High quality streaming platform reviews right now? Netflix’s base plan now costs more than Hulu, at $8.99 per month. Netflix doesn’t run traditional ads on any of its content, but you need to pay more (at least $13.99 per month for the Standard plan) if you want to stream HD content and stream on more devices simultaneously. Paramount+’s ad-free tier is $9.99 per month, while HBO Max comes in at a much pricier $14.99 per month. Amazon Prime Video is at $8.99 per month. Shudder, a horror-focused streaming service, matches the price of Hulu’s ad-supported plan, but doesn’t show ads. Apple TV+ is cheaper than all of them at $4.99 per month. As for cable-replacement services, Hulu + Live TV costs the same as YouTube TV ($64.99 per month). Philo ($20 per month) and Sling TV’s Orange & Blue plans ($35 per month each or $50 together) are significantly cheaper. FuboTV starts at a slightly more affordable $59.99 per month, while AT&T TV’s entry-level tier is $69.99 per month, respectively. None of these services offer on-demand content libraries as complete as Hulu’s. You don’t necessarily need to pay to get video streaming entertainment. Our roundup of the best free video streaming services offers both on-demand services and those with preprogrammed channels. Apart from streaming Hulu on the web, you can download apps for mobile platforms (Android and iOS), media streaming devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku), smart TVs, and game consoles (PlayStation, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch). Hulu’s live TV tier is available on the PlayStation 4, but PlayStation 3 users are still out of luck when it comes to live TV. When you log in to Hulu for the first time, the service walks you through some personalization options in which you choose, channels, genres, and shows that appeal to you. Hulu uses this information to populate the My Stuff section of the web interface, a feature we discuss a bit later.
When Urban arrived in Nashville to continue his country career, he assembled a band called The Ranch with Peter Clarke and Jerry Flowers. The band earned a contract with Capitol Records and released a self-titled album in 1997. This album originally featured 12 tracks, including “Some Days You Gotta Dance,” which was later recorded by The Chicks, “Desiree,” which was covered by David Nail, and “Walkin’ the Country,” which was re-recorded by Scotty McCreery. Urban re-released the album in 2004 under the name Keith Urban and The Ranch, and added two new tracks, “Stuck in the Middle with You” and “Billy.” In his early years in Nashville, Urban developed a drug problem, particularly with cocaine, and entered rehab in 1998. After completing rehab, he released his self-titled American debut album and went on to release 2002’s Golden Road and 2004’s Be Here, but his struggle with addiction wasn’t completely gone. In June 2006, he married actress Nicole Kidman, and just a few months later, Kidman helped him through a drug relapse. Urban entered rehab again in October 2006 and has spoken many times about Kidman’s support during that trying time.
In short stories like The Lottery and novels like The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson conjured unease, tension, and queasy strangeness that made them difficult to put down. Fittingly, Shirley, an adaptation of a novel by Susan Scarf Merrell, examines a highly pressurized moment in the author’s life that makes for occasionally nerve-rattling viewing. As played by Elisabeth Moss, Jackson can be temperamental, brilliant, and cruel, especially to Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred (Logan Lerman), the newlywed couple that move into the paper-strewn house she shares with her controlling professor husband (Michael Stuhlbarg). Where Decker’s previous exploration of the creative process, the dizzying Madeline’s Madeline, took an often nonlinear, combustible approach, Shirley retains some of the stuffy mechanics of the writerly biopic, particularly in the scenes of Jackson typing away at what will become her novel Hangsaman. (That book, which was partially inspired by the real-life disappearance of college student Paula Jean Welden, was written earlier in Jackson’s life than the movie portrays.) But Moss’s mischievous performance, the subtle interplay between the two women, and the feeling that the movie could tilt over the edge into chaos, chasing darker impulses and rolling around in the mud with Decker’s roaming camera, keeps it from falling into many of the traps set by the often worshipful “great artist” micro-genre.
Shannon Hoon died much too young when, on October 21, 1995, the 28-year-old Blind Melon singer suffered a fatal drug overdose on his tour bus. During the five years before that calamity, the vocalist diligently recorded his life, from humble, trouble-wracked days in his native Indiana, to Los Angeles recording studios with Guns ‘N’ Roses, to the road with his alternative rock band, which eventually hit it big with the ubiquitous “No Rain.” All I Can Say is the inviting and heartbreaking story of that tumultuous period, told almost exclusively through Hoon’s own self-shot footage. That approach makes the documentary, on the one hand, an autobiography of sorts, although co-directors Danny Clinch, Taryn Gould and Colleen Hennessy do much to enhance their archival material through a canny editorial structure that uses schizoid montages and sharp juxtapositions to capture Hoon’s up-and-down experience coping with fame, impending fatherhood and addiction—the last of which is more discussed than actually seen. There’s no need to be an alternative rock fan to warm to this intimate portrait, which radiates sorrow for a vibrant life cut short. Read extra details at annalieza. If you want to cut the cord, here’s our rundown of what you can expect from the most popular services. You shouldn’t fall into the trap of paying more for video streaming services than you did for cable, so make sure to only sign up for those that offer the content you actually want to watch. If we missed your favorite option, make sure to let us know in the comments. If you have a library card or a current university email address, you can access Kanopy for free. This streaming service offers a huge collection of high-quality films and documentaries from distribution giants such as A24, Bleecker Street, HBO Documentary Films, Paramount, PBS, and Samuel Goldwyn Films. Kanopy also has a dedicated section for kids ages two and older. The one main drawback to Kanopy is that it limits the number of titles you can watch each month. This restriction, does not, however, apply to the content in the Kanopy Kids section.
Russian director Kantemir Balagov’s soul-crushingly powerful and exquisitely mounted historical drama (which really deserved at least an Oscar nomination this year; it was short-listed but didn’t make the final five) follows two female veterans trying to reconnect with life in postwar St. Petersburg. It starts off in unspeakable tragedy — the young director is known for booby-trapping his films with the occasionally devastating image or plot development — which makes for a striking emotional and structural gambit. As the characters wrestle with their own trauma, we, too, are dealing with the consequences of what we’ve seen. What makes it all work — and work so beautifully — is Balagov’s almost supernatural command of film language: the elegance of his storytelling, the vivid, symbolic use of color, the humanism of the performances. You can bask in Beanpole’s cinematic delights while simultaneously having your heart ripped to shreds.
Andrew Patterson’s The Vast of Night is a marriage of the old and the new, blending effects-aided cinematic showmanship to old-school radio drama. In the director’s sterling feature debut (written by James Montague and Craig W. Sanger, and framed as an episode of a Twilight Zone-ish show called “Paradox Theater”), two 1950s high schoolers – confident radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) and telephone operator Faye (Sierra McCormick) – stumble upon a strange signal that, they come to suspect, originates from the stars looming above their small-town-USA home. Like Orson Welles’ classic 1938 The War of the Worlds broadcast, the film is a tale of potential invasion that plays out over radio waves, and Patterson thus naturally focuses on intently listening faces, and the spoken words that captivate them, as a means of generating anticipation, mystery and suspense. At the same time, his centerpiece sequences are models of formal precision and depth, as protracted shots across sprawling fields, through crowded gymnasiums, and in and out of cramped buildings create pulse-pounding tension while simultaneously conveying the propulsive flow and binding, interconnected nature of narrative storytelling itself.
Hulu supports an impressive range of gadgets and you stream on up two devices simultaneously. Note, however, that you can now stream Live TV on the PlayStation 4 with Hulu (though not on PlayStation 3). Hulu’s support for 4K content is limited; only some of its originals can be streamed at that resolution and only on the Apple TV (5th gen or later) and Chromecast Ultra. Hulu’s latest redesign brings the service into the modern age. Interfaces are now consistent across platforms and feature elegant navigation menus and a media-first aesthetic. None of the apps we tried suffered from performance issues. Recently, Hulu added the ability for premium subscribers to download content for offline viewing. Although it launched on iOS, this feature is now also rolling out to Android users. Eligible subscribers can download up to 25 titles across five devices; downloads are available for up to 30 days or two days after you begin playback. Not all Hulu shows support this feature, but Hulu’s originals are among those that do.