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Amazon Prime Video Has More Movies, But Netflix Has Higher-Rated Films, Study Says (usatoday.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

When you want to watch a movie, which streaming service truly delivers? If you want quality, opt for Netflix. If you prefer quantity, peruse Amazon Prime Video. From a report: That's the conclusion from Streaming Observer. The tech news website looked at all of the movies on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and HBO Now as of January 20 and analyzed the films' ratings on movie and TV review site Rotten Tomatoes. Also factored in: data from the streaming providers, as well as third-party search sites Reelgood and JustWatch. The site found Amazon had the most movies (17,461) -- four times that of Netflix (3,839) and many more times the amount on Hulu (2,336) and HBO (815). But Netflix had more movies -- 596, more than 15 percent of its library -- with a "Certified Fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes, a designation given to the best-reviewed films.

15 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Certified Fresh by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The top rated movie of ALL TIME on Rotten Tomatoes is "Black Panther". So....yeah.

    1. Re:Certified Fresh by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not sure why I am being modded down. The "ratings" on Rotten Tomatoes mean nothing. The 3rd top rated movie of all time is "Lady Bird" and the 5th is "Get Out" and 7th is "Mad Max: Fury Road". The best movies of all time. Think about that.

    2. Re:Certified Fresh by Desler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, it's almost as if opinions vary from person to person. Shocking!

    3. Re:Certified Fresh by quenda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, it's almost as if opinions vary from person to person. Shocking!

      Yes, but not randomly. There is some critical consensus, and those movies, while not bad, are surprising to see in an all-time top list.

    4. Re:Certified Fresh by 110010001000 · · Score: 3

      What person truly believes that Black Panther (or even Mad Max: Fury Road) are in the top 5 movies of all time??? I liked both movies, but they will both be forgotten in a few years.

    5. Re:Certified Fresh by Altus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or it has something to do with the fact that a shit load of people have seen Black Panther since the site existed but most people haven't been re-watching citizen cane and thinking "yah know what, I should review that on rotten tomatoes"

      --

      "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

    6. Re:Certified Fresh by Cederic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It offers no subjective opinion if a movie is "the best" which is what you are trying to making it out to be.

      No, he quite clearly isn't making it out to be that. He's very clearly highlighting that the article's description of 'higher rated films' is based on a demonstrably flawed measure.

      Rotten Tomatoes also categorically offers only a subjective opinion. If there was any objectivity at all then the examples he's quoted would never have made the top 5 - and if you disagree with that, do please articulate the objective criteria that would grant them such lofty status.

      Seems you want to apply a Strawman argument.

      The fucking irony.

    7. Re:Certified Fresh by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Informative

      The top rated movie of ALL TIME on Rotten Tomatoes is "Black Panther". So....yeah.

      A) Actually, it's not. It's the top ranked using their "Adjusted Score", but it's not the top rated, which should have been obvious, given that it has a 97% rating currently and there are plenty of films with a 100% rating.

      B) If you hover over the ? on the Best of RT page, you'll see that their Adjusted Score is calculated using a Bayesian formula that's designed to account for variations in the number of reviewers per movie. I.e. More reviewers in agreement will result in a higher Adjusted Score. As such, it should be fairly obvious that their Adjusted Score will be biased towards more recent films (i.e. ones with more reviews).

      C) A bias towards more recent films is a feature, not a bug, given that it helps their users discover films they haven't yet seen that are more likely to be available, which is basically the entire point of Rotten Tomatoes. They aren't the AFI, BAFTA, or Academy. They make no claim to being the arbiters of all that is good in film.

      D) Despite the bias, the top 10 still contains three films (The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, The Third Man) from the last century, and every set of 10 after that contains 4 to 7 films from the last century, suggesting that it's still doing a pretty good job at bubbling up the best films, even if they're not necessarily ranked in the top 100 in the order we might think they should be.

      But, perhaps most importantly, your argument is missing the point entirely. The question of good vs. great—should Black Panther be ranked higher than Citizen Kane?—doesn't matter when we're talking about the overall quality of streaming libraries. What matters is whether they do a good job at distinguishing good vs. bad—that they correctly labeled Black Panther and Citizen Kane as "Certified Fresh" while not giving that label to most of the schlock that comes out each day. Towards that end, it seems like Certified Fresh is a decent indicator of quality, even if you (and I, just to be clear) might disagree with how they rank individual films within the Certified Fresh set.

    8. Re:Certified Fresh by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're modded down because Slashdot moderation is almost entirely political reflex these days.

      Rotten Tomatoes critic scores are just garbage. They reflect whether a movie is "the sort of movie people should see" in the mind of critics, not whether a movie will be engaging or entertaining. That was fine back in the day when that just meant boring, incomprehensible art-house films would be on top: ask an enthusiast for a recommendation and you're unlikely to get something practical. It was easy to ignore those and get real value from critics. Now it's all politics, and fuck that noise.

      Rotten Tomatoes viewer scores are pretty good. Sure, you have to adjust for the lowest common denominator, and discount broad comedies and Transformers movies, but that's easy.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. Wither technical discussion by chrism238 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, how the articles on Slashdot keep getting less and less technical over time :-(

  3. Paying extra counts in their listing? by bussdriver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When I tried Prime many of the shows were only listed and required paying more $$$ to view them. It didn't appear to have that many shows included in the subscription or at least anything looking worth watching was not included.

    --
    Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
  4. Re: Certified Fresh != Ranking of best movies ever by c6gunner · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've never found Rotten Tomatoes to be particularly useful. IMDb seems much more sane:

    https://www.imdb.com/search/ti...

  5. More, but good luck finding what you want by doggo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure, Amazon has way more. But (at least through the ROKU app) good luck trying to find an interesting movie, even if it's not top-rated, that's free through Prime membership.

    Almost any worthwhile film, even old black and white movies, is usually for rent or sale, rather than free through Prime. And browsing through the entire mess is more trouble than it's worth.

  6. Re:Good point but... by Cederic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oddly that makes Amazon Prime a better service for me.

    If a movie is genuinely good (above and beyond mere competent) then I've probably already seen it. If it's a great movie then I probably have a copy at home to watch on demand.

    It's the other films that I haven't seen yet, that may actually be superb but too niche to receive mainstream recognition, that I want to see.

    E.g. I saw the other day an advert for a new film about human trafficking, almost guaranteed a top rating on Rotten Tomatoes, likely to win a dozen different awards.

    Meanwhile Lilya 4-ever is "Fresh: 58" despite completely and viciously depicting a compelling and realistic story on exactly the same theme.

    I'd rather watch the foreign language independent film that isn't scared to properly explore its subject than the widely acclaimed Hollywood virtue piece.

  7. Re:Quality vs Convenience by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Most of the good stuff I saw on prime required the extra fee. The movie rental is nice, but you can do the rental even without being a Prime member, and get the same rentals from other streaming services as well. For a television series though I think the extra fee is not worth the cost per episode.

    Prime is like Apple TV, it mostly appeals to those who are already part of the parent company's ecosystem. If Prime Video users had to pay the additional cost separately from their "free shipping" yearly subscription then it would drastically drop in popularity.