On Demand Streaming: Your Best Choices in 2025
If you’re still just streaming with Netflix, you’re missing a world of incredible streamers. The Streaming Smarter team has tested over 350 different services and we’re here to guide you to your best options. While many first-time cord-cutters will want a live TV streaming service, most people supplement with on-demand streamers. Here’s a brief overview of your best bets.
Best Bang for your Buck
If you want a package that gives you the best of everything, grab the Disney+ Hulu Max bundle (starts at $16.99).
Disney+ gives you a treasure trove of premium children’s entertainment: Pixar, Disney animated movies, Star Wars, Marvel, The Muppets, and much more. Little kids love “Bluey” and “Doc McStuffins.” Big kids will get a kick out of “The Mandalorian,” and the many Marvel shows. From “Snow White” to “The Lion King” and everything in-between, there’s always something family-friendly on Disney+
Max has an unbeatable movie library and groundbreaking HBO hits like “The Last of Us,” “Watchmen,” “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and more.
Hulu is your best bet for TV favorites from ABC, FOX, and FX. It has a wonderful documentary section, lots of true crime, and popular originals like “Only Murder in the Building.”
If you go with the ad-supported plan, you’d save nearly $13 over the normal price for that trio. The ad-free bundle saves nearly $22/month! It’s a great lineup at a fair price.
$16.99/mo.
Best for Adults
If you want grown-up entertainment, I recommend Max. It has a wonderful balance of entertainment.
The movie library features hits with Batman, Harry Potter, and Superman. It’s frequently the home of Lord of the Rings, James Bond, and The Matrix.
You can see wonderful classic films like “Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Casablanca,” “Hoop Dreams,” and “North by Northwest.”
The TV library is jam-packed with gems like “Succession,” “The Wire,” “Last Week Tonight,” “Friends,” “South Park,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “The White Lotus,” “Hacks,” “The Rehearsal,” and “The Pitt.”
Max includes sports with NBA, MLB, NHL, and March Madness. You’ll also see lots of unscripted TV from channels like HGTV, the Food Network, TLC, ID, Magnolia, and Discovery.
$9.99/mo.
Best for Kids
For preschoolers, I’d recommend PBS Kids. It’s free and packed with educational entertainment.
Once your kids enter school, Disney+ is a slam-dunk. You’ll get Pixar favorites like “Inside Out,” “Toy Story,” “The Incredibles,” and “Cars.” The Disney animated library is home to “Moana,” “Frozen,” “Zootopia,” “Cinderella,” “101 Dalmatians,” “Aladdin,” “The Little Mermaid,” and much more.
As kids get older, they may enjoy “The Simpsons,” the Star Wars series, or the dozens of Marvel films and shows. It’s even home to concert favorites like “Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour,” and “Hamilton” the Broadway musical.
Whether you’re a kid or a kid at heart, Disney+ is a great choice.
$9.99/mo.
Best for Documentary Fans
Prime Video is a great choice for fans of documentaries. The library rotates, so there’s always something worthwhile to watch.
At the time of publication, you can see classics like “I Am Not Your Negro,” “The Act of Killing,” “No End in Sight,” “Life Itself,” “The Eternal Memory,” “20 Days in Mariupol,” “Blackfish,” “Seymour: An Introduction,” “Dahomey,” “One Child Nation,” “Beyond Utopia,” and “The Overnighters.”
Even better, you can supercharge your Prime Video subscription by adding documentary-specific channels: Doc Club, Docubay, Docurama, Dox, HISTORY Vault, PBS Documentaries, XiveTV Documentaries, and Daring Docs. Get 7 days free of each of those services and binge the catalog!
$8.99/mo.
Best for Action Movie Fans
Most streamers have a strong action library, but we’ll give the edge to Max here. I think it wins out for its variety of explosions, car chases, superhero adventures, and martial arts mayhem.
Start with old-school favorites like “Seven Samurai,” “Yojimbo,” “Dirty Harry,” and “Enter the Dragon.”
Go sci-fi with “Dune,” “The Matrix,” “The Edge of Tomorrow,” “Total Recall,” “The Terminator,” and “District 9.”
Choose spy adventures with James Bond, gawk in terror at Godzilla, or enter the Wizarding World with Harry Potter.
The superhero lineup is packed with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Watchmen, Hellboy and more.
Sign up for Max and your surround sound system will crackle with bullets, spaceships, and screeching tires!
$9.99/mo.
Best for Original Series
While Max still has the best overall TV lineup, most of its series first debuted on HBO. For streaming originals, Apple TV+ takes the crown. “Severance” is a wild, techno-future thrill ride while “Ted Lasso” is a crowd-pleasing comedy. Other great shows include “Little America,” “Pachinko,” “Slow Horses,” “Black Bird,” “Silo,” and ‘For All Mankind.” The Apple TV+ originals look and sound incredible, designed to show off the capabilities of Apple hardware.
The kids lineup includes “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock,” “Lovely Little Farm,” “Shape Island,” “Helpsters Help You,” “Curses!” “Stillwater,” and several shows and movies based on the Charlie Brown “Peanuts” characters.
$7.99/mo.
Best for Superhero Movies
If you love DC characters like Batman, choose Max. But for my money, the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Disney+ is the best bet.
You’ll get all the Iron Man, Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor, and Hulk you can handle. You’ll see everything from the dawn of the X-Men saga in 2000 to the jaw-dropping “Infinity War” finale in 2018 and the more recent adventures of Shang-Chi, Black Widow, and Deadpool.
Disney+ has so much superhero content, you could watch a new movie every day for a month and still have plenty to go.
$9.99/mo.
Best for Sci-Fi
I recommend Paramount+ to boldly go where no one has gone before. It’s the home of Star Trek movies and TV series. Beyond that, you’ll get movies like “Face/Off,” “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence,” “Minority Report,” “Arrival,” “Interstellar,” “Super 8,” “Galaxy Quest,” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
$7.99/mo.
Best for Horror
Choose AMC+ for horror. When you sign up, you get access to the horror-specific streamer Shudder. But beyond Shudder, you’ll get the added value of all the AMC+ stuff.
You’ll see thrillers like “The Others,” “Halloween,” “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” “Triangle,” “Oddity,” “Night of the Living Dead,” “Hush,” “30 Days of Night,” “Evil Dead,” “Christine,” “Host,” “Watcher,” “The Babadook,” “Hellraiser,” and everyone’s favorite nightmare fuel: “Threads.”
Other streamers may have a handful of horror classics, but Shudder (included with AMC+) is one of the few streamers dedicated to making your skin crawl.
$6.99/mo.
Best for Comedy
Netflix takes our comedy crown because of its dedication to standup comedy. You’ll see great sets from Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, John Mullaney, Louis CK, Bill Burr, Amy Schumer, Bert Kreischer, Anthony Jeselnik, Tom Segura, Nate Bargatze, Bo Burnham, and more.
Netflix also does a good job cycling through comedy movies. At the time I wrote this, you could see comedy hits like “Wedding Crashers,” “Meet the Parents,” “Bruce Almighty,” “50 First Dates,” “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” “Ted,” “No Hard Feelings,” “Anyone But You,”
Also be sure to see “Cunk on Life,” which made my sides hurt from laughing so hard.
$7.99/mo.
Best for Classic TV
If you’re looking for TV shows from before 1980, make Prime Video your streamer of choice.
Kick back with “Columbo,” “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” “The Addams Family,” “My Three Sons,” “Happy Days” “The Rockford Files,” “Sanford and Son,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Benson,” “The Waltons,” “Bonanza,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Leave It to Beaver,” and even “The Three Stooges Show.”
Want even more hits from yesterday? Add on Prime Video channels like Best TV Ever, Shout! Factory TV, and Best Westerns Ever.
$8.99/mo.
Best for Classic Movies
Thanks to the Warner Bros. library, Max is my choice for cinephiles who want to see older films. Max includes heavy-hitters like “Casablanca,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Taxi Driver,” “Gone With the Wind,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” and “Singin’ in the Rain.”
It’s got international films like “The 400 Blows,” “M,” “The Seventh Seal,” “Bicycle Thieves,” “Stalker,” “Tokyo Story,” “Rashomon,” and “Wild Strawberries.”
You’ll even get Charlie Chaplin classics like “The Great Dictator,” “City Lights,” “The Gold Rush,” and “The Kid.”
Wanna take a guess which streamer has 1902’s “A Trip to the Moon”? Yep. It’s Max.
$9.99/mo.
