Scoring sheet
How we scored the best streaming services for movies
Every score in The best streaming services for movies comes from this sheet: the tools we considered, the scale for each criterion, and the evidence and date behind each score.
This page shows the working behind The best streaming services for movies. It lists the field, the film lists we counted, the criteria and weights, what each score means and, for every service and criterion, the score and the evidence behind it.
Everything here was checked on November 4, 2026, from a cloud computer with a US internet connection. We built three fixed lists of 893 films, looked up every one in JustWatch's US catalog on that day, and counted which services include each film with the subscription. Rentals, purchases and add-on channels sold inside another app don't count. Prices come from each service's US pricing or help pages, or from dated news reports where a page didn't load for us. We did not subscribe to any of the services or use their apps, so every pick is desk-researched.
The question and the reader
The question, in the reader's words: "What is the best streaming service for movies?" Search autocomplete in November 2026 completes "best streaming service for movies" with "and tv shows", "reddit" and "right now", and suggests "netflix vs hbo max", "netflix vs prime video", "disney plus vs netflix" and "peacock vs paramount plus". We asked four AI models (GPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, through their APIs with web search on) five versions of the question on November 4, 2026, which gave 20 answers.
The reader is in the US and wants one or two subscriptions mainly for movie nights. They want the service that has the films they'd actually choose: well-known films, past and recent. They want to know what each service really streams, what it costs without ads interrupting the film, and what to pick instead if their taste is narrower.
The film lists
A service's catalog size says little about whether it has the films you want: JustWatch counts 25,750 movies included with Prime Video, most of them little known. So we counted three public lists of films that are well known for different reasons. Anyone can rebuild them and rerun the count.
| List | What's on it | Films | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acclaimed films | Every Best Picture winner and nominee from the first Academy Awards (1927/28) to the 2025 films honored in March 2026, plus the American Film Institute's 100 greatest American films (2007 edition) | 650 | Wikipedia's Best Picture list, AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) |
| Popular films | The 10 highest-grossing films in the US and Canada in each calendar year from 2000 to 2024 | 245 | Box Office Mojo's yearly charts |
| Recent hits | The 25 highest-grossing films in the US and Canada in calendar 2025 | 25 | Box Office Mojo, 2025 |
Some films are on more than one list (Titanic is a Best Picture winner and a box-office hit), so the three lists hold 893 different films. A film that topped the box office across two calendar years counts once. Each film was matched to its JustWatch page by title and release year; we gave 17 list entries a manual search term because JustWatch spells the title differently (for example Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, or The Postman for Il Postino); 15 of them then matched, and two (East Lynne and The White Parade) still didn't. With The Patriot (1928) and The Pied Piper (1942), that makes four films we couldn't find in JustWatch at all, all from 1928 to 1942, and they count as streaming nowhere. One of them, The Patriot (1928), is a lost film.
The field
The candidates are every subscription the 20 AI answers recommended for movies, and the services the top search results compare: Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, Apple TV, the Criterion Channel, MUBI, MGM+ and Starz. All 12 are scored.
Must-have: sold to anyone in the US as a monthly subscription, with on-demand movies as a main part of the service.
| Considered | Why it isn't scored |
|---|---|
| Tubi, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, Plex, Fawesome, Xumo Play, Amazon MX Player, Fandango at Home Free, and the free movies on YouTube and Prime Video | Free with ads, so price can't be compared the same way. We counted them with the same lists; the page covers them in their own section |
| Kanopy and Hoopla | Free with a library card from a participating library, with a monthly limit set by the library. Counted and covered with the free services |
| Shudder | A horror service; none of our lists measures horror fairly |
| Disney+ and Hulu bundle | Two scored services sold together; the page gives the bundle's own count |
| Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max bundle | Three scored services sold together ($21.99 a month with ads, $34.99 without, Disney+); the page gives the bundle's own count |
| Fandango at Home, Apple TV Store and Amazon's rental store | Rent or buy per film, not a subscription |
| Watch TCM and live TV services such as YouTube TV | Need a pay-TV subscription; live TV services are a different question |
Which plan we priced
Each service's cheapest plan without ads, because ad breaks in the middle of a film are the thing most movie watchers want to avoid. The page gives each service's with-ads price too.
- Netflix: Standard, $19.99 a month (Netflix help).
- HBO Max: Standard, $18.49 a month (HBO Max help).
- Prime Video: the Prime Video membership at $8.99 a month (Amazon) plus Prime Video Ultra at $4.99 a month, which removes ads and adds 4K since April 10, 2026 (9to5Google): $13.98. Amazon's own pages describe Ultra mainly as an add-on to Prime; Reviewed says it can be added to the standalone membership too, which is the plan we score. Most people get Prime Video with a full Prime membership at $14.99 a month, which makes it $19.98. Priced at $19.98, Prime Video would score 1.4 on price and total 2.7, tied with Netflix and listed sixth after it.
- Disney+: Premium, $21.49 a month after a rise announced on September 23, 2026 (The Hollywood Reporter).
- Hulu: without ads, $21.49 a month (same source).
- Peacock: Premium Plus, $19.99 a month since August 18, 2026 (Droid Life).
- Paramount+: Premium, $13.99 a month (Paramount+).
- Apple TV: $14.99 a month; it has no ads plan (Apple).
- Criterion Channel: $10.99 a month or $99.99 a year (Criterion Channel).
- MUBI: $14.99 a month or $119.88 a year (MUBI).
- MGM+: $7.99 a month or $61.99 a year (MGM+ on the App Store).
- Starz: $11.99 a month or $69.99 a year, after an introductory $4.99 a month for three months (Starz).
The films counted are the ones JustWatch lists on those plans: Netflix's ad-free plans, Peacock Premium Plus and Paramount+ Premium. Netflix's plan with ads streams slightly fewer of our films (56 against 61).
Criteria and weights
These were set before the lookup ran.
| Criterion | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Acclaimed films | 30 | Share of the 650 Best Picture nominees and AFI 100 films the service includes |
| Popular films | 20 | Share of the 245 top-10 box-office films of 2000 to 2024 it includes |
| Recent hits | 15 | Share of the 25 top box-office films of 2025 it includes |
| Price | 25 | The monthly price of the cheapest plan without ads |
| 4K picture | 10 | Share of the service's films from our lists that JustWatch shows in 4K, less 3 points if 4K needs a pricier plan than the one priced |
Why these weights: the films are the reason to pay, so the three film lists together count 65. Acclaimed films count most of the three because the list is the largest and spans a century, so it shows whether a service has depth. Popular films and recent hits show whether it has the films most people chose to see, old and new. Price counts 25 because the plans range from $7.99 to $21.49 a month, more than $160 a year apart. 4K counts least: it improves a film night on a large TV, but it doesn't decide whether the film is there.
Not scored: the apps, recommendations and search; box-office hits from before 2000 (they count only if they are on the acclaimed list); films that leave mid-month; original films made for streaming (our lists include them only when they earned a Best Picture nomination); TV series; and picture quality beyond 4K availability.
What each score means
All film scores use the share of the list a service includes, with one decimal.
Acclaimed films
10 if the service includes 25% or more of the 650 films; otherwise the share divided by 2.5. So 10% (65 films) scores 4.0 and 5% scores 2.0.
Popular films
10 if it includes 30% or more of the 245 films; otherwise the share divided by 3. So 15% scores 5.0.
Recent hits
10 if it includes 40% or more of the 25 films (10 films); otherwise the share divided by 4. Each film is 4%, so each film is worth 1 point.
Price
10 at $8 a month or less, 0 at $22 or more, and in a straight line between: (22 minus the price) divided by 1.4. So $15 scores 5.0.
4K picture
10 times the share of the service's films from our lists that JustWatch shows in 4K on November 4, 2026, minus 3 if 4K needs a plan pricier than the one priced (Netflix Premium at $26.99, HBO Max Premium at $22.99), never below 0. JustWatch shows no 4K films from our lists on Peacock, the Criterion Channel, MGM+ or Starz, and JustWatch may not flag every 4K title, so a 0 can understate a service slightly. Three services have few of our films, so their share rests on little: Apple TV (13 of 14 in 4K), MUBI (one of two) and Starz (none of six). The table also gives each service's share across its whole catalog, for comparison; it isn't scored.
The scores
The counts, from JustWatch on November 4, 2026:
| Service | Acclaimed (of 650) | Popular (of 245) | Recent hits (of 25) | Films on any list | Price without ads | Movies in its catalog | Whole catalog in 4K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix | 35 (5.4%) | 24 (9.8%) | 5 | 61 | $19.99 | 4,671 | 58% (needs Premium) |
| HBO Max | 58 (8.9%) | 43 (17.6%) | 6 | 100 | $18.49 | 1,898 | 14% (needs Premium) |
| Prime Video | 65 (10.0%) | 11 (4.5%) | 4 | 80 | $13.98 | 25,750 | 3% |
| Disney+ | 14 (2.2%) | 91 (37.1%) | 9 | 109 | $21.49 | 1,417 | 31% |
| Hulu | 14 (2.2%) | 19 (7.8%) | 2 | 33 | $21.49 | 1,216 | 30% |
| Peacock | 15 (2.3%) | 31 (12.7%) | 1 | 45 | $19.99 | 1,062 | 0% |
| Paramount+ | 42 (6.5%) | 31 (12.7%) | 2 | 71 | $13.99 | 1,234 | 32% |
| Apple TV | 12 (1.8%) | 3 (1.2%) | 1 | 14 | $14.99 | 149 | 87% |
| Criterion Channel | 18 (2.8%) | 0 | 0 | 18 | $10.99 | 1,939 | 0% |
| MUBI | 2 (0.3%) | 0 | 0 | 2 | $14.99 | 513 | 16% |
| MGM+ | 49 (7.5%) | 5 (2.0%) | 2 | 56 | $7.99 | 2,263 | 0% |
| Starz | 2 (0.3%) | 4 (1.6%) | 0 | 6 | $11.99 | 631 | 0% |
And the scores those counts give:
| Service | Acclaimed films | Popular films | Recent hits | Price | 4K picture |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disney+ | 0.9 | 10 | 9 | 0.4 | 9.3 (101 of 109) |
| HBO Max | 3.6 | 5.9 | 6 | 2.5 | 1.6 (46 of 100, less 3) |
| Paramount+ | 2.6 | 4.2 | 2 | 5.7 | 5.5 (39 of 71) |
| MGM+ | 3.0 | 0.7 | 2 | 10 | 0 (0 of 56) |
| Prime Video | 4.0 | 1.5 | 4 | 5.7 | 2.0 (16 of 80) |
| Netflix | 2.2 | 3.3 | 5 | 1.4 | 2.7 (35 of 61, less 3) |
| Apple TV | 0.7 | 0.4 | 1 | 5.0 | 9.3 (13 of 14) |
| Criterion Channel | 1.1 | 0 | 0 | 7.9 | 0 (0 of 18) |
| Starz | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0 | 7.2 | 0 (0 of 6) |
| MUBI | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 5.0 | 5.0 (1 of 2) |
| Hulu | 0.9 | 2.6 | 2 | 0.4 | 5.5 (18 of 33) |
| Peacock | 0.9 | 4.2 | 1 | 1.4 | 0 (0 of 45) |
HBO Max and Paramount+ both total 3.9 after rounding; HBO Max is listed first because its unrounded total is higher (3.94 against 3.90).
How close the call is
Disney+ leads HBO Max by 4.7 to 3.9 as shown (4.65 to 3.94 unrounded, a lead of 0.71), and the call rests on one criterion. Weight times score, Disney+ gains 0.82 on popular films, 0.45 on recent hits and 0.77 on 4K, and loses 0.81 on acclaimed films and 0.53 on price. So the 4K criterion, which counts least, is worth more than its whole lead: without it HBO Max would be first. Small changes in what you value change the order, all computed the way the site rounds and breaks ties:
- Price. Move five points to price, from popular films (30/15/15/30/10) or from 4K (30/20/15/30/5), and MGM+ is first (4.3 against Disney+'s 4.2), although it has five of the 245 box-office hits. At 35 points for price MGM+ leads clearly (4.7). MGM+ is fourth as drafted almost entirely because it is the cheapest: 2.5 of its 3.8 points come from price.
- 4K. Drop 4K and give its 10 points to acclaimed films (40/20/15/25/0) and HBO Max and MGM+ tie at 4.1, with HBO Max listed first, then Prime Video (3.9) and Disney+ (3.8). Moving eight of its 10 points to acclaimed films is enough to put HBO Max first.
- Acclaimed films against popular films. Moving points from popular films to acclaimed films never puts HBO Max first: at eight points MGM+ overtakes Disney+.
- The acclaimed anchor. We expected the best service to carry about a quarter of the acclaimed list, and set the anchor there. The best carries a tenth (Prime Video, 65 films), so every service scores low on it and the criterion moves totals less than its weight suggests. Had 10 meant 15%, Disney+ would still be first, by 0.17; had it meant 12.5%, HBO Max (5.0) would be first, just ahead of Prime Video and Disney+ (4.9 each). We kept the anchor we set before counting; the page says plainly which service to pick if acclaimed films are what you watch.
- Plans with ads. Priced on every service's cheapest plan with ads, Disney+ leads by about one point (6.25 against HBO Max's 5.29), with Paramount+, Netflix and Prime Video next.
- Bundles. The Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max bundle (not scored) includes 237 of our films (85 acclaimed, 149 popular, 17 recent hits) for $34.99 a month without ads, and the Disney+ and Hulu bundle 141 for $21.99. Disney+ and HBO Max share only one of our films, so together they have 208.
Acclaimed films by era
The acclaimed list leans old: 240 of its 650 films are from before 1960 and 305 from 1980 on. Prime Video's lead on acclaimed films comes from the older ones; from 1980 on, Paramount+ has the most.
| Service | Before 1960 (of 240) | 1960 to 1979 (of 105) | 1980 on (of 305) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prime Video | 31 | 11 | 23 |
| HBO Max | 22 | 6 | 30 |
| MGM+ | 15 | 9 | 25 |
| Criterion Channel | 11 | 2 | 5 |
| Paramount+ | 2 | 3 | 37 |
| Netflix | 0 | 5 | 30 |
| Disney+ | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| Peacock | 1 | 0 | 14 |
| Hulu | 0 | 0 | 14 |
| Apple TV | 0 | 1 | 11 |
| MUBI | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Starz | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Free services
Counted with the same lists, not scored. Of the 650 acclaimed films, 287 are on at least one of these 12 free services and 260 on at least one of the 12 paid ones; 235 are on none of the 24.
| Service | Acclaimed (of 650) | Popular (of 245) | Any list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kanopy (library card) | 132 | 13 | 143 |
| Tubi | 129 | 8 | 136 |
| Hoopla (library card) | 104 | 10 | 112 |
| YouTube (free with ads) | 104 | 6 | 109 |
| Fawesome | 83 | 0 | 83 |
| The Roku Channel | 72 | 5 | 77 |
| Plex | 60 | 0 | 60 |
| Pluto TV | 25 | 4 | 29 |
| Prime Video Free with Ads (no Prime) | 24 | 2 | 26 |
| Amazon MX Player | 23 | 2 | 25 |
| Fandango at Home Free | 22 | 8 | 28 |
| Xumo Play | 17 | 2 | 19 |
Sources for each service
Every count comes from JustWatch's public catalog on November 4, 2026, read through the API that powers justwatch.com, one request per film, and every price from the pages above. The film-by-film results are in a CSV file: one row per film, with its lists, its JustWatch page, and the paid services (and which of those in 4K) and free services that include it, so any count here can be checked against JustWatch.
- Netflix. Its five recent hits are Jurassic World: Rebirth, Wicked: For Good, How to Train Your Dragon, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle and Five Nights at Freddy's 2. Sony's new films stream on Netflix first in the US under a deal that dates from 2021 and was renewed and made worldwide in January 2026 (Deadline).
- HBO Max. Recent hits: Sinners, A Minecraft Movie, Superman, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Weapons and Final Destination: Bloodlines. Its popular films include all eight Harry Potter films, the three Lord of the Rings films and the Dark Knight trilogy.
- Prime Video. Recent hits: Superman, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Most of its 65 acclaimed films are older studio pictures.
- Disney+. Recent hits: Lilo & Stitch, Zootopia 2, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, Mufasa: The Lion King, Freakier Friday and Snow White. Its 91 popular films are mostly Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, Disney animation and the Avatar films.
- Hulu. Recent hits: Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Predator: Badlands.
- Peacock. Recent hit: Dog Man.
- Paramount+. Recent hits: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning and Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
- Apple TV. Recent hit: F1, an Apple film. Its catalog is Apple's own films only, 149 in all.
- Criterion Channel. 18 acclaimed films. Its catalog of 1,939 films leans to world and art-house cinema, which our lists barely cover.
- MUBI. Two acclaimed films; its 513 films are mostly recent international and festival titles.
- MGM+. Recent hits: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. 49 acclaimed films, the third most.
- Starz. Six of our films.