My Amazon Prime Video Review (2026): Wax Nostalgic with Prime’s Vast Catalog

If you want Amazon Prime Video, you have two options. The most common route is just to sign up for a Prime account at $14.99 a month ($139 a year). With Prime, you not only get access to Amazon’s video catalogue, you also get free ebooks, audiobooks, music, and shipping on certain Amazon packages. That’s an incredible deal, especially compared to other services like Netflix or HBO Max, which offer entertainment content only.

If you don’t want all of that, you can also get Amazon Prime Video without the whole Prime shebang. That’s $8.99 a month, which isn’t very expensive — but it’s not as good a value as a full Prime account.

Unfortunately, not everything on the platform is included in the price. You have to pay extra to watch certain shows or movies, which is annoying but not unusual for streaming services right now. (Looking at you, Netflix. Whaddaya mean, I need an ad-free subscription to watch The Swan Princess?)

You can also add additional streaming services to your Amazon Prime Video account for nominal monthly payments. For instance, you can add MGM+ and Shudder for just $11.99 each month. It's an additional expense but a good value if you like Hollywood classics and horror flicks.

Luckily, if you don’t want to pay more, there’s still lots of content that doesn't require extra fees.

Amazon Prime Video is fairly easy to use. Subscribers can access the service on the TV app, phone app, or on the Amazon website itself. You can even indulge in all three at once — each Amazon Prime Video account comes with three simultaneous streams (and two of those streams can even be of the same content). Or you can forgo streaming altogether and download something to watch offline later.

With Amazon Prime Video, I easily find new content or shows I left mid-stream, and the site also recommends Popular Now and Top 10 selections. However, the recommendations aren’t excessive, which is refreshing. I’m tired of scrolling through rows of suggestions that don’t remotely hit the mark (coughNetflixcough).

Watching content with Prime Video is a snap, but you may get tripped up when editing your profile settings. For instance, my toddler’s Amazon profile is for some reason an adult profile, and the app won’t allow me to change it or create a second profile with the same name. (Which must be awkward for Taylor Lautner and his wife, also named Taylor.) The streaming app directed me to visit Amazon proper for a fix, but that didn’t work, and I haven’t been able to change or delete the profile. But other than that snag, I’m happy with the service’s interface and ease of use.

I especially think the X-Ray feature is neat. When I watch a show, I’m always stopping to look up the name of the lead actor or whether a costume is a homage to a different film. With X-Ray, that kind of information displays in a box off to the side, so I don’t have to pick up my phone to find the tidbit I’m looking for.

Amazon Prime Video offers both original programming and a licensed library. Amazon Prime Video originals have yet to reach the popularity of “Ted Lasso” or “Stranger Things,” but the service still has intriguing IPs and genuine hits. Think “Rings of Power,” “The Boys,” and “Fallout.”

But Prime Video’s real strength is in its content breadth. It has action movies, princess cartoons, anime series, and Thursday Night Football. Plus every time I look for something semi-obscure, Amazon Prime Video has it. Nickelodeon’s 2010s kid show “Bubble Guppies?” Yup. Rankin/Bass stop-motion holiday special “Jack Frost?” You got it. The 1993 New York City Ballet recording of “The Nutcracker” with Macaulay Culkin in the title role? Of course. Almost every show I used to rent from the Blockbuster is there, and so are tons of newer favorites. There’s even an option to pay extra to watch select movies still in theaters.