Tong Family

OK, I know the pandemic is ending, but the movie habit never really dies, while there is always a plethora, some quick notes and reviews in order of what’s the best value:

1. Kanopy. Like OverDrive and Libby, your local library is a huge resource and you never even really need to go there. With Kanopy, you sign up at your local library and you get (in my case 5 for Seattle Public Library), movies that you can stream for free, thanks to your community. Check it out! These aren’t the first-run movies, but more of the classics. They do have movies like Parasite for instance, but the old catalog like old episodes of the Prisoner is great. Cost: Free!
2. Amazon Prime Video. We watch more of this than ever because it is bundled into the Amazon Prime family plan. The back catalog is actually pretty good. Cost: None if you get Prime anyway.
3. Netflix. Well, if you have T-Mobile then this is a really good deal. T-Mobile pays for the first $13 or so a month. That means that if you want 4K videos, it’s an incremental $3 a month so hard to beat.
4. Disney+. We probably should have bought this before the price increase, but if you have Verizon FIOS then they throw in a free year so it’s pretty worth it. We actually mainly like NatGeo’s big collection of nature videos but have been through most of it. I’m not sure we would buy it at the full rack rate, but good for now!
5. Apple TV+. Well, they don’t have much content but since it is part of Apple One, if you need the iCloud subscription (we do for backups and for Homekit Secure Video), then the cost is pretty nominal particularly if you use the other features like the Fitness (now that we have AppleTV 4K, that’s easier to justify) or Arcade (we don’t use it that much). But at $5/month and the long running free trial, it is getting a little if you give a little.
6. Rotating trial deals at Amazon. The pandemic featured lots of these, but if you watch carefully, there are host of $0.99 for a month or whatever trial deals happening all the time.