Tag Archives: Eros Now

Newly Updated Amazon Prime Page

I finished updating my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime to reflect the massive increase in the streaming service’s collection of Indian films. I’ve made every effort to assemble the most accurate and comprehensive list of Indian movies on Amazon Prime that you will find anywhere.

This massive overhaul was necessitated by Amazon’s decision to close their Heera channel earlier this month. The move made things more equitable across the globe, as American Amazon users no longer required an additional subscription in order to watch movies that international Prime subscribers could access for free. The bulk of the Heera collection was incorporated into the existing Prime catalog.

However, not all movies made the jump. Some — like Parched — are no longer available for streaming, only for rent. Others — like Krazzy 4 — are still available for streaming, but require a subscription to Eros Now, which was added to the Amazon Channels collection just before the start of the new year. All told, about twenty-five of the Bollywood titles available on Heera failed to transition to Prime.

One of the reasons why I didn’t list Indian films available in languages other than Hindi or English on my Heera page was that Amazon’s own Heera page subdivided its collection by language, making it easy to find that Bengali or Telugu movie you were looking for. With Heera gone, all of the Indian films were incorporated into Amazon’s useless “foreign” category, a catchall for any movie made outside of the United States. With nearly 7,000 titles and no way to filter by language or country, how on earth could Indian cinema fans be expected to find what they wanted to watch?

That’s why I decided to expand my Amazon Prime list to include all of the Indian and Pakistani films available for streaming. This meant scouring Amazon’s unwieldy video section and double-checking it against the Amazon streaming list at Instant Watcher, ignoring broken or inaccurate links and verifying the most common title spellings at IMDb and Wikipedia. I found some interesting stuff during my research, including the fact that, although Dil Se.. isn’t available for streaming, its Tamil-dubbed version — Uyire — is.

The end result of my efforts is a list of 783 Indian, Pakistani, and Desi movies (plus two Amazon original TV series). The list breaks down as follows:

  • 431 “Bollywood” movies (made up of Hindi, English, and other Desi-themed titles)
  • 126 Bengali movies
  • 1 Bhojpuri movie
  • 1 Gujarati movie
  • 1 Kannada movie
  • 14 Malayalam movies
  • 39 Marathi movies
  • 4 Oriya movies
  • 9 Punjabi movies
  • 1 Sanskrit movie
  • 98 Tamil movies
  • 28 Telugu movies
  • 3 Urdu movies
  • 27 documentaries and comedy specials

I will continue to update the Amazon Prime list as new titles are added. If you notice any movies that belong on this list that I have missed, please let me know in the comments below.

I earn a commission on Amazon’s free-trial subscriptions made through the links at my site, so if you want to support the creation and maintenance of this list, you can do so by trying Prime for 30 days or Eros Now for a week — or you can watch my all-time favorite TV show Running Man with a free trial of DramaFever. Thanks for reading! — Kathy

Streaming Video News: January 5, 2018

Big news in the world of streaming video today: Amazon’s Heera Channel is dead. Along with the Anime Strike channel, Heera was abruptly shut down, with much of its content folded into the general Amazon Prime video catalog. Film critic Josh Hurtado posted a screenshot of the letter emailed to Heera subscribers:

The chief complaint cited in a Forbes article about Anime Strike and its closing could apply to Heera as well: fans felt punished by having to pay twice for content, in the form of both a Prime subscription and a separate Heera subscription. The double paywall felt even more punitive given that many of Heera’s movies were included free with Prime over the border in Canada, no extra subscription required.

Perhaps what doomed Heera and Anime Strike from the start was that they were products of Amazon’s own creation, unlike other Channels like HBO or DramaFever that exist outside of Amazon’s umbrella. Such channels can cultivate and maintain loyal fanbases through their own websites and social media efforts. Heera didn’t have a dedicated blog to promote what was new or coming soon, and its Twitter account has been inactive for months. I’m not sure how Amazon expected Heera or Anime Strike to prosper without internal help from the company.

As I mentioned above, many of the movies formerly on Heera are now available in the Prime catalog. Over the next week, I’ll be populating my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with the films that made the transition. In the meantime, the links on my Bollywood movies on Heera page are still accurate, so you can always click on a title to see if it’s available on Prime.

It’s no coincidence that Heera’s shuttering comes a week after Amazon added a new channel to its lineup: Eros Now. Subscribers can now access Eros Now for the standard monthly subscription fee of $7.99 using their Amazon accounts, without having to go through Eros directly. Some of the movies formerly on Heera that didn’t shift to Prime — such as Krrish 3 — are still available with an Eros Now subscription. Amazon offers a free 7-day trial of Eros Now if you want to try before you buy.

Streaming Video News: November 4, 2016

I update my list of Bollywood movies free on Amazon Prime with major changes to its streaming catalog. Amazon eliminated 54 of the 71 Indian movies previously available, dashing my dreams for an Akshay Kumar Khiladi marathon. Five of the titles remaining are either documentaries or films in other Indian languages, which means there are exactly twelve Bollywood movies currently available. Check out my Amazon Prime page for the list of what’s left.

In happier streaming video news, Kapoor & Sonsmy favorite Bollywood movie of the year so far — was just added to Eros Now. Yay!

Streaming Bollywood Movies: Eros Now (2016 Update)

A lot has changed in the world of streaming video since my initial review of Eros Now three-and-a-half years ago. New devices have made it easier to watch streaming content on television, offering expanded viewing options beyond the tablet and PC. Let’s see how Eros Now has evolved to take advantage of the new technology.

For those unfamiliar with the service, Eros Now is a streaming video provider that operates on a subscription model, like Netflix. The service’s parent company, Eros International, is both a production house and a distributor, giving it wider access to Indian content than any other streaming service out there.

A subscription to Eros Now Premium — which costs $7.99/month in the United States — isn’t strictly necessary. A free Eros Now Basic account allows the user to watch a selection of movies and TV shows, plus unlimited access to the service’s substantial music collection. However, English subtitles (and Arabic subtitles, for some films) are only available with a paid subscription. A Premium account also gives the user access to the complete catalog of movies and TV shows in HD quality, as well as the ability to download content for offline viewing. (On my home network, it took eleven minutes to download Force to my iPad.)

Like Netflix, Eros Now is available on PCs, smartphones, tablets, and via a variety of devices that enable you to watch content on your television, such as Chromecast and Apple TV. Eros Now doesn’t have an app for the Playstation 4, and though Eros Now’s website says the service is available on Amazon devices, I couldn’t find an Eros Now app for my Amazon Fire TV Stick.

I tested Eros Now on an iPad, iPhone, Chromecast, and Apple TV. Regardless of what device you use to view the content, I recommend creating a “Watchlist” at the Eros Now website first, to make it easier to find the movies you want. Each iteration of the app has a unique, limited set of search parameters. The Eros Now iPhone app allows you to filter the catalog only by language, while the Apple TV app only allows you to sort by genre. The website allows users to choose films by genre or language first, and then by decade of release within those categories — a useful feature given the thousands of films available.

The Watchlist is available on any device that you use. Another nice feature added in the last few years is the “Continue Watching” option that allows you to start a movie on one device, pause, and resume watching on a different device.

Video quality has noticeably improved. The picture is crisp and clear on both the iPhone and iPad. Either iOS device can be used to cast content to a Chromecast or Apple TV, though there is a dedicated Eros Now app for the latest version of the Apple TV.

On my network, picture quality suffered quite a bit when casting a movie — the horror film Alone, in case you were curious — to the Chromecast. Subtitles are superimposed on top of the picture on the Chromecast, which isn’t a huge deal, but other devices place subtitles in the black bar at the bottom of the frame so as not to obscure the image.

Far and away the best way to watch Eros Now is through the dedicated Apple TV app. The image quality is just as sharp as on an iPhone, and the subtitles appear in the black bar below the picture. The app itself showcases the content rather glamorously, with movie posters cycling through on the home screen to highlight the most popular options. Though the search functions are more limited than on the website, the home screen displays films in categories like “Recently Added,” “Classic Hits,” or “Unusual Love Stories.”

For many users, the question of whether or not to subscribe comes down to content. If all you watch are Indian films, Eros Now is probably the only service you need. According to the Eros Now Wikipedia page, the service “has rights to over 5,000 films.” I’m not sure that means that all 5,000 titles are always available in every country where Eros Now operates, but nevertheless, the service offers at least 1,000 titles to US subscribers. The catalog features 296 Hindi films released just since 2010, whereas Netflix currently offers eighty Hindi films, total.

While Eros Now has ended its experiment with same-day rentals for films that release theatrically in India but not the US (boo!), the service quickly adds new releases to its catalog. Both Happy Bhag Jayegi and Dishoom became available for streaming on Eros Now within two months of their theatrical releases.

There are important differences in the acquisition philosophies that shape the catalogs at both big streaming providers, with Netflix currently specializing in acclaimed indie films and Eros Now focusing on bigger budget fare aimed at a wide audience. Take for example the 2016 releases currently available through both services. Netflix has ten, including the immensely popular Airlift, but mostly smaller theatrical releases (like Saala Khadoos) and well-regarded festival films (like Brahman Naman). The ten films available at Netflix earned a combined total of $2,385,752 from North American theaters this year.

Eros Now only has six 2016 films, but all of them released in theaters, except for Aligarh, which earned its own share of acclaim on the festival circuit. The combined North American theatrical earnings of the Eros Now 2016 releases total $3,429,722 — a difference of more than $1 million. If being current on the most popular Bollywood releases — movies like Housefull 3 and Ki & Ka — is your priority, Eros Now is the way to go.

Streaming Video News: August 13, 2015

I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with one new addition to the catalog. 1999’s Taal — starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, and Akshaye Khanna — is now available for streaming. Another of Aishwarya’s movies — 2004’s Bride and Prejudice — was added to the catalog last week. These new additions almost balance out the recent departures of Besharam, Boss, and Jab We Met. For everything else new on Netflix, check out Instant Watcher.

Eros Now recently added several 2015 releases to its streaming lineup, some of which are available for free. (If you need English subtitles, however, you have to upgrade to the $7.99 monthly premium subscription.) Here’s the fare from the current year available on Eros Now:

Q1 2015 Bollywood Movies Online

2015 has been an anemic year for Bollywood releases in the United States, and this weekend is no exception. With nothing new in theaters — and assuming you’ve already been to see Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! — this is a good weekend to catch up on some releases from the first three months of 2015 that you may have missed.

I’ve included links below to services carrying the films in the U.S., how much the movies cost to rent or purchase, and in what format they are available, if specified: high definition (HD) or standard definition (SD). All of the films supposedly have English subtitles.

Dolly Ki Doli
Google Play: rental = $3.99; purchase = $4.99
iTunes: SD rental = $3.99; HD rental = $4.99; SD purchase = $13.99; HD purchase = $14.99
YouTube: SD rental = $3.99; HD rental = $4.49; SD purchase = $4.99; HD purchase = $7.99

Tevar
Eros Now: available for streaming with a $7.99 premium monthly subscription
iTunes: SD rental = $3.99; HD rental = $4.99; SD purchase = $7.99; HD purchase = $14.99

Spuul is streaming a pair of movies from 2015 that released theatrically in India but not in the U.S. Alone and Dirty Politics are both included in the cost of a premium monthly subscription, priced at $4.99.

Here’s how I would organize a weekend movie marathon of the above titles:

  1. Alone on Spuul ($4.99 monthly subscription)
  2. Dirty Politics on Spuul (included with the monthly subscription)
  3. Dolly Ki Doli on YouTube ($4.49 HD rental)
  4. Tevar on Eros Now ($7.99 monthly subscription)

My marathon would cost me $17.47, a price which includes two monthly streaming subscriptions. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Streaming Video News: August 30, 2014

Two Bollywood movies were just added to Netflix: 2012’s Rowdy Rathore and 2008’s Fashion. I found both Fashion and Rowdy Rathore moderately enjoyable. For everything else new on Netflix, check Instant Watcher.

Shaadi Ke Side Effects — a moderately enjoyable movie from earlier this year — is now available for streaming on Eros Now.

Streaming Video News: June 30, 2014

If you’ve wondered why IMDb users rank Gunday as the worst movie of all time, you can now watch Gunday on Netflix and see for yourself.

Eros Now recently added the Hindi version of Kochadaiiyaan to its catalog. With four other 2014 releases already in the catalogPurani Jeans, Dekh Tamasha Dekh, Main Tera Hero, and Dishkiyaoon — the $7.99 monthly subscription fee seems like a good deal.

Streaming Video News: June 2, 2014

New on Netflix streaming is the 2013 spy thriller D-Day, starring Irrfan Khan, Arjun Rampal, Rishi Kapoor, and Huma Qureshi. I think about D-Day more often than any other film from last year, and I look forward to watching it again.

Eros Now debuted Purani Jeans on its streaming service a couple of days ago. The coming-of-age film from last month didn’t open in North American theaters, so it’s great that fans over here finally have a way to watch it.