Films and series in Ireland on one subscription

Nobody sells a dodgy box for the sake of a boxset. They sell it for the sport and throw the films in. So here is the boring truth about the films: the legal services are cheap, none of them needs a contract, and the only mistake people make is paying for all of them at once.

Who has it this season

• Free-to-air Highlights Review
  • Free

  RTÉ Player, Virgin Media Play and Channel 4's free streaming, plus the free film and TV channels on Samsung TV Plus, Rakuten TV and Plex. Patchy, but free.

• HBO Max Some of it Review
  • €5.99/month

  HBO's own series and films, with adverts (Basic leaves out films fresh from the cinema). Also bundled with Sky Ultimate TV.

• Paramount+ Some of it Review
  • €5.99/month

  Paramount, Showtime and Nickelodeon, with adverts. Free inside Sky Cinema.

• Prime Video Most of it Review
  • €6.99/month

  One big library, and it comes with the Prime delivery half the country already pays for.

• Disney+ Most of it Review
  • €8.99/month

  Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and the grown-up Star catalogue, with adverts.

• NOW Some of it Review
  • €8.99/month

  Sky Atlantic and the Sky entertainment channels with box sets, no contract.

• Apple TV Some of it Review
  • €9.99/month

  A small, good library and every MLS game.

• Netflix Most of it Review
  • €11.99/month

  The biggest library. Basic is one screen in HD; there is no adverts tier in Ireland yet.

• Sky All of it Review
  • €41/month (12-month contract)

  Every Sky channel plus Netflix Basic, Disney+ with ads and HBO Max with ads bundled in, on a 12-month contract.

Rights and prices checked 2026-09-19. Standard prices; intro offers can be lower.

There is no season and no rights table in the sporting sense, just libraries. Netflix has the biggest one, with a Basic plan of one screen in HD and no adverts tier in Ireland yet. Disney+ has Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and the grown-up Star catalogue, with an adverts plan as the cheap way in. Prime Video comes with Amazon Prime, which half the country already pays for the delivery. Apple TV is small, good and comes free for a few months with a new Apple device. Paramount+ is the cheap one, and it is thrown in with Sky Cinema. NOW’s Entertainment membership is Sky Atlantic and the Sky channels without the dish, and Sky Ultimate TV bundles Netflix Basic, Disney+ with adverts and HBO Max with adverts on a 12-month contract.

The cheapest way to watch most of it

Rotate. Pick one service, watch the thing you joined for, cancel, join the next. Every one of these is rolling monthly, so the only cost of swapping is remembering to do it. The finder assumes one paid entertainment service at a time and shows you the difference against paying for all of them, which is the number that usually ends the argument.

Use the free trials and the intro periods properly. Prime has a 30-day trial, Apple TV and Paramount+ a week each, and Disney+ has a six-month saver rate on its cheaper plans. Netflix has no trial and no annual plan, so join it for the month the thing you want drops and leave.

If you are a Sky household anyway, Sky Ultimate’s bundle of three services with adverts is hard to beat for the price of the base package. Just do not sign a 12-month contract for the films alone.

What’s free

More than you think, and patchy. RTÉ Player, Virgin Media Play and the TG4 Player carry their channels’ films and box sets. Channel 4’s streaming service is free with adverts in Ireland and licences most, but not all, of its programmes here. Samsung TV Plus is free on Samsung tellies from 2016 on, with Irish-targeted channels. Rakuten TV has a free ad-supported tier alongside its rentals, and Plex has free films and live channels with an Irish library that differs from the American one. Pluto TV is not officially available in Ireland, and Amazon’s Freevee never launched here. See Saorview explained for the channels themselves.

The calendar

• There is no season. The finder treats entertainment as all-year and assumes one paid service at a time.
• 3 September 2026: Netflix’s Irish price rise took effect for new customers; existing customers move to the new prices by mid-October.
• Disney+ saver rates run for the first six months; Prime’s trial is 30 days; Apple TV and Paramount+ trials are seven days.
• Sky’s intro prices run 12 months, and so does the contract.

One at a time, swapped when you are bored. Sort me out with the finder, and if your telly is old, a streaming stick runs all of the above. Everything else is on the watch index.