Netflix's New Basic With Ads Plan Is Missing Quite a Few Movies

While your wallet may appreciate Netflix’s Basic With Ads subscription, it turns out the streaming service’s new discounted plan has several holes in its library — and the user experience may be frustrating, at least in its current form.

Netflix debuted the $7 plan on November 3 in 12 countries. At first, adding a few minutes of ads per hour (with slightly inferior video quality) seemed like a decent tradeoff for saving over half off the streamer’s Standard Service, albeit only $2 less than the company’s no-ads Basic plan. Netflix suggested that a few shows and movies wouldn’t be available on this tier “due to licensing restrictions,” but it turns out that the number of missing films and TV series is rather extensive.

As Henry Casey at Tom’s Guide points out, Netflix’s Basic With Ads plan is missing 1,066 titles from the next tier up, Netflix Basic (that number includes movies and comedy specials). It’s also missing 92 TV series. Among the missing titles: Where the Crawdads Sing, Casino Royale, Raw and even Netflix’s own shows like Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Dark and Narcos.

Casey also recently reviewed Netflix Basic With Ads and came away unimpressed, noting the inferior video quality and jarring ad breaks. Oddly, some TV shows that were originally filmed to contain ads actually didn’t have any.

If video quality is your biggest concern, you may want to stick with the $15+ Standard Service for now. If you’re only watching Netflix on your phone but want access to the streamer’s entire library, the $9 Basic program should suffice. And if you want to save money and think Netflix may get better about how it serves up ads (and how much content it can eventually get on to its cheapest tier), Basic With Ads may still be your best option.

Note: If you want to know what’s playing on any Netflix tier — or, actually, any streaming service — we suggest utilizing the free app/service JustWatch.