or Apple TV you have to cancel through that platform, not BritBox, which is where a lot of the surprise charges come from.
Grab the trial if you have a specific BBC or ITV show in mind and a free weekend to binge it, since seven days is plenty to clear a single series. If your taste runs to cozy mysteries and international crime drama rather than the full breadth of British telly, Acorn TV covers that niche better and usually runs a dollar or two cheaper, so check it before committing to BritBox.
Sundance Now is AMC Networks' arthouse streamer, relaunched in January 2026 as an algorithm-free home for independent film. For $7.99 a month or $74.99 a year you get a hand-curated, ad-free library of roughly 1,000 hours: foreign-language thrillers, indie dramas, true-crime docs, and a rotating set of theatrical releases with a featured movie night every Friday.
It's best for the patient cinephile who wants European psychological thrillers, festival indies, and slow-burn true crime curated by humans instead of an algorithm.
The catch isn't the trial length, it's the picture and the billing path. Sundance Now tops out at 720p, so on a big TV the indie films you came for look soft, and the AMC app it runs on is widely flagged on the App Store and Roku forums for endless buffering and crashing mid-episode. The 7-day trial is new-customers-only and auto-renews to $7.99 a month (or whatever plan you picked) the moment it ends. The surprise-bill trap is the signup source: if you start the trial inside the Apple or Roku app, you can't cancel on sundancenow.com at all, and people routinely get charged because they tried to cancel on the wrong site or missed Apple's 24-hour-before cutoff.
Grab the free week if you specifically want curated arthouse and international thrillers and you've already got a title or two in mind to binge, because the library is small enough to exhaust in a month. Here's what most roundups miss: for $6.99 a month, AMC+ (with ads) bundles all of Sundance Now plus Shudder and the rest of AMC's catalog, so unless you truly only want the ad-free indie shelf, the bundle is the better buy at a lower price. Just remember to cancel through whichever store you signed up with, at least 24 hours before the trial ends.
While programming depends on your geographical location, Acorn TV in the US focuses on TV shows from dozens of international networks in countries of the Commonwealth, from British channels like the BBC and ITV as well as Oceanic shows from Australia and New Zealand.
Aside from British shows, there’s also a solid selection of content from other major European networks from France, Italy and Ireland.
Acorn TV is a niche streaming service built almost entirely around British, Irish, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand mystery and crime drama. For $8.99 a month or $89.99 a year you get a tightly curated catalog of detective series and period pieces, including Acorn Originals you can't stream anywhere else in the US.
It's best for cozy-mystery and detective-drama fans who'd happily binge Murdoch Mysteries, Miss Fisher, and Harry Wild and don't care about new releases, sports, or 4K.
The trial is 7 days and new-customers-only, and the day it ends it auto-renews at the full $8.99/month (or $89.99/year if you picked annual) with no warning email, so people who forget get billed in full. Watch where you sign up: subscribing through Apple/iTunes or certain channel partners costs more than the $8.99 direct rate for the exact same service, a quirk Acorn's own help center admits. And the resolution is the gotcha nobody mentions, Roku and forum users repeatedly hit "stream limit exceeded" errors and report fuzzy 720p playback on big TVs, which stings on a service whose whole appeal is slow, scenery-heavy detective shows.
Grab the free trial if you specifically want British and Commonwealth mysteries and you'll actually work through the back catalog, because at under $9 it's the cheapest way in and the curation is real. If you'd rather have current BBC and ITV dramas, the soaps, and a 4K option, skip it and take BritBox instead; and if you want both, just lock the annual plan to dodge the next price hike.
Originally launched as "UMC" (Urban Movie Channel), allblk is a premium streaming service that offers users access to a wide variety of Black-centric movies, TV shows, and original programming. The service is owned by AMC, and was originally started by Robert L. Johnson, the founder of BET.
ALLBLK is AMC Networks' subscription streaming service built around Black film and TV, with original scripted series, reality shows, stage plays, documentaries, and a back catalog of classic Black cinema. For $6.99 a month you get roughly 1,000 hours of content, about 200-plus titles, and unlimited simultaneous streams with no per-device cap.
It's best for people who want independent Black dramas, soapy originals like "Double Cross" and "A House Divided," stage plays, and nostalgic Black cinema you can't find on the bigger services.
The contrarian thing most roundups skip: ALLBLK is technically ad-free, but PissedConsumer and BBB reviewers report shows cutting out every 30 seconds with a "please stand by, we'll be right back" message and the app crashing mid-episode on Fire Stick, so the experience can feel ad-broken even though you're paying. The trial runs 7 days and needs a card up front. It auto-renews to $6.99/month the moment it ends, and a steady stream of reviewers report surprise charges after they thought they'd canceled, so cancel a day early and screenshot the confirmation.
Grab the 7-day trial if you specifically want ALLBLK's originals or its indie and stage-play catalog, since that's the one thing no rival replicates. But if you're mainly after a broad Black-content library, BET+ at $9.99 gives you Tyler Perry's full slate and far more hours, and it's the better single pick for most people. Treat ALLBLK as a cheap add-on you binge for a month, not a permanent subscription.
Amazon Kids+ is a streaming service for kids 3 to 12. it features animation content from Disney, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street and Cartoon Network, but also access to educational apps, games, and e-books. It costs $5.99/month if you already have Amazon Prime or $7.99/month if you don't.
Amazon Kids+ is a bundle of kid-safe books, games, educational apps, and some video (PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, a few Amazon originals) wrapped in age-based parental controls. For $5.99 a month if you have Prime, you get up to four child profiles and content that filters itself by the age you set, but it's a books-and-apps library first and a video service a distant second.
Parents of kids roughly 3 to 8 who already own a Fire tablet or Kids Fire tablet and want one walled garden of ad-free books, games, and shows instead of policing a dozen apps.
The surprise bill most people hit isn't from this 30-day trial, it's from a Kids Fire tablet. Those ship with a 6 or 12-month subscription included, and when that term ends it silently rolls into $5.99 (or $7.99) a month, which is why Amazon's own forums are full of parents asking for refunds on a "subscription I never knew I had." Cancellation isn't one button either; you manage it through Your Memberships and Subscriptions, the Parent Dashboard, or by contacting customer service, so set a reminder before day 30 and check the renewal date on any kids tablet you own.
Grab the trial if you have a Fire tablet and a kid under about 8, because that's where the books, apps, and parental controls actually shine and the $5.99 Prime price is fair. If you mainly want shows your kids will watch on a TV, skip it and put that money toward Disney+, which has a far deeper and more recognizable video library for the same age group.
Following a multi-year deal signed by both parties, Amazon Prime is now the exclusive home of PBS Kids and all the entertaining and educational shows it carries. This bundle allows you to pay for Prime and PBS content under one bill while giving you all the useful perks of the former platform, namely, parental control and offline downloads so you can supervise what your kid watches and have episodes ready on the go. It's the perfect bundle if you're looking to have both mature content for the adults and appropriate shows for the young ones.
This bundles the PBS Kids add-on channel ($4.99/month) with a base Prime Video membership ($8.99/month), so $13.98 buys you ad-free, on-demand access to the full back catalog of Daniel Tiger, Wild Kratts, Arthur, Odd Squad, and the rest, every episode rather than the rotating handful. You watch it all inside the regular Prime Video app.
Parents who want every episode of a specific PBS Kids show on demand and ad-free, and who don't already pay for full Amazon Prime.
Here's what nobody tells you: the 7-day free trial covers the $4.99 PBS Kids channel only, and that channel does nothing without a paid Prime or Prime Video membership sitting under it. So the real auto-renewal isn't $4.99, it's $13.98 a month once both clocks run out, and people who started a Prime trial at the same time get hit by two charges landing days apart. The bigger catch is that the free PBS Kids app and the new ad-free PBS Kids FAST channel on Prime Video already give you a rotating set of full episodes for nothing, so you're really paying for completeness and on-demand depth, not for access.
Grab the trial only if there's one specific show your kid is obsessed with and the free PBS Kids app keeps cycling the episodes you want out of reach. If you already pay for Prime, add just the $4.99 channel and ignore the $13.98 bundle price entirely. For most families the free PBS Kids app plus the free Prime Video FAST channel covers it, so try those first before you pay a cent.
This is a two-channel add-on you stack on Prime Video: Starz brings the prestige soaps and crime dramas (Outlander, the Power universe, P-Valley), and MGM+ adds the MGM film library plus a handful of buzzy originals like FROM, Godfather of Harlem, and Robin Hood. The advertised $22.98 is the full price of both channels combined, and the bundle is supposed to shave a few dollars off that.
People who are already Prime members and want both the Outlander and Power crowd of Starz and the MGM+ horror/film mix in one bill, without paying two separate subscriptions.
The $22.98 number is the full sticker for both channels, and the actual bundle discount has shown up as low as $13.99 in 2026 promos, so check the exact price on the Amazon offer page before you commit. The bigger catch nobody mentions: this is an add-on, not a standalone service, so you need an active Prime membership ($14.99/month or $139/year) sitting underneath it, which can push your real monthly cost well past $30. The trial runs 7 days and auto-renews the day it ends, and if you happened to sign up through Apple, you have to cancel at least 24 hours before renewal or you get billed anyway. New-customer trials only, so a past Starz trial on Amazon disqualifies you.
Grab the trial if you're a current Prime member who wants both Outlander-style Starz dramas and MGM+ shows like FROM in a single bill, and set a phone reminder for day 6. If you only care about one of the two, skip the bundle and add just that channel, Starz alone is $10.99 and MGM+ alone is $7.99, and you'll often find one of them on a $2.99 promo that beats this package outright.
Arrow is a streaming service for cult cinema, with a particular focus on horror and classics. If you love niche films and hidden gems, then this is for you. You'll also appreciate Arrow Player if you're into hand-picked content as it boasts a highly curated and carefully refined selection of titles.
Quentin Tarantino has recommended the service a few times!
Arrow Player (officially the Arrow Video Channel) is the streaming arm of boutique disc label Arrow Video, and for $6.99 a month you get a hand-picked library of about 600 cult, horror, giallo, arthouse, and world-cinema titles, most in 4K, plus the kind of interviews and video essays Arrow puts on its Blu-rays.
It's best for horror and cult-film obsessives who already know Arrow's reputation and want curated giallo, Asia Extreme, and 70s/80s exploitation with the bonus features intact, not someone looking for a deep general-purpose catalog.
The thing the catalog page won't tell you is that owning an Arrow Video Blu-ray does not mean the film is on Arrow Player. Titles like Flatliners and Mallrats are absent over licensing, so the channel is a curated slice of Arrow's catalog, not all of it, and users on the app stores openly ask for faster updates to the horror and exploitation rows. On the trial: it's 7 days and new-customers-only, and the day it ends it auto-renews at $6.99/month with no reminder, so the usual surprise-bill story applies if you forget to cancel before day seven.
Grab the 7-day trial if you specifically want Arrow's giallo, Asia Extreme, and cult-horror picks with the bonus features, binge hard, and decide before it renews at $6.99. If you just want a big horror library to leave running, Shudder gives you more volume and originals for about the same money, so Arrow only earns the subscription when you value the curation and the extras over the raw title count.
BBC Select is a streaming service dedicated specifically to all things culture, politics, and ideas. It houses the best of the BBC's non-fiction content—namely, widely-acclaimed documentaries and docuseries—but it also occasionally sources titles from other channels, like the UK's Channel 4. While it can seem like BBC Select is competing with Acorn TV and BritBox, which are the go-to UK channels in North America, it's actually closer to the likes of CuriosityStream and Discovery Plus in its specialization of documentaries. The only downside is there are currently only three ways to watch BBC Select: through Apple TV, Amazon Prime Channels, or The Roku Channel.
BBC Select is a documentary-only add-on channel with over 1,000 hours of BBC factual programming covering culture, politics, ideas, history, science, and true crime. You get an ad-free library built around names like Louis Theroux and Adam Curtis, streamed through Amazon Prime Channels, Apple TV, or the Roku Channel.
It's best for documentary diehards who already burn through Louis Theroux, Adam Curtis, and serious BBC factual films and want them all in one ad-free place.
Heads up on the price: BBC Select almost always runs $4.99 to $6.99 a month on Prime Channels, Apple TV, and Roku, so if you're quoted $8.99, you're paying a premium for a single-genre channel. The bigger gotcha is the trial itself. When you start the 7-day free trial through Amazon Prime Channels, the charge after day 7 lands buried inside your normal Amazon bill, not as a standalone BBC Select line item, which is exactly how people forget and get billed. The FTC settled with Amazon in 2025 over trials that were hard to cancel, so set a calendar reminder for day 6 and kill it in Manage Your Channels if you're only there for one documentary.
Grab the trial if there's a specific Louis Theroux or Adam Curtis run you want, watch it inside the 7 days, and cancel before it renews. If you want BBC content with actual dramas, comedies, and box sets attached, BritBox is the smarter monthly subscription, and if you just want a broad documentary firehose, Curiosity Stream costs about the same and has a far bigger library.
BET+, or Black Entertainment Television plus, is a streaming service created for and by the African-American community. It celebrates the culture by bringing forth an endless and varied library of movies and TV shows, many of which are co-produced by the all-around entertainer himself, Tyler Perry. Aside from Black-led '90s sitcoms and mainstream films, the streamer also features titles from other Viacom channels such as Comedy Central and VH1. An ad-supported plan costs $5.99/month, while an ad-free plan costs $9.99/month.
BET+ is a streaming service built around Black culture, with the biggest Tyler Perry library anywhere (Sistas, The Oval, Ruthless, House of Payne) plus older BET reality and stand-up. The $5.99 Essential tier ran with limited ads, while $10.99 Premium dropped them.
It was best for Tyler Perry completists who wanted Sistas, Zatima, and The Oval in one place, but that whole library now lives inside Paramount+.
This is the gotcha no roundup has caught up to: Paramount has stopped taking new BET+ signups and is closing the standalone service through summer 2026, with the catalog moving into a BET hub inside Paramount+. So the 7-day trial advertised here is effectively dead, and even before this, the cheaper $5.99 plan auto-renewed with ads while people kept landing billing and cancellation disputes (the BBB logged over 80 complaints in three years). If you somehow still see a trial offer, know it expires into a service that won't exist by mid-August.
Don't chase a BET+ trial right now, because the service is being absorbed into Paramount+ and new signups are already closed. If you want Tyler Perry's shows, Sistas, The Oval, and the rest, just start a Paramount+ trial instead, since that's exactly where this entire library is landing and you get a far bigger movie and TV catalog for similar money.
The UK-based BFI Player Classics is a Criterion Channel-like service that streams modern classics and beloved old films, all of which are handpicked by the team behind BFI cinemas. At $5.99/month, a BFI subscription is quite cheap, but you can still try it out free for two weeks if you're not sure about purchasing it. After that period, you're charged the regular monthly rate unless you cancel.
BFI Player Classics is the British Film Institute's US streaming app, with a few hundred hand-picked British films from Ealing comedies and Hammer horror to Hitchcock, Powell and Pressburger, and Ken Loach. For $5.99 a month you get the curated subscription library, but it's a narrow, very British catalog, not a general classics service.
It's best for Anglophile film buffs who specifically want British cinema, Ealing comedies, kitchen-sink dramas, and Hammer horror, and who already know they want more than the algorithm feeds them.
The thing the signup page won't tell you: the subscription does not unlock everything in the app. A real chunk of the library, including newer and higher-profile titles, sits behind separate rental fees on top of your monthly fee, a complaint that comes up again and again in app-store and Trustpilot reviews. The free trial also auto-renews to $5.99/month the moment it ends, and the length depends on where you sign up (14 days through the Prime Video channel, 7 days on the standalone site and Roku), so people who start it on one platform and forget get billed sooner than they expected.
Grab the trial if you genuinely want British cinema and you've already checked that the specific films you care about are in the subscription tier and not behind a rental wall. If you want broad arthouse and world classics rather than a British-only shelf, the Criterion Channel is the better pick for the same kind of money, and MUBI is the cheaper, more reliable app if you mainly want one strong curated film a day.
BroadwayHD is a streaming service that offers users the ability to watch live and recorded theater productions from the comfort of their own homes. The company was founded in 2015 by Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley, two Tony Award-winning producers, and is headquartered in New York City. It has a vast on-demand catalog of productions that includes favorites like Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Into the Woods, and more. Broadway HD is also available as an Amazon Prime add-on, which you can try free for 7 days (and subscribe for cheaper too).
BroadwayHD streams filmed stage productions, more than 300 of them, covering musicals, plays, Shakespeare, opera, and ballet. For your money you get a curated theater archive, not a Netflix-sized library, and a lot of it is professional captures of London casts or anniversary revivals rather than the original Broadway runs people picture.
Theater students, drama teachers, and serious stage fans who want to study filmed productions they can't get to in person.
The trial runs 7 days for new customers only, and the day it ends it auto-renews at $19.99/month, or $199.99 for a year if you picked annual at signup. That annual charge is where people get burned: PissedConsumer has reviews of unwanted $232-plus renewals with no warning, and several users say there's no visible cancel button on the site and that phone support "goes dead." Set a reminder and cancel a day early, because getting a human to reverse a charge here is hard.
Grab the trial if you're a theater person who already has specific productions in mind to watch and study; binge them inside the week and decide honestly whether the catalog refreshes enough to keep paying. Here's the part most roundups skip: the exact same ad-free library runs as a BroadwayHD channel on Amazon Prime Video for $8.99/month, less than half the $19.99 direct price, so if you already have Prime there's no reason to subscribe through the website at all.
Dekkoo caters to the queer community and offers exclusively gay content. Their website claims to provide access to the largest selection of gay entertainment offered anywhere. Dekkoo has a 3-day free trial, then charges $9.99/month. If you’re craving more queer in your life and love gay films and TV series, then this service is for you. Dekkoo was launched in 2015 by Derek Curl and Brian Sokel.
Dekkoo is a subscription service built entirely around gay-male cinema: features, shorts, foreign films, and a handful of originals, all ad-free for $9.99 a month or $83.88 a year (about $6.99 a month if you pay annually). It runs around 400-plus hours of content, weighted heavily toward queer drama and international film rather than the reality TV and series mix you get on broader LGBTQ+ platforms.
It's best for gay men who want curated, ad-free arthouse and international gay cinema they can't easily find on Netflix or Prime, and who'll actually watch enough films to justify the monthly fee.
The trial length depends on where you sign up, and that's where people get caught. The direct Dekkoo trial is only 3 days, while signing up through Amazon Prime Video Channels gives you 7, and both auto-renew at the full $9.99 a month the moment the clock runs out with no warning email. Users also report the catalog overlaps a lot with content that's free elsewhere, and that the acquisition of TLA Releasing's library didn't actually put most of those titles on the service, so check JustWatch for the specific films you want before you commit.
Grab the trial if you have a specific list of gay films you want to watch and you've confirmed Dekkoo actually has them, because the curation is real and the ad-free experience is clean. But if you want a broader LGBTQ+ mix of series, docs, and reality TV, OUTtv covers more ground at $5.99 a month, and a casual viewer is better off renting the one or two films they care about than paying $9.99 every month for a library they'll exhaust quickly.
If you have an existing DirecTV subscription, or if you're considering getting one, you might have heard of the DirecTV + Max bundle. It exists because Max, a premium service that's home to TV series like Game of Thrones and Succession and film franchises like the DC Cinematic Universe and Harry Potter, doesn't come pre-installed in most DirecTV packages, except in its $155 Premier plan. With this bundle, however, you're free to choose from any of DirecTV's plans, which begin at $89.99/month, and bundle in Max for free for the first three months. After that, you're automatically charged the usual ad-free price, which is $16.99/month. The bundle also gives you access to HBO channels, which will be added to your current lineup, and to the Max app, which you can sign into using your DirecTV credentials. Considering Max itself doesn't offer free trials, subscribing to this bundle could save you a considerable amount.
This is DirecTV Stream's live-TV package (the Choice tier, 125+ channels with locals and regional sports) bundled with Max layered on top as a premium add-on, billed together at $106.98 a month. You get a cable-grade channel lineup, unlimited cloud DVR, and Max's full HBO and Warner library in one login, no satellite dish or annual contract required.
It's best for sports and live-news households that want their regional sports networks plus HBO prestige shows in a single bill and won't blink at cable-level pricing.
The trial is new-customers-only, and anyone who disconnected in the last 12 months is locked out. The bigger trap is the hardware: if you order DirecTV's Gemini streaming device, forum users report billing can trigger the moment the box ships, which quietly skips your 5-day window entirely. The base DirecTV Stream trial auto-renews at $86.99 plus tax, and the Max portion is usually a separate promo that reverts on its own clock, so the "$106.98" is the floor before the Regional Sports Fee and the Advanced Receiver fee push your real bill 30 to 40 percent higher. Cancel at least 24 hours before day five ends or you're charged in full.
Grab this trial only if you specifically need a regional sports network that YouTube TV and Hulu Live won't carry in your market, because that's the one thing this bundle does that cheaper services can't. If you just want HBO shows and general live TV, you're overpaying badly: buy Max directly for about $17 and pair it with YouTube TV, and you'll save real money every month without the surprise-billing landmines.
Discovery+ lets you watch original shows on-demand for just $5.99/month. It also streams content from Discovery and sister channels like CNN, TLC, Animal Planet, ID, and Food Network, so there's plenty of lifestyle, news, and home improvement programs to go around. You can watch Discovery+ and test its features free for a week. If you don't cancel by then, you're charged the regular monthly fee.
Discovery+ is the standalone home for Warner Bros. Discovery's unscripted lineup: HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, and the Discovery Channel, with 90 Day Fiancé, Diners Drive-Ins and Dives, House Hunters, and a deep true-crime catalog. For $5.99 a month with ads you get the whole library on demand, up to four simultaneous streams, but no live channels and no downloads on the cheaper tier.
It's best for true-crime and home-and-cooking reality bingers who want the full ID and HGTV back catalog without paying for HBO Max's scripted side.
The trial is one shot for life. It's 7 days and new-customers-only, so if you ever paid for Discovery+ before, even years ago and long since canceled, you won't get a free week again. Whatever plan you pick during the trial is what auto-renews on day 8, $5.99 with ads or $9.99 ad-free, and the most common surprise bill comes from people who started the trial through Amazon Prime Channels or Roku and forgot it renews on those platforms, not just inside the Discovery+ app.
Grab the trial if you have a specific binge in mind, a true-crime ID marathon or a season of 90 Day Fiancé, watch it inside the week, and cancel before it renews. The catch most roundups skip: if you already pay for HBO Max, you're probably paying twice, because HGTV, Food Network, TLC and the big reality hits already stream there, so check your existing subscriptions before you commit to another $5.99 a month.
Docsville’s focus is on documentaries sourced from around the world, originally launched by award-winning documentarian Lawrence Elmen and his business partner, Nick Fraser, who worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation. This streaming service is for those doc junkies who can’t get enough of real-world exploration and have a thirst for knowledge about many different aspects of our planet and the human race. Topics include climate change, inequality and racism, inspiring real-life tales, and true crime. Most of the documentaries offered are independent films.
Docsville is a curated documentary service built around independent and international nonfiction, much of it festival films and award winners that the big platforms skipped. For $3.99 a month you get a few hundred titles across climate, true crime, art, faith, and social-issue docs, hand-picked rather than dumped into an endless scroll.
It's best for documentary diehards who've already burned through Netflix and want serious, off-the-radar international films instead of another true-crime binge.
The trial is only 3 days and it's new-subscribers-only, which is barely enough time to watch two or three films before it quietly rolls over to $3.99 a month (£3.99 or €4.99 depending on your region). Set a reminder the moment you sign up, because a 3-day window is the kind of thing people forget until the charge lands. And know what you're actually buying here: this is a curated few hundred docs, not a bottomless catalog, so treat it like renting a smart festival lineup for a month rather than a permanent Netflix replacement.
Grab the trial if you specifically want thoughtful, international, social-issue documentaries and you're tired of the algorithm feeding you the same five true-crime series. If what you actually want is volume, CuriosityStream covers science, history, and nature with thousands of titles for around $20 a year, which is cheaper annually and far deeper, just in a different lane. Docsville earns its $3.99 on taste, not size.
Fandor is a paid subscription streaming service that curates independent, foreign, award-winning, and classic films, as well as documentaries from all over the world, making it a standout option for cinephiles. Depending on your location, it also offers a number of free movie titles. But Fandor doesn't only cater to fans; rookie directors also get some love as the service allows them to debut their work on the platform. It's a great option for film lovers and makers alike.
Fandor is a small indie and arthouse streaming service, the one The Wall Street Journal once called "the Netflix for indie film." For $4.99 a month you get ad-free access to its full library of roughly 1,300 independent films, documentaries, foreign-language titles, silent pictures, and festival picks from Sundance, Cannes, and Berlin.
It's best for cinephiles who want curated giallo, silent, foreign, and documentary collections at a low monthly price and don't care about TV series or new releases.
The thing nobody mentions: Fandor collapsed in 2018, laid off nearly its whole staff, and spent years in limbo where subscribers kept getting charged on iTunes and the website while the app showed only trailers and no actual films. Cinedigm (now Cineverse) bought it and relaunched in October 2021, but the catalog came back far smaller than the version people remember. As for the trial, the 7 days auto-renew to $4.99/month (or $3.99 if you signed up as a Prime Video add-on), and since the charge is small and the app gets little day-to-day use, people forget it's running and only notice the recurring line on their statement months later.
Grab the trial if you specifically want curated arthouse, giallo, silent, or foreign film collections and you're fine paying about five bucks for a movies-only library of around 1,300 titles. If you want the same highbrow itch scratched with a deeper, better-maintained catalog and real special features, the Criterion Channel is the stronger pick for a few dollars more. And if you just want to test the waters, Fandor's free ad-supported tier lets you do that without handing over a card at all.
Film Movement Plus is a video on-demand platform dedicated to independent and foreign films, and is currently available in the US and Canada.
In the US, it costs $5.99 a month (after a 7-day free trial) and can be accessed via any device, including IOS and Android mobile devices, Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku.
Film Movement Plus is a niche arthouse streamer built off Film Movement's own distribution catalog, so for $5.99 a month you get roughly 500-plus international features and shorts, including festival prize winners from Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Sundance and SXSW, plus a handful of North American exclusives you genuinely can't stream elsewhere.
It's best for foreign-language and festival-circuit obsessives who keep hitting Film Movement's own distribution titles and want them in one cheap, weekly-updated spot.
The 7-day trial is for "eligible new subscribers" only, so if you've trialed before on the same account or card you may not get it again, and the day it ends it auto-renews to $5.99/month with no reminder, the kind of quiet charge people forget about on a $6 line item. The bigger catch reviewers flag is the experience: there's no proper continue-watching row, so one App Store user described losing track of a half-finished film because the app doesn't surface what you started, and support is a fixed FAQ with no way to reach a human for anything off-script.
Grab the trial if you specifically want Film Movement's distribution titles or a particular festival exclusive, watch what you came for, and decide from there. If you just want broad arthouse and world cinema, a lot of these same films rotate free on Kanopy and Hoopla through a library card, and Criterion Channel gives you more than double the catalog with far better curation for a few dollars more.
Flix Premiere is a subscription-based service that streams underrated and hard-to-find independent films. Founded in 2015 by Martin Warner, Flix Premiere is a treasure trove of fresh but forgotten gems—movies deemed too small or unprofitable are finally given a fighting chance here. The company states that it sources much of its content from prestigious festivals like Berlinale, Cannes, TIFF, and more.
The streamer, currently available in the US and the UK only, is for hardcore cinephiles and anyone who prefers films over TV shows. The subscription is at $6.99/month, and the service offers a 30-day free trial.
Flix Premiere is a subscription service that streams hand-picked independent films, mostly festival titles from Berlinale, Cannes, TIFF, and SXSW that never got a wide distribution deal. For $6.99 a month you get a small, human-curated catalog with no ads and no algorithm, streamed at 1080p across Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, and the major smart TVs.
It's best for cinephiles who have already burned through MUBI and Criterion and want a cheap home for genuinely obscure festival indies they can't find anywhere else.
The thing the signup page glosses over is how thin the library actually is. JustWatch surfaces only a couple dozen US titles, and once you've watched the handful worth watching, there isn't much reason to keep paying. On the billing side, the trial is real 30 days, but it auto-renews to $6.99 a month on the exact day it ends, and Flix Premiere's own terms state it issues no refunds for cancelled subscriptions, so a missed cancellation date means you eat that month with no recourse. You cancel from the Profile page, and you should set a reminder for day 29.
Grab the 30-day trial if you're a festival-cinema nerd hunting for specific indies that fell through the distribution cracks, watch the five or six standouts, and cancel before it renews. If you want a steady stream of curated arthouse films month after month, MUBI at $14.99 is the better long-term home despite costing more, and the Criterion Channel beats both for depth. Flix Premiere is a trial to mine, not a service to subscribe to forever.
FlixFling is a flexible video on-demand streaming platform available in the US.
A subscription costs $7.99 per month (or $95 per year) and includes streaming access across 5 different devices and access to movies and shows on the on-demand library.
Without a subscription, you can still access on-demand rentals/purchases that range from $0.99 to $7.99. Meanwhile, on-demand subscribers have to pay for some titles that are available only as premium rentals.
FlixFling works across devices, smart TVs and media services.
FlixFling is a small on-demand movie service built around 5,000-plus mostly obscure indie films, B-movies, and hard-to-find older titles, with a handful of rentals and premium add-on channels on the side. For $7.99 a month you get an ad-free library you won't find on the big platforms, streamable on up to five devices.
It's best for cult-film and B-movie hunters who specifically want the deep-cut, hard-to-find catalog that Netflix and Prime won't carry and don't care about polish.
The 7-day free trial wants a credit card or PayPal up front, and the day it ends it silently rolls into $7.99 a month until you cancel, with no prorated refund if you bail mid-cycle. The bigger catch most roundups skip: FlixFling regularly sells one- and two-year subscriptions on StackSocial for a fraction of the $95 annual list price, so paying the standard monthly rate means overpaying for the exact same library. App Store reviewers also flag real reliability problems, from "two of five movies crash the app every time" to video that streams at half-screen size, so test the actual playback during your free week before you let it bill.
Grab the trial only if you have a specific rare film in mind and you've confirmed FlixFling actually has it, then cancel before day seven if the app misbehaves. If you just want a cheap library of older and indie movies that plays reliably, Tubi and Pluto TV give you a similar grab-bag for free, and Kanopy through your library card covers arthouse far better at no cost. FlixFling earns its $7.99 only for the narrow crowd chasing titles that genuinely live nowhere else.
Hallmark+ (previously Hallmark Movies Now) won't give you access to the live broadcast of the Hallmark Channel but it will give you the next best thing: on-demand access to Hallmark movies. The streamer has many of the fan favorites and beloved classics of The Hallmark Channel, while also featuring exclusive movies, shows, documentaries, and short films. Aside from being ad-free, all these titles are sure to have a PG rating, so you don't have to worry about leaving them on when there are kids around. Other cute bonuses include getting discounts on Hallmark merchandise, receiving a free card every month, and having a gift delivered on your birthday.
Hallmark+ is the $7.99/month service that replaced Hallmark Movies Now in late 2024, and it bundles next-day commercial-free access to Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Mystery premieres, the full back catalog, and originals like The Way Home with retail perks: a $5 monthly Gold Crown coupon, a free custom greeting card every month, and a points boost on Crown Rewards. You're paying for a streaming-plus-store-loyalty hybrid, not a pure movie library.
It's best for the dedicated Hallmark fan who already buys cards and gifts at Hallmark stores, since the monthly $5 coupon and free card can claw back most of the subscription cost.
The trial is the trap. It's 7 days, and Hallmark's own terms require you to cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, so canceling on day 7 still bills you the full $7.99. The bigger warning sign is the carryover from the Hallmark Movies Now transition: PissedConsumer logged hundreds of complaints and Trustpilot sits near 2 stars, with a recurring theme of people charged after they thought they'd canceled and stuck in cancellation loops. Set a phone reminder for day 5 and confirm the cancellation went through in writing.
Grab the trial if you're a Hallmark loyalist who shops the stores, because the $5 coupon plus free card quietly offset the price and the next-day commercial-free premieres are a real upgrade over watching live. If you just want cozy movies on demand and don't care about the retail rewards, the streaming side alone is buggy and shallow, and a broader service like Peacock or even your library's Hoopla covers the comfort-movie itch for less.
Hi-Yah is a niche streaming service for martial arts and Asian action content in general. The cheap monthly price of $3.99 makes it a service that's easy to add to more wholistic streaming platforms.
Hi-YAH! is a $3.99/month martial arts and Asian action channel run by distributor Well Go USA, with hundreds of hours of kung fu, wuxia, and Hong Kong action from Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Tony Jaa, and Michelle Yeoh. For the money you get an ad-free library plus offline downloads, but the catalog rotates every month, so titles rotate in and out rather than sitting there permanently.
It's best for serious martial arts and Hong Kong cinema fans who want a deep, curated bench of Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, and Shaw Brothers style action that Netflix and Prime never carry.
The thing nobody tells you is that the monthly refresh cuts both ways: new titles arrive but others leave, so a film on your list this week can be gone next month, and there's no fixed permanent core you can count on. App reviewers also flag that progress doesn't carry across devices, so start a movie on your TV and your phone makes you begin again. On the trial itself, the 7 days auto-renew straight to $3.99/month the moment they end, and if you sign up through the Prime Video add-on instead of hiyahtv.com, that charge buries itself inside your normal Amazon bill where it's easy to forget you ever started it.
If you actually watch this stuff, $3.99 is a fair price for a catalog this specialized, so grab the trial and just diarize the cancel date. But know that a chunk of the library is Well Go USA's own films, and many of those same titles stream free with ads on Tubi, so if you only want a Bruce Lee or Ip Man fix once in a while, check Tubi first before paying for anything.
The History Vault has all the best of The History channel: excellent documentaries, informative series, travel shows, and of course, historical specials. The difference is that the streamer offers all this on-demand and ad-free, with curated collections and exclusive titles to boot. Some programs that are no longer available on the cable channel can also be found in the Vault. If you're a fan of quality deep dives on everything and anything related to history and humanity, then this streamer is for you.
History Vault is A&E's on-demand archive of old HISTORY channel documentaries and series, so for $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year you get 2,000-plus commercial-free titles like Modern Marvels, Ancient Aliens, and the Vikings docs. It is a back catalog, not the live channel, so nothing currently airing on TV shows up here.
It's best for someone who misses old-school HISTORY documentaries, especially deep military and engineering series, and wants them ad-free in one cheap app.
The free trial needs a valid card and the day it ends you get auto-billed $5.99 a month (or your annual plan), and the trial is first-time subscribers only. The gotcha that fills the BBB and PissedConsumer pages is double-billing: people sign up once through the App Store or Roku and again on historyvault.com, then cancel only one path and keep getting charged on the other. Cancel through the exact store where you subscribed, because with no support phone line, untangling a stray charge usually means a chargeback or a BBB complaint.
Grab the 7-day trial if you specifically want classic HISTORY series like Modern Marvels and binge them ad-free, then decide fast and cancel through the same store you used. If you just want good documentaries in general, CuriosityStream runs as low as $2.99 a month with 4K and a far broader catalog, and MagellanTV matches the $5.99 price while adding 4K, so History Vault only wins if you're chasing that specific HISTORY back catalog.
Hopster TV is a kids-oriented streaming service that offers a variety of educational and entertaining shows. It also offers games, books, and songs in the platform, allowing kids to navigate between depending on their mood.
Hopster is a 100% ad-free preschool app for ages 4 and under, bundling a curated library of TV shows (Pingu, Sesame Street, Fireman Sam, StoryBots, Bob the Builder), plus simple learning games, songs, and books. For $7.99 a month you're paying for a walled, ad-free garden aimed at little kids, not a deep general catalog.
Parents of toddlers and preschoolers who want a small, genuinely safe, ad-free space where an accidental tap can't fling their kid onto YouTube.
The free part of the app is bait: kids get drawing, a couple of songs, and only one or two free shows, so they see everything locked behind the paywall and the pressure to subscribe gets heavy fast. The 7-day trial rolls straight into the $7.99/month charge unless you cancel auto-renew at least 24 hours before it ends, and where you cancel depends on where you signed up (Apple subscriptions have to be killed in your iTunes account, Android ones in Google Play, not inside Hopster). Parents have also reported that once your trial is used up you can get stuck only being re-offered the trial you're no longer eligible for instead of a clean re-subscribe link.
Grab the 7-day trial only if you have a toddler and specifically want a sealed, ad-free sandbox you don't have to police. If you already pay for Netflix or Disney+, you're mostly buying shows you can already watch, and Noggin from Nickelodeon runs about the same $8 a month with a 30-day trial and bigger-name characters like Blue's Clues and Peppa Pig, so it's the better-value swap for most families.
IndieFlix is an online streaming service dedicated to independent filmmaking and is available in 85 countries.
In the US, you can access IndieFlix for $4.99 per month, or a one-year subscription at a discounted $39.99. Patrons of IndieFlix may access IndieFlix free of charge.
IndieFlix is a niche subscription service built around independent features, short films, and documentaries, with roughly 8,000 titles from 85 countries. For $4.99 a month you get ad-free, unlimited access to festival-circuit shorts and issue-driven docs you won't find on Netflix, plus a small catalog of older TV.
It's best for short-film fans, educators, and parents who specifically want IndieFlix's mental-health documentaries like Angst, Screenagers, LIKE, and The Upstanders in one place.
The 7-day free trial is new-subscribers-only, and it auto-renews into the $4.99/month plan the moment it ends unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the cycle closes, so a forgotten trial becomes a charge. The bigger reservation is reliability: reviewers consistently say they love the content but are forced to watch in a browser because the app freezes, crashes when you rotate to landscape, and logs them out mid-session. The here is that you can often skip paying entirely. IndieFlix is offered free through the Libby app's Extras section with a library card, where each checkout gives you a 7-day ad-free pass you can renew indefinitely.
Grab the trial only if there's a specific IndieFlix documentary you need, like Angst or Screenagers for a classroom or family screening, because that curated mental-health and short-film catalog is the one thing it does that rivals don't. But before you pay $4.99 a month, check whether your library offers IndieFlix through Libby, since you can stream the same titles free with a card. If you just want quality indie features and arthouse cinema, Kanopy (also free via many libraries) or a $6 Mubi trial gives you a stronger, better-organized lineup.
Formerly Kino Now, which only offered rentals, Kino Film Collection is an on-demand streaming service featuring films that could rival the catalogs of Criterion and Mubi. Here you'll find indie darlings, hard-to-find classics, and international gems by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Jafar Panahi, Jia Zhangke, Joanna Hogg, and Alfred Hitchcock. Some examples of their carefully curated collections are "Cannes Winners," "New York Times Critics’ Picks," "Visionary Black Directors," and "Women Filmmakers." You can watch the Kino Film Collection on major streaming devices.
Kino Film Collection is the streaming arm of Kino Lorber, a 45-year-old arthouse distributor, and for $5.99 a month you get its library of award-winning indie and international films, restored classics, and documentaries, with new titles added every week.
It's best for cinephiles who already know Kino Lorber's name from Blu-ray spines and want first-run festival and arthouse titles without paying Criterion Channel money.
The trial is 7 days and then it auto-renews to $5.99 a month with no reminder, so set a calendar note the day you sign up. The bigger catch is how you subscribe: if you add it through Amazon Prime Video Channels instead of Kino's own apps, the charge and the cancellation both live inside Amazon, and people routinely forget which account is billing them. Note too that Kino quietly pulled offline downloads at the end of November 2024, so anyone who signed up for plane and subway viewing lost that feature.
Grab the 7-day trial if there's a specific Kino Lorber title you've been chasing or you want a cheap rotating feed of arthouse and restored cinema. But if you want depth, commentaries, and a catalog you can get lost in for months, the Criterion Channel at $10.99 is the better buy, and MUBI is the move if you'd rather have one hand-picked film a day than browse a distributor's back catalog.
Klassiki is a streaming service dedicated to classic and modern films from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The platform's team carefully curate the titles that go into their library, and every week, they handpick a special film for you to enjoy. Since Klassiki is still new, their library is not too stacked (they have about 50 titles as of this writing), but the leanness is perfect for those who value quality over quantity. A monthly subscription costs $10.99 (£9.99 if you're in the UK), and along with on-demand content, you get exclusive program notes, reviews, and interviews from different critics and filmmakers via their journal section.
Klassiki is a boutique streaming service for cinema from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, run by the Kino Klassika Foundation. For $10.99 a month you get a small, hand-curated, ad-free library of rare classics and award-winning new releases, plus a weekly "Pick of the Week" film, critic essays, and a podcast.
It's best for serious arthouse viewers who specifically want Soviet, post-Soviet, Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic, and Central Asian films they can't find on MUBI or anywhere else.
The trial is new members only and it auto-renews to $10.99 a month the moment it ends, and Apple's own billing terms warn that "any unused portion of your free trial will be forfeited upon payment," so cancel at least 24 hours before day seven if you don't want the charge. The quieter catch is geo-licensing: content is restricted to the US and UK, and individual films rotate in and out under region-by-region deals, with some titles licensed for UK and Northern Ireland only, so the small catalog you signed up for can quietly shrink on you.
Grab the trial if there's a specific Tarkovsky, Paradjanov, or contemporary Ukrainian title you've been hunting, watch it inside the week, and decide from there. If you want arthouse breadth rather than this exact region, MUBI gives you a far bigger rotating catalog for similar money, but if Eastern European cinema is your thing, pay yearly at roughly $6.67 a month rather than the $10.99 monthly rate.
KocowaTV is a streaming service for K-dramas and Korean content in general. Once a new TV episode airs in Korea, you can get it in as little as 12 hours - the time it usually takes for translation and subtitling. It has free and paid plans (a subscription costs $7/month) but non-paid users do complain quite a bit about the ads. If that's something that doesn't bother you, however, this is a good way to access a variety of Korean content.
KOCOWA+ is a K-drama and Korean variety streamer backed by the big three Korean networks (KBS, MBC, SBS), so you get new episodes within about six hours of their Korean broadcast with official English subtitles. The $6.99 basic plan is ad-free and gives you one profile and one stream.
It's best for the K-drama and variety-show diehard who wants legit, fast, properly subtitled episodes straight from KBS, MBC, and SBS within hours of airing in Korea.
The salesperson won't tell you there's a cheaper ad-supported tier that delays new episodes by a full day instead of the six hours paying subscribers get, so the whole point of KOCOWA, speed, evaporates if you cheap out. The bigger trap is the trial itself: it takes your card up front and auto-renews to $6.99/month the moment 14 days are up, and you have to cancel at least 24 hours early to dodge the charge. KOCOWA's own help center walks through cancellation because so many people can't find it, and PissedConsumer and Amazon forums are full of users reporting surprise charges and repeated billing even after they thought they'd cancelled, with some resorting to killing their credit card to make it stop.
Grab the 14-day trial if you specifically want KBS, MBC, and SBS dramas the same day they air in Korea, because nothing else gets them to you legally that fast. If you just want a big Korean and pan-Asian catalog and don't care about same-day episodes, Rakuten Viki gives you far more for similar money. Either way, set a phone reminder to cancel two days before the trial ends, because getting your money back after the fact is the part people actually struggle with.
Formerly known as Epix, MGM+ is an on-demand streaming service that carries original shows like Godfather of Harlem and classic movies that have been released under the MGM banner. Its catalog is more limited than Netflix and the Criterion Channel, but a thousand titles for $6.99/month is still a good deal for many people. You can try either the standalone or add-on MGM+ app free for seven days to see if it fits your streaming needs.
MGM+ is the rebranded Epix, a premium movie-and-originals channel now owned by Amazon. For your money you get the James Bond and Rocky libraries, a rotating stack of older Hollywood films, and a small but well-reviewed slate of originals like From, Godfather of Harlem, and The Institute, with four simultaneous streams and no ads.
It's best for people who want to binge one specific MGM+ original or marathon the Bond and Rocky catalogs over a month, then cancel.
The price you pay depends entirely on where you sign up, and that trips people up. The 7-day trial auto-renews at $7.99/month if you subscribe direct or through the Apple or Google apps, but the exact same service is $6.99/month as a Prime Video channel, so paying full freight direct means overpaying by a dollar every month for nothing. The trial is new-customers-only, tied to your email and payment method, so if you've ever had Epix or MGM+ before you'll get billed on day one instead of day eight. And when you do cancel, expect nothing: subscribers report a hard no-retention policy with no discounts, no pause, and no refund on the partial month.
Grab the trial if there's a specific original you want, like From or The Institute, and binge it inside the 7 days, but add it through Prime Video so you land on $6.99 instead of $7.99 if you forget to cancel. As a year-round subscription it's thin and overpriced, and if you mainly want prestige films and dramas, Max covers far more ground for the money.
If you’re sick of the same old movies you’re seeing on this side of the world, then MHz Choice might come as a pleasant surprise for you. The streaming service specializes in international content, especially Nordic noir and British thrillers. Though the app itself can be a little clunky, at $8/month, it’s an affordable alternative to accessing quality foreign-language shows, films, documentaries, and more. It also recently merged with fellow subscription service Topic, so expect to see even more European fare there.
MHz Choice is a niche streaming service built around international mysteries, dramas, and comedies, mostly subtitled crime shows from France, Italy, Germany, and Scandinavia. For $7.99 a month or $79.99 a year you get the whole ad-free, unedited library and offline downloads, with no extra tiers or fees.
It's best for subtitle-comfortable fans of European and Nordic noir who've already burned through the obvious Netflix crime shows and want the deeper, untranslated stuff like the original Italian Montalbano, Beck, and The Killing.
The trial runs 7 days and it's new customers only, and it does unlock the full library, but a credit card is required up front and it auto-renews the moment the week ends. People get surprise-billed because the default checkout is the annual plan, so a forgotten trial turns into an $79.99 charge rather than $7.99. The other quiet gotcha is the app itself: Roku owners on support forums report episodes that won't load and logins that fail, and MHz recommends at least 10Mbps just to avoid buffering, so test it on your actual TV before you trust it past day seven.
Grab the trial if European crime is your thing and you want titles the mainstream services don't carry, just set a cancel reminder and double-check whether you picked the monthly or annual plan at checkout. If you mostly want British and Irish mysteries instead of continental ones, Acorn TV covers that better for $5.99 a month, two dollars less. MHz earns its keep only when you specifically want the French, Italian, German, and Nordic shows it specializes in.
MagellanTV’s content focuses mostly on documentaries. New movies and series are added weekly, so the library is frequently updated. This streamer is for people who love learning about science, space, and the earth. MagellanTV provides a thoughtfully curated selection of films that focus on current events and global topics of importance. A monthly subscription costs $5.99/month with a 7-day free trial, but if you opt to pay annually, your monthly cost comes up to just $4.99/month and you'll be eligible for a 14-day free trial.
MagellanTV is an ad-free documentary service with around 3,000 titles across history, science, nature, true crime, and space. The $5.99 monthly plan gets you 4K streaming, offline downloads, and five simultaneous streams, all included with no upsell tier.
It's best for history and science documentary obsessives who burn through the genre faster than Netflix or PBS can restock it.
The catch is the trial itself. That 14-day window only comes with the annual plan at $59.88 up front, while the $5.99/month plan most people expect gives you only 7 days. MagellanTV's own terms state it will not send you any notice that your trial has ended, so you have to cancel before midnight Eastern on the final day or you're billed automatically, and the company does not refund amounts already paid. Trustpilot and chargeback complaints are full of people who got quietly billed and couldn't get their money back.
Grab the trial if you actually watch history and science docs weekly, since the curation runs deeper than the free PBS and YouTube stuff and the 4K is included. But set a calendar reminder to cancel before the clock runs out, because there's no warning email and no refunds. If you want the same kind of catalog cheaper, CuriosityStream runs about $2.99/month billed annually with a larger library, and it's the better value unless MagellanTV's specific titles are the draw.
Magnolia Selects can be accessed via an array of iOS and Android phones and tablets as well as desktops and Roku devices. It is also available as a channel through Sling TV and Amazon Prime Video.
Subscriptions with unlimited access to Magnolia Selects cost $4.99 per month or a discounted $49.99 per year.
Another plan is available for “sub-genre subscriptions” that gives access to specific genres (action, comedy, horror, documentary) for only $2.99 per month.
Magnolia Selects is Magnolia Pictures' own streaming service, so you get the studio's library of indie dramas, festival documentaries, foreign-language films, and genre horror for $4.99 a month with no ads. It's a curated arthouse catalog, not a Netflix-sized one, and you're paying for the kind of films most big services bury or never carry.
It's best for arthouse and documentary fans who want Magnolia's specific catalog (titles like Melancholia, Let the Right One In, and Compliance) without paying Criterion or MUBI prices.
The trial is 7 days and it auto-renews to $4.99/month (or $49.99/year if you pick annual) the moment it ends, and the terms require you to cancel at least 24 hours before the trial expires or you get billed. The real friction is technical, not the price: iOS reviewers report the app throwing "wrong email or password" errors on accounts that exist and Chromecast freezing mid-stream, so set a calendar reminder rather than trusting you'll remember to cancel inside a clunky app. If you signed up through Apple, Roku, or Amazon, you cancel through that store, not Magnolia, which trips people up.
Grab the trial if Magnolia's specific arthouse and documentary catalog is what you're after, because at $4.99 ad-free it undercuts Criterion Channel ($10.99) and MUBI ($12.99) by a wide margin. But the library is shallow and the apps are buggy, so if you want depth and a far bigger curated collection for serious film viewing, the Criterion Channel is the better buy even at double the price.
If you lived through the '80s, you may have heard of Night Flight, the nighttime cable channel that aired punk rock music videos, low-budget monster flicks, psychedelic documentaries, and adult cartoons, among many others. It went under at the turn of the '90s but has recently returned to join the streaming wars, seemingly bigger and better than ever. As a subscription-based streaming service, Night Flight Plus gives you access to classic gems, plus new content from partner studio companies. It's basically a time capsule with extra room for all the new niche movies it could've aired during its prime. If you're looking for carefully curated nostalgic picks, Night Flight Plus is a great choice to consider.
Night Flight Plus is a niche streaming service built around the cult 1980s USA Network show, pairing restored Night Flight episodes with a rotating library of hard-to-find horror, exploitation, B-movies, music documentaries, and thousands of vintage stereo music videos. For your money you get ad-free streaming and as many simultaneous streams as you want, pulling titles from labels like Grindhouse Releasing, Severin, Arrow, Something Weird, and Troma.
It's best for cult-film and Something Weird types who already own a region-free Blu-ray player and want a cheap, ad-free firehose of grindhouse oddities and 80s music videos they can't find anywhere else.
The thing the signup page won't tell you: subscribers report there are no renewal reminders, so the 7-day trial quietly auto-renews to whatever plan you picked at signup, $6.99/month or $59.99/year, and people only notice when the charge hits their card. One long-time user on the DVD Talk forum flatly called the customer service "nonexistent," so don't count on getting that surprise charge reversed. Set a calendar reminder the day you sign up, because the only way to avoid the bill is canceling in the account page before day seven, and App Store sign-ups have to be canceled through Apple, not the website.
Grab the trial if you're the kind of person who actually gets excited about Andy Sidaris box sets and Hong Kong Category III docs, because nothing else streams this stuff ad-free for $6.99 a month. Everyone else, especially if you mainly want horror, is better served by Shudder, which has a real app, a bigger library, and proper subtitles for roughly the same price. The price has already climbed from $4.99 to $6.99, so lock in the $59.99 annual rate only after you've confirmed the catalog clicks for you.
OutTV is one of the earliest LGBTQ+ oriented streaming services, dating back to a channel by the same name that was launched in 2001. OutTV offers a wide range of programming, from original series and movies to licensed content from other networks. Some of their most popular titles include "Canada's Drag Race" and "Call Me Mother".
OUTtv is the world's first LGBTQ+ TV channel turned streaming service, and for $5.99 a month you get its library of queer originals, reality competitions, and documentaries, with original programming now making up about two-thirds of the catalog.
It's best for drag and queer-reality fans who want shows like The Boulet Brothers' Dragula and For the Love of DILFs alongside LGBTQ+ documentaries you won't find on the big platforms.
The trap is that OUTtv charges very different prices depending on where you sign up. Subscribe direct at OUTtv.com and you pay $5.99 a month, but the exact same service runs $2.99 on Apple TV Channels and $3.99 through The Roku Channel, so the direct route can cost you nearly double for nothing extra. The 7-day trial is once per account and auto-renews on the same day each cycle the moment it ends, and the charge lands as "OUTtv Cleeng," which people don't recognize on their card statement; cancel at least 24 hours before the trial date or you get billed, and uninstalling the app does not cancel anything.
Grab the trial if Dragula, queer reality, and LGBTQ+ docs are your thing, but sign up through Apple TV Channels at $2.99 or Roku at $3.99 instead of paying $5.99 direct. If you mostly want broad, inclusive queer content and don't want to pay at all, Revry's free ad-supported tier is the better starting point, and Dekkoo at $9.99 only makes sense if you specifically want gay men's films.
Ovid.tv is an on-demand streaming platform dedicated to independent movies and is currently available in the US and Canada.
In the US, Ovid.tv costs $6.99 per month or $69 per year. It used to offer a 14-day free trial, but it's since shortened the period to 7 days.
You can access Ovid.tv via mobile platforms including Android and iOS, as well as media streaming devices including Android TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku. However, Ovid.tv does not offer any apps for game consoles at the moment.
OVID.tv is a $6.99/month streaming service built from eight independent distributors (Icarus, Bullfrog, Women Make Movies, Grasshopper and others) that gives you around 2,600 documentaries, foreign films, and experimental features you genuinely can't find on the big platforms. There are no ads, no live TV, and no originals, just a curated catalog that refreshes with new titles every couple of weeks.
It's best for documentary obsessives and arthouse viewers who want social-issue films, international cinema, and festival titles that never hit Netflix, Criterion, or MUBI.
The thing the pitch glosses over is what OVID actually is: it's a documentary and social-justice film service first and an arthouse one second, organized into sections like Climate Change, Criminal Justice, and Race & Racism. If you sign up expecting a Criterion-style canon of Bergman and Godard, you'll feel misled, because the overlap with those names is close to nothing. On the trial: the 7 days require your card upfront and it auto-renews at $6.99/month the moment the week ends, so set a reminder, and note that the trial only opens if your IP is inside the US or Canada.
Grab the trial if you actually watch documentaries and global indie cinema, because nothing else at this price gives you these distributors in one place, and at $69.99/year it's almost a rounding error. If what you really want is canonized arthouse and classic auteurs, the Criterion Channel is the better pick, and MUBI is the move if you'd rather have a small curated rotation than a deep doc library to dig through.
Strong Voices TV (SVTV) Network is a subscription-based internet streamer specifically catered to and created by members and allies of the LGBTQI+ community. It has since expanded to include other underrepresented voices such as works from the Black, Asian, and Latino communities. Not only does it offer inclusive films and TV shows, but it also provides exclusive access to podcasts, music, sporting events, and video games. If you're looking for a community-based streamer and would love to expand your entertainment horizons by adding unique elements into the mix, then you may want to consider subscribing. The website invites you to “join the movement” for just $6.99/month.
SVTV+ (Strong Voices Television) is an independent LGBTQ+ streaming service that's expanded to spotlight Black, Latino, and other underrepresented creators. For your money you get its own originals like StudvilleTV, Out In History, and the Stud Model Project, plus licensed indie queer films, documentaries, and a set of newer live FAST channels.
It's best for viewers who specifically want Black and queer independent storytelling and want to put their dollars behind a creator-owned platform rather than a corporate one.
The 7-day trial auto-renews to the paid plan (around $6.99 a month) the moment it ends, and if you signed up through Roku or an app store, you have to cancel in that platform's subscription settings, not just inside the SVTV app, or you'll still get billed. This is a tiny, mission-driven catalog, not a deep one, so the honest test is whether you'll watch enough in a week to justify a recurring charge. Treat the trial as a sample of the originals, not a full month of viewing, and set a reminder to cancel before day seven.
Grab the trial if you actively want LGBTQ+ and Black indie originals and like the idea of paying a creator-owned platform directly. If you mostly want a broad queer film and TV catalog for the money, Revry is free and reaches a much wider library, and Dekkoo is the stronger pick for arthouse gay cinema, so most people are better served there unless SVTV's specific originals are the draw.
Screambox as its name would indicate is a horror-themed streaming service that offers up a selection of chilling titles to keep you entertained through the darkest nights. They try to offer a mix of indie and classic movies and shows.
Screambox is a horror-only streaming service with around 410 movies and shows plus eight live FAST channels, curated by the team behind Bloody Disgusting. For $6.99 a month you get a deep bench of B-movies, slashers, and low-budget obscurities, streaming up to 1080p with three simultaneous streams and offline downloads.
It's best for budget horror diehards who already know the genre and want cheap, deep-cut B-movies and slasher obscurities rather than polished originals.
The trial is 7 days and unlocks the full library, but it auto-renews to $6.99 a month unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, and that's where people get burned. Forum and Ripoff Report posts describe a broken "Cancel Subscription" link that throws errors on web and mobile, people charged after canceling during the trial, double-bills that support claimed it "couldn't find," and a support line that goes straight to voicemail. The contrarian catch most roundups skip: the eight "live" channels are FAST channels that still run ad breaks, and the ads are mostly Bloody Disgusting station IDs that knock the audio out of sync until you leave and rejoin.
Grab the trial if you're a horror obsessive who wants cheap access to low-budget and B-movie deep cuts and you're comfortable canceling through your App Store or Google Play billing rather than Screambox's own broken cancel flow. If you want the bigger library, better originals, and a more reliable app, pay the extra $2 for Shudder at $8.99 a month instead, since you get roughly 35% more titles and far fewer billing headaches.
Viaplay is one of the rare streaming services that still offers a 14-day free trial. The service specializes in Nordic fare, particularly noir, thrillers, and mysteries. It's niche that way, but it also streams a good number of popular and critically acclaimed films starring the likes of Mads Mikkelsen and Stellan Skarsgård. You can try it free as a standalone app, or as an add-on channel on Prime Video, Roku, and Sling.
Viaplay is the Nordic crime-and-drama streamer, and in the US it now lives as a $5.99/month add-on channel inside Prime Video rather than its own app. You get a tight catalog of Scandinavian noir, European dramas, and documentaries: think the Millennium/Dragon Tattoo trilogy, Trom, Black Sands, and Face to Face with Lars Mikkelsen.
It's best for the viewer who burned through the obvious Scandinavian noir and wants subtitled Nordic crime and drama you can't easily find on Netflix or Hulu.
The thing nobody tells you: the US Viaplay is not the real Viaplay. Viaplay shut down its standalone American app in February 2024 and relaunched as a thin Prime Video Channel, so the sports and the deep European library that made it famous never crossed over. The 7-day trial is for eligible new subscribers only, it runs through Amazon, and the day it ends it auto-renews to $5.99/month on whatever card is on your Amazon account. People get surprise-billed because it's buried under Prime Video Channels, not your usual app subscriptions list, so set a calendar reminder and cancel there if you're only sampling.
Grab the free week if you've already exhausted the Scandinavian crime shelves on Netflix and want a focused hit of Nordic noir for the price of a coffee. But if you want European and international drama more broadly, MHz Choice or Topic (both also Prime Video channels around $6 to $8) give you a far deeper catalog for nearly the same money, so Viaplay only wins when Nordic noir specifically is the itch you're scratching.
Ranging from 5 to 60 days, YouTube TV's free trial length varies constantly (as of this writing, it offers a 10-day trial). The trial gives you access to all of the live TV plan's offerings, including its extensive channel lineup, unlimited cloud DVR, and unique multiview feature, which is a favorite among sports fans. One common downside YouTube TV users bring up is the inconsistent streaming quality, especially when it comes to live games. That's something you can test for yourself when you sign up for a free trial.
YouTube TV is a live TV streaming service with 100+ channels, unlimited cloud DVR, and 6 household profiles for $82.99 a month. You get the big networks, locals, and national sports, all running through the same app you already use, no box or contract.
It's best for a household that wants a full cable replacement with locals and sports, and will actually use the unlimited DVR and three simultaneous streams to justify the price.
The trial length isn't fixed. Google rotates it between 5, 10, and 21 days depending on the promo, and it auto-renews to the full $82.99 a month the moment it ends, with no warning email most people notice. The catch buried in the terms: cancelling during a free trial cuts your access off immediately, so people leave it running to use the last few days and then forget, which is exactly how the surprise charge lands. It's also tied to your Google account for life, so a trial you used years ago means you don't qualify now.
Grab the trial if you want one app that replaces cable with locals, sports, and a DVR you'll never fill, and set a calendar reminder for the day before it ends. But if you don't watch live sports, the new Entertainment plan at $54.99 or Sling at around $46 gets you most of what you'd actually watch for $30 less, so don't default to the $82.99 base bundle just because it's the headline plan.
Hidive focuses mainly on anime shows and films. Its offerings include classical anime, popular anime films and shows, as well as hidden gems of the anime world, put together for those who love anime and don’t want to wait for the releases of their favorite shows.
They add new content via simulcasts which means that you’ll be able to stream new anime shows online as they’re released in real-time. This service is great for anime lovers who don’t want to wait months for their favorite anime shows to be released on DVD. Hidive is an independent anime streaming company based in Texas that was launched in 2017.
HIDIVE is a niche anime streamer built on Sentai Filmworks' library, so you get a smaller but deeper catalog of dubs, uncensored cuts, and older or experimental titles you won't find on the big platforms. One plan, $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year, ad-free, streaming up to 1080p.
It's best for the dedicated anime fan who already has Crunchyroll and wants the Sentai-exclusive dubs and uncensored versions it can't get anywhere else.
The 7-day trial is first-time subscribers only, and the moment it ends it auto-renews to the full $6.99 (or $69.99 if you accidentally pick annual) with no warning email the day of. HIDIVE's own help center spells out the trap in plain text: if you forget to cancel before the trial ends, "we do not offer refunds in this instance," so a missed reminder means you eat the full charge. Deleting the app does not cancel anything either, you have to cancel through the account billing page.
Grab the trial if there's a specific Sentai dub or uncensored title you can't watch elsewhere, set a calendar reminder for day 6, and decide from there. For most anime fans Crunchyroll is the better single subscription at a similar price with a far bigger library and faster simulcast dubs, and HIDIVE keeps losing its own headliners to it (Oshi no Ko Season 3 moved to Crunchyroll in January 2026), so treat HIDIVE as a second service, not your first.
Fox One brings together all things Fox into one accessible platform for $19.99/month. The live and on-demand streaming service carries every Fox channel, from your local affiliate and Fox News to FS1 and FS2. It also allows you to watch ongoing Fox sitcoms and dramas on demand, but older shows might be missing from the catalog. Though pricey, Fox One is free for viewers who already pay for TV subscriptions that come with Fox, like DirecTV, Fubo, or Hulu with Live TV. It’s also available in select bundles and as an add-on to platforms like Prime Video.
Fox One is Fox's standalone streaming app that bundles its live channels (your local Fox station, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, Fox Deportes, Fox News, Fox Business, and Fox Weather) plus on-demand episodes of current Fox shows. For $19.99 a month you get live Fox sports and news and the newest seasons of things like The Simpsons and Hell's Kitchen, but no back catalog.
It's best for cord-cutters who mainly want live NFL on Fox plus Fox News or FS1 without paying $70-plus for a full live-TV bundle.
The catch most roundups skip is the word "local." Fox One only streams your live local Fox station in markets where Fox actually owns the station, so if you live in an affiliate market, your Sunday NFL game on Fox can be missing from the app entirely. The free trial is also slippery: Fox's own app pages have shown a 3-day trial while the web and Amazon/Roku listings advertise 7 days, and whichever you get, it auto-renews to $19.99 a month the moment it ends. You have to cancel at least 24 hours before it expires, and if you signed up through Apple, Roku or Amazon, Fox can't cancel it for you, you have to do it in that store or you get billed.
Grab the trial if you're a Fox sports or Fox News loyalist who wants those specific channels live and nothing else, and check first that Fox owns your local station before you trust it for NFL Sundays. If you actually want broad live TV, Sling or DirecTV Stream's cheapest tier gets you Fox plus dozens of other channels for not much more, and if you mostly want Fox sports alongside ESPN, the ESPN bundle is the smarter buy than paying for Fox One on its own.
| Service | Free trial | Price after | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fubo |
7 days | $73.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Hulu |
30 days | $11.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| DIRECTV |
5 days | $89.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Philo |
7 days | $25 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Hulu with Live TV |
3 days | $88.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Paramount+ |
7 days | $8.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Frndly TV |
7 days | $8.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Apple TV+ |
7 days | $12.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Amazon Prime |
30 days | $8.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| Mubi |
30 days | $14.99 | 5.0 | Get it |
| AMC+ |
7 days | $6.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Criterion Channel |
7 days | $10.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Crunchyroll |
7 days | $7.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Shudder |
7 days | $8.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| BritBox |
7 days | $10.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| SUNDANCE NOW |
7 days | $7.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Acorn TV |
7 days | $8.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Allblk |
7 days | $6.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Amazon Kids+ |
30 days | $5.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Amazon Prime + PBS Kids |
7 days | $13.98 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Amazon Prime Video + Starz and MGM+ Bundle |
7 days | $22.98 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Arrow Player |
7 days | $6.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| BBC Select |
7 days | $8.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| BET+ |
7 days | $5.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| BFI Player Classics |
14 days | $5.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| BroadwayHD |
7 days | $19.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Dekkoo |
3 days | $9.99 | 4.5 | Get it |
| DirecTV+ Max bundle |
5 days | $106.98 | 4.5 | Get it |
| Discovery+ |
7 days | $5.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Docsville |
3 days | $3.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Fandor |
7 days | $4.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Film Movement Plus |
7 days | $5.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Flix Premiere |
30 days | $6.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| FlixFling |
7 days | $7.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Hallmark+ |
7 days | $7.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Hi-Yah |
7 days | $3.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| History Vault |
7 days | $5.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Hopster TV |
7 days | $7.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Indieflix |
7 days | $4.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Kino Film Collection |
7 days | $5.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Klassiki |
7 days | $10.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| KocowaTV |
14 days | $6.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| MGM+ |
7 days | $7.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| MHz Choice |
7 days | $7.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| MagellanTV |
14 days | $5.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Magnolia Selects |
7 days | $4.99 | 4.0 | Get it |
| Night Flight Plus |
7 days | $6.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| OutTV |
7 days | $5.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| Ovid TV |
7 days | $6.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| SVTV Network |
7 days | $6.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| Screambox |
7 days | $6.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| Viaplay |
7 days | $5.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| YouTube TV |
7 days | $82.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| hidive |
7 days | $6.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
| Fox One |
7 days | $19.99 | 3.5 | Get it |
We rank these by what you actually get for free, how long the trial really runs, and how the service holds up once you're in: a slick library behind a seven-day clock isn't worth much if the app is a chore or the catalog is thin. From there it comes down to price after the trial, what sits behind an extra paywall, and how painless it is to walk away. Whatever lands near the top is the service that gets most of that right for the most people.
Some of the links on this page are affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you sign up through one. It never costs you anything extra, and that money is part of how we pay writers and keep the site free to read.
What it doesn't do is buy a place on the list. We order these services by what they offer, how good the trial is, and how they hold up in real use, and a commission has no bearing on any of it. Trial terms and prices change constantly, so it's worth checking the current numbers on the provider's own site before you sign up for anything.