Arrow Player Review 2023

Is Arrow Player good?

We’ve used the Arrow Player streaming TV service for five wonderful months—it rules. That’s because Arrow Player’s parent company is Arrow Video, the UK-based company renowned for exceptionally high-quality boutique Blu-ray and 4K releases of cult films.

Think of Arrow Player as an extension of Arrow Video. Arrow Player’s hefty, well-curated catalog, attractive app, and low price make it the ideal streaming experience for cult film fanatics.

Arrow Player pros and cons

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Jump to:

• Deals and promotions
• Plans and pricing
• Arrow Player vs. the competiton
• Movies and shows
• Specs and features

Arrow Player deals and promotions

We don’t see any active deals from Arrow Player, but its 30-day free trial is one of the most generous around.

Arrow Player plans and pricing

Data as of post date.

For only $6–$7 a month, Arrow Player has 600+ movies, three simultaneous streams, 4K HDR resolution, and offline viewing. That’s an explosive bang for your buck. Arrow Player might even be the best value among its rival streaming services.

Arrow Player vs. the competition

Data as of post date.
* Estimated.

Price-wise, every service in the above table is affordable. Arrow Player and Full Moon Features are the most expensive, followed by Shudder, Night Flight Plus, and Screambox.

At 600+ titles, the Arrow Player library is roughly the same size as those of Shudder and Night Flight Plus. But the overall content of each library is different. (We discuss this in more detail in the movies and shows section.)

So Arrow Player’s edge is thin but keen. It comes down to the overall experience, which is informed by Arrow’s excellent quality control, with the 4K HDR resolution, beautiful app, and a library that‘s both comprehensive and on-brand.

Arrow Player movies and shows

With niche streaming services, the library is the main attraction. Arrow Player is like having an arthouse cinema (the crème de la crème) and grindhouse theater (the cream of the crap) in your living room—or, if you’re on mobile, your pocket. So, for genre film fanatics, Arrow Player is a comprehensive and satisfying dream.

Arrow Player has Shudder’s and The Criterion Channel’s curation quality, Full Moon Features’ reverence for the irreverent, and the pop-culture sensibility of Night Flight Plus. Arrow even includes content from these streaming services plus titles from other boutique Blu-ray companies like Blue Underground, Severin Films, Vinegar Syndrome, and more.

Categories and genres on Arrow Player

Director spotlights on Arrow Player

You’d expect auteur pages on a service like The Criterion Channel or Mubi. Genre film fans like to give their favorite filmmakers the same treatment. Here’s a partial list of the visionary directors who have collections on Arrow Player:

* No “Of the Dead” films.

Title screens for The Sacred Spirit and The Stylist show included special features (via Arrow Player mobile app).

Arrow Player original movies and shows

Arrow Player doesn’t have exclusive or original content in the usual sense. Arrow Video, however, produces many of the special features on its Blu-ray and 4K releases, so Arrow Player includes them with some titles.

A scene from The Day of the Beast viewed on a Samsung QN90A smart TV via the Roku Ultra.

Partial list of movies on Arrow Player

Data as of post date.

A scene from Evil Ed as viewed on a Samsung QN90A smart TV via the Roku Ultra.

Shows on Arrow Player

Arrow Player has no TV series—it’s all about movies. But you can still binge-watch movies. Just think of them as late–fourth season Stranger Things episodes.

Arrow Player specs and features

What else does Arrow Player have going for it besides a buxom library and eye candy app? Let’s find out.

Arrow Player simultaneous streams

Data as of post date.

Arrow Player gives you three simultaneous streams—that’s the industry average. Some streaming services have fewer (Shudder has only one), and some have more (Night Flight Plus has unlimited streams). But three is a good amount.

Arrow Player offline viewing

Offline viewing is one of the best features of any on-demand streaming service. It’s the next best thing to cloud DVR. Arrow Player’s offline viewing has a couple of restrictions:

• To complete a download, you must keep the Arrow Player app open, and your screen must remain on. If your screen goes dark, you’ll have to start over. So turn off your screen timer to avoid frustration.
• Once you’ve downloaded a movie, you have 30 days to start playback. Once you hit ‘play,’ you have 48 hours to finish the film.

Arrow Player app

The Arrow Player is one of the best-looking and most reliable mobile streaming TV apps we’ve used, regardless of the devices used to test it.

Based on the Vimeo over-the-top (OTT) platform, the Arrow Player app works just the Brown Sugar, Full Moon Features, and Troma NOW! apps. There are four links on the left-hand side of the screen (Search, Explore, Library, and Settings). To the right is a long list of category-specific carousel menus with thumbnails in three sizes (think of Netflix) for visual variety.

Vimeo (and other OTT platforms like Matchpoint) leaves the app’s aesthetic design up to the individual services—and the Arrow Player looks amazing. Clearly, the high aesthetic standards Arrow Video applies to its boutique Blu-ray releases also extends to the Arrow Player app. Bravo, Arrow.

Arrow Player supported devices

Data as of post date.

The Arrow Player app supports many devices, including Xbox gaming consoles, so you shouldn’t have to buy any new gear to use Arrow Player.

Arrow Player playback controls

Arrow Player doesn’t skimp on the playback controls. Here’s what you can do on the mobile app. The Roku Ultra and browser-based Arrow Player apps have the same features except “Share,” “Cast,” and “Download.”

Arrow Player playback controls viewed on mobile via the service’s Android app.

Arrow Player video and audio quality

Few niche streaming services stream in 4K HDR—but Arrow Player is one of them. See what we mean about attention to technical details? Arrow is all about giving users the best movie experience.

Remember, though, that streaming in 4K HDR depends chiefly on the source material. If a title isn’t available in 4K, it will stream in SD or HD.

Arrow Player testing

Data effective as of post date.
* Depending on source material
† Depending on source material and location

We use Google Fiber 1 Gbps at home and the T-Mobile 5G mobile network when we’re out. Both connections, when stable, have more than enough bandwidth to stream in 4K. The T-Mobile connection, however, isn’t always stable if we’re driving (don’t worry, we weren’t behind the wheel). When that happened, the Arrow app adjusted image quality accordingly.

A scene from Django viewed on a Samsung QN90A smart TV via the Roku Ultra.

Arrow Player FAQ

Methodology

Our TV experts have spent hundreds of hours testing Arrow Player and other streaming services. For this article, we tested Arrow Player on three smart TVs, two streaming devices, one smartphone, one laptop, and four internet connections.

Also, we compared Arrow Player to competing services based on pricing, features, libraries, and more to deliver accurate, helpful recommendations to our readers. Check out the CableTV.com How We Rank page to learn more about our process.

Endnotes

JustWatch.com, “All Movies and Shows on Arrow Player.” Accessed September 6, 2022.