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Wednesday, April 30, 2025
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Amazon Gives Prime Members Free Access to Instant Videos

Amazon Prime Instant Video rentals online video amazon.com

To no one’s surprise, Amazon.com has announced a series of improvements to it’s Prime Service (which till now gave you free 2-day shipping on anything in exchange for an annual fee of $79) that now is offering over 5,000 TV shows and movies streamed to Prime members for free.

 
amazon.com  instant video pricingThe service will function out to Macs and PCs and the set-top boxes that have access to Amazon Instant streaming services already. Right now it’s limited to Roku and Google TV boxes (as if the few people who bought them haven’t already returned them), some Sony, Panasonic, Samsung equipment and Tivo players.

As expected, the selection isn’t super fantastic but there are over 2000 movies, only some are available in HD and unfortunately it’s a flash-based playback but it’s free to those of us that already pay for Prime.

Film Selections that caught my eye out of the first 300-400 were:

ContactBilly Jack
Exit through the gift shopTHX 1138
Girl with the dragon tattoo (and both sequels)Hudsucker Proxy
Food, Inc.East of Eden
Best in ShowOldboy
Clockwork OrangeBronson
StripesBody Heat
Age of InnocenceEnter The Dragon
Bye Bye BirdieGreat Santini
StarmanMother
RevolverTime After Time
Red CliffDistrict 13 1 & 2
Caligula (if you can believe that but it’s only the R-rated version)Brainstorm
Man on a wireWait Until Dark
Soylent GreenDoc Hollywood
Let the Right One In (subtitled! Not the bullshit dubbed version which they also have)Mean Streets
Waiting For GuffmanTouching The Void
Being ThereSouthland Tales
Ong Bak 1 & 2Me and You and Everyone We Know
King of CornGirlfight
Last EmperorThin Blue Line
and a boat load of others

 

Television selections were interesting as well with over 450 choices and a lot of stuff for genre fans:

Downton AbbyRed Dwarf
Doctor Who Seasons 1 through 4 of the new series plus a lot of the classic series tooBlackadder
TorchwoodGavin and Stacey
Doc MartinFat Albert
PrimevalDick Van Dyke Show
MI-5Little Britan
Bit of Fry and LaurieHotel Babylon
Top GearGood Neighbors (Goode Life)
SkinsLeague of Gentlemen
FarscapeAs Time Goes By
Robin HoodVicar of Dibley
Mister Rogers NeighborhoodChef! (don’t watch series 3, it was horrible… horrible.. horrible…)
State WithinVarious Terry Jones documentary series
NOVACoupling
Bleak HouseLonesome Dove
Tin ManJEKYLL (If you haven’t seen this gem from Stephen Moffitt, you need to!)
Civil WarSURVIVORS (another must see show!)
The Office (the good one, not the american rip-off)Yes, Minister
Highlander
Bonanza

amazon instant video service - amazon.com - Movies - TV

With movies and television shows it’s makes more then 3000 things to watch and since you’re probably already paying for the service already it’s a great deal—- now if there was just a way to get it onto a television screen to watch them.

All in all, it’s a nice freebie for people who are already members and perhaps for Amazon a way to test the waters with the Prime members to see how they would like and use it and perhaps the first step towards a monthly subscription service to try and lure Netflix customers away.

 

K.B.
the authorK.B.

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