Streaming Movie Prices

How much do you spend to stream a movie at home?

I spend quite a bit overall with an average price of $5 or so. For The Last Showgirl & Babygirl, et al., I wanted to see the movie right away so I paid $19. (I see now that I can watch Showgirl for free on Prime.)

I wanted to watch A Complete Unknown, but $25 is exorbitant IMO. I will wait until the price drops.

What do you guys think of streaming prices?

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A Complete Unknown is great, but I understand you wanting to wait. $25 is no peanuts.

I sometimes rent or buy movies on streaming. This year I have already bought 13 movies, prices ranged from 4.99 to 29.99.

Yeah, for $25 bucks my wife and I can see it in the theater at matinee prices. If there's an older movie that we really just want to watch, we'll spend $2.99 or $3.99. It's the Starbucks Equation. For that price we can't even get a single Caramel Macchiato anymore, and it will last longer and we'll enjoy it more and we may actually remember it a year later.

(We make our own lattes at home these days, so the Starbucks Equation is just a thought experiment, just to put things in perspective.)

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I've never bought a streaming movie and I don't think I ever would. I'm very frugal with my money as I don't have much of it. Besides it's way easy to find the vast majority of films online for free. That's how I roll.

For new 'popular' releases here in the UK it's normally around £18/$23.

The new Nosferatu for example at the moment is £19.99 to buy or £15.99 to rent. I looked up Babygirl and it's the same price.

I rarely pay for a film via streaming at those prices, usually wait until it comes out to rent/buy on physical disc or wait for it at a lower price/free on streaming.

Sounds like it’s expensive both sides of the Atlantic whichever way it’s sliced.

How much does everyone spend per year on streaming?

No idea. Probably a lot as that’s where I get my movies.

Criterion ($100/year) + Netflix ($18/month) + Max ($170/year) + Peacock ($80/year) + Hulu/Disney (free with our internet package) + Amazon ("free" with Prime, so $140/year) = $576/year if you count Amazon as free or $716/year if you don't

That feels reasonable, I guess? We rarely rent or buy streaming, so those costs are trivial. $50 a year at most. I could probably live without Prime, but it's tough to cut the Amazon cord. Netflix is pricey but we do probably use it enough to justify it. Hulu is "free" but everything has ads, which is fine for TV but I won't watch movies with ads. My kid is aging out of Disney but it doesn't cost anything.

What bugs me now is that even quite commonplace movies are charging $20 to stream (can’t think of an example now, but they’re in my Letterboxd profile). I pay $20 if it’s something I really really want to see. Otherwise I wait until the price comes down to $5 or so.

I hear ya about movies with ad commercials in them, I can't do that either.

I rarely pay to stream anything. The last time was 5 bucks to rent Flow (2024), which I missed on the big screen (very very limited release in my city) but really wanted to see. I've purchased a few digitally streaming movies that were on sale (5 bucks or less). I probably spend 20 bucks a year all told on digital content, maybe even less.


Other than that, I don't subscribe to anything. I used to have old school Netflix where they shipped the physical disks, until they switched to streaming exclusively, which I don't use because it's 99% crap IMO.


Between the free content on Tubi, FreeVee, Pluto, YouTube, Public Domain Films, Internet Archive, Kanopy and the enormous volume of DVDs I can access at my public libraries, I have more material to watch than I could possibly even finish a fraction of in my lifetime.


As for the ads (where they occur, which isn't everywhere), that's what my mute button is for. Doesn't bother me in the slightest..

Once again I resolve to walk to our downtown main library & get Kanopy sorted.

It was this site where I first heard of Kanopy, and I am quite impressed with the broad variety (and quantity) of films available through this service!


I've also long been impressed with the sheer number of DVDs available to check out at my library and all their affiliate branches.. And quite a few obscure titles amongst the more mainstream fare, which has been a pleasant surprise 😀

You're lucky. My library before covid had a huge catalog of dvd movies, but nowadays they've gotten rid of alot of the dvd movies and replaced them with tv shows like Chopper Shop or whatever it's called.

That's a shame! And seems odd that they would do that..

I think it has do do with physical storage space for all the DVDS. They sometimes have big sales at the library where they sell off some of their books and I assume DVDs too. I guess they have to make room for new stuff arriving. I use to go to the library once a week like clock work but haven't really went for movies since before the pandemic.

""A Complete Unknown," the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, will be streaming on Hulu starting March 27th, 2025."

Still $20 on Prime