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[Xena Donovan]

More than 200 titles are unavailable to watch on this subscription like Paddington, Oblivion and all of Daniel Craig's James Bond movies. But Netflix lets you know which ones are off limits by marking them with a lock symbol and a note: "Unavailable on Basic with Ads due to licensing restrictions." Back in October, the company said it's working on it -- meaning the absence of titles -- so be aware that what's limited today may not be in the future. When I clicked on the tile for a locked show or movie, I received a sales pitch urging me to upgrade to an ad-free plan. Though it's an upsell, it's convenient if you really want to watch a piece of content in that moment. Paywall be damned!

Upon sign-up, I noticed Netflix automatically created a Kids Profile on my account, which I guess is because I clicked on a few animated selections while I curated my new account's main profile. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because there aren't any commercials for content under the kids' profile.

While the Kids Profile is ad-free, regular profiles have some ad-free content too. Plenty of animated shows and movies do not include commercial breaks, and there are select titles -- family-friendly and beyond -- that you can watch without interruption.

Examples include Avatar: The Last Airbender, Community, The Sea Beast, The Christmas Chronicles and Good Witch. The Bodyguard had a preroll ad, but no ads during the rest of the movie. Are you wondering whether it's better to stream something on the kids' profile to avoid ads? Not necessarily. So far, I haven't been able to find any animated titles with commercials. The same goes for Nickelodeon shows like Victorious and iCarly.

I'll warn there's really no way to tell which series or films lucked out, but if you start playback, just look for the yellow dots on the progress bar to see how many commercial breaks to expect. Like YouTube, those dots will either be scattered or nonexistent.

You may want to know if the streamer skips ads for its own branded content, or at the very least slips in a smaller amount. Short answer: No. Netflix does not give preferential treatment to its own content. Your favorites like Stranger Things, The Witcher and Cobra Kai all have ad breaks, but the amount and frequency varies.

When I streamed Enola Holmes 2 -- which was released on Nov. 4 -- there was only a 30-second set of commercials before the film and no ads during the movie. Netflix announced that new films would not feature ads, so this was unsurprising. Season 5 of The Crown, however, kicks off with five ad breaks... including a preroll.

When Netflix outlined its ad program, the streamer explicitly stated that we'd see 4 to 5 minutes of ads per hour of content. This is accurate. During a one-hour episode of Love is Blind, I encountered a 30-second round before the show started and three more breaks during the episode. The first commercial break was 75 seconds long and had four ads. The second break had three ads that ran for 75 seconds, and the final round lasted 75 seconds with three ads. That brings the total to just over 4 minutes.

Shows like Supernatural and Jane the Virgin had a preroll and three, 60-second ad breaks in the middle of their 40-minute episodes. Altogether, that's three-and-a-half minutes. For shorter TV show episodes like Cobra Kai and Naruto, there were three ad breaks: one 30-second spot before the show started and two in the middle that lasted for 60 seconds. That's 2.5 minutes. A two-hour movie like Mr. and Mrs. Smith had an ad break before the film and four more throughout that lasted for 75 seconds each.

As far as ad variety, I powered through at least 20 TV shows and movies on this Basic with Ads plan. The commercials were from brands like Discover, Chipotle, Garnier, Experian, M&Ms, Boar's Head, Chevrolet, Prada and Tiffany. While I didn't see the same ad twice during an episode or movie, I began to see the same ones daily or when I watched a different title.

Among the top titles on the platform this week are 2022's The Bad Guys and The Secret of the Greco Family. Both are unavailable on this plan, and if you're a fan of Labyrinth or Knight Rider like me, those are also off the table. If you have kids, they won't be able to watch Sing 2, Gabby's Dollhouse, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts or a slew of DreamWorks shows, including the Tales of Arcadia series. Guess what else is blocked? Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous and Minions & More content.

Couple the missing content with commercial breaks, and the $10 Basic plan could be looking like a better deal. Why? You get access to Netflix's full catalog on the higher-priced subscriptions, plus you won't be tempted to succumb to Flo's push to get you to switch to Progressive or Beyonc's musical campaign for Tiffany & Co. While the ads aren't beating you over the head in length or repetition, spending the extra $3 to go ad-free could be the way to go.

It may not have the sheer number of new titles each month as Netflix but Prime Video's focus on quality (in two meanings of the word) over quantity has won me round. Of course, Netflix is still often the place to watch some of my favourite movies, but Prime Video's hit rate is in my opinion, much higher. Here are 3 reasons why I think it's now the better option.

Perhaps that's a bit harsh on the big N, it has produced some fantastic shows and even Oscar-winning movies like All Quiet On the Western Front and Marriage Story, but I feel like a big proportion of releases now are either trashy reality TV (which has a place) or identikit teenage dramas.

In recent years Prime Video has had exclusive access to some of the best films released. Current best picture winner Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is only streaming on Prime Video for example, as is The Whale - the movie that won Brendan Fraser an Oscar and Triangle of Sadness (another Oscar nominee). Some movies are even making the switch from Netflix to Amazon, with the beautiful The Peanut Butter Falcon now instead on Prime Video.

When it comes to series, I'd have to give the edge to Netflix still (providing they don't cancel my favourites), but Amazon has been going big in this area recently. Spy thriller Citadel is one of the biggest budget TV shows ever made while there are also blockbuster fantasy series like Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time. The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and The Boys are fantastic but my favourite Prime Video exclusive is US Office creator Greg Daniels' Upload.

Also in Amazon's favour is the fact that the standard Netflix plan will only offer up to 1080p streaming. If you have one of the best TVs you'll have to upgrade to Netflix Premium (15.99/ $19.99) to make the most of your setup. Prime Video offers 4K resolution at no extra price.

As a younger service, I feel like Prime Video is still in its experimental phase. Netflix has gone too mainstream now. Prime Video has a massive selection of titles that have much quirkier, less commercial premises.

Licorice Pizza is a unique must-watch directed by Paul Thomas Anderson that features the tensest scene I can remember in any movie, while Guns Akimbo has a truly unhinged premise. Daniel Radcliffe wakes up in his dressing gown and slippers with a pair of guns bolted to his hands, how could you not want to check that out?

If you're after something a bit out-there Prime Video is a wonderful world of weird.

In 1984, two years before they worked their magic on Tom Cruise with Top Gun, the Don Simpson / Jerry Bruckheimer behemoth catapulted Eddie Murphy into superstardom with Martin Brest's Beverly Hills Cop, a $13 million flick that went on to become not only the highest grossing film of the year but also, adjusted for inflation, the highest grossing R-rated movie in the best part of half a century. Its success would see Top Gun director Tony Scott take the reins for a slick and boundlessly stylish 1987 sequel but, a decade after the first film, we'd get 1994's Beverly Hills Cop III, a mess of a film during a messier era in Murphy's career, one which lasted from the 90s all the way through until pretty-much now, with little more than some talking donkey hilarity to show for it.

Streaming has now ushered in something of a comeback for Murphy and, in the last 5 years, he's at least come close to recapturing some magic, perhaps more questionably and divisively so with his belated return to Amazon's Coming 2 America, but certainly evidently with Netflix, with both Dolemite Is My Name and You People proving pretty solid efforts. Now he's shooting for the bigtime, risking a return to his defining Beverly Hills Cop franchise, with Netflix taking a gamble too - no limited theatrical release for this puppy - and leaving fans hoping that, even if it can't possibly recapture that 80s magic, it's at least a better chapter than the last one.

Not for the cynical, Axel F is one big fat nostalgic shot to the arm, going full tilt in callbacks in a shameless attempt to win over fans who had given up on the brand thirty years ago. Its script has been being rewritten for those three decades too, coming close to fruition every few years, with Murphy always seemingly on-board, but the pieces never quite falling into place. Hell, it even went the TV pilot route a decade ago, but when that flopped, it went back into limbo, with the Bad Boys 3 and 4 directors attached until the Batgirl debacle distracted them, and instead Netflix granted a one-shot licensing deal from Paramount (with an option for a sequel), bringing on board a debut director to helm this long-gestating project. But with Murphy openly vocal about righting some of the wrongs of the third film, there's always been some hope that they might just pull this off.

And, depending on your susceptibility to nostalgia, they appear to have come pretty damn close. Axel F is steeped in familiar tunes, characters, plot beats, dialogue and setup throwbacks, so much so that it's genuinely hard not to be won over by the sheer driving force of nostalgia here. Its OTT opening sequence a cold, Detroit-set callback to the opening of the first movie, with its subsequent return to 90210 wisely trading in that same familiarity of Alex's out-of-towner cruising through an alien city to smirk at the visible insanity. Regular Mission: Impossible composer Lorne Balfe is on hand for scoring duty, but his task is simple - bring back as many tunes from the first two entries as possible, with The Heat is On and Neutron Dance landing early, and all those all scoring riffs utterly familiar and very well placed, not least Faltermeyer's classic Axel F tune.

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