LOS ANGELES—For just $5.99, you can catch up with Oscar-nominated films like A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, on TV this…
LOS ANGELES—For just $5.99, you can catch up with Oscar-nominated films like A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, on TV this weekend, via online streaming services.
But first, you’ll have to dive into an odd variety of different video formats and device rules – and you better watch fast. Your $5.99 buys you just 48 hours to start the movie and finish it. (So if you’re the type who likes to stretch out the viewing, you’re out of luck.)
Most of the movies are all available on video on demand, via YouTube (which offers movies for a fee, beyond all those free video clips), Amazon Prime Video, VUDU, FandangoNOW and Google Play. But not all. More on that in a minute.
The Oscars ceremony airs Sunday on ABC beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT and is also available via the ABC app, or cable alternative services like YouTube TV, DirecTV Now and SlingTV.
—Netflix, the No. 1 subscription service, has four of the Oscar-nominated films available to members without paying an additional fee: Roma, Black Panther, the Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Incredibles 2. (Netflix could become the first streamer to win an Oscar for best picture for Roma, which would be quite a dramatic shift in Hollywood.)
—Amazon Video, which is the chief streaming rival to Netflix, has none of the 2019 Academy Award contenders available for streaming to members of its $119 yearly Prime service-yet. Cold War, which is up for best foreign film, will be on the service beginning March 22.
Amazon does, however, offer many of the top nominated films, for a fee. The going rate is $5.99 for many of the contenders. Some are even more expensive. Amazon charges $19.99 to watch animation nominee Ralph Breaks the Internet, but has First Reformed, which is up for best original screenplay, for just 99 cents.
Look out for odd rules.
Bohemian Rhapsody, for instance, is available in HD on YouTube. However, if you’d like to see the story of the rock band Queen in 4K ultra-high-definition, you don’t have a lot of choices. You’ll need to be watching on recent Sony or Samsung 4K TVs, or you’ll need to spring for Google’s under-the-radar $69.
