Night Flight Plus Review 2023

Is Night Flight Plus good?

The Night Flight Plus streaming service rules, especially if you’re old enough to recall staying up late in the 1980s to watch Night Flight, the USA Network’s four-hour block of cartoons, cult movies, music videos, artist interviews, and other cool, strange media. Night Flight Plus has all of that content and more, and you can watch it whenever you want for under $5 a month. That’s a steal—and the nostalgia is delicious.

Our only complaints about Night Flight Plus are that there’s no Android app, and the Roku Ultra version of the app basic, and sometimes glitchy. But these issues don’t ruin the overall experience.

Night Flight Plus pros and cons

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Jump to:

• Deals and promotions
• Plans and pricing
• Night Flight Plus vs. the competiton
• Movies and shows
• Specs and features

Night Flight Plus deals and promotions

We couldn’t find any deals on Night Flight Plus—but we’ve seen $1-a-month-for-three-months sales before. That’s a 70%–80% discount on the already affordable regular rates (see next section).

Night Flight Plus also offers a free 7-day trial.

Night Flight plans and pricing

Data as of post date. Not all offers available in all areas.

Night Flight Plus is one of the most affordable on-demand streaming TV services, whether or not you go with a monthly or annual subscription.

Night Flight Plus vs. the competition

Data as of post date. Not all offers available in all areas.
† Estimated.

The Night Flight Plus annual subscription isn’t just affordable, it’s also a tremendous value. Compared to similar streaming TV services, Night Flight Plus has a vast and varied catalog plus something we’ve never seen before—unlimited simultaneous streams—for the lowest price.

But all of the competing services listed above have solid value and affordable pricing. If you want pure horror with classic and new titles, Shudder is the best deal. For pure horror on a budget, Screambox has low-budget horror and some classics (but the app kinda sucks).

For the cream of the cult movie crop, with more stylistic variety (but abundant horror films), we recommend the Arrow Player. And if cheesy schlock is your favorite flavor, allow us to suggest Full Moon Features.

Night Flight Plus movies and shows

The Night Flight Plus library is deep and diverse. The service doesn’t advertise its library size, and it’s difficult to count because Night Flight Plus treats every clip, cartoon, episode, film, and music video as an individual title. But JustWatch.com says that Night Flight Plus has 666 (hail Satan!) movies and shows.¹ That’s more than Shudder and the Arrow Player.

Night Flight Plus live channels

Night Flight Plus has two 24/7 live channels—Night Flight TV and Night Flight TVi: Independent Music Video Channel—playing ad-free content from the service’s library.

These channels lack a program guide, playback controls (so no pausing, rewinding, or fast-forwarding), and even on-screen identification of what’s playing. So the channels’ usefulness may seem limited, but we can think of three solid use cases.

• Stop analysis paralysis: If you like what’s on, relax and let it play. Or search for the program and stream it on demand with full playback control.
• Background noise: When you’re home alone, create the illusion of companionship with ambient noise from both channels.
• Top-shelf nostalgic indulgence: Recreate the late-night Night Flight memories of your youth. For maximum nostalgia, you can even call your favorite sleepover buddy from back then.*

* If you haven’t seen this person in a while, maybe do a background check first.

Night Flight Plus original shows

There’s a second way to recapture the original ‘80s Night Flight vibe. Night Flight Plus includes eight “as aired” Night Flight episodes—including the original commercials. How’s that for a nostalgic time warp?

A scene from the full July 15, 1983 episode of Night Flight as viewed on a Samsung QN90A smart TV via the Roku Ultra.

Movies on Night Flight Plus

The original Night Flight series included full-length cult movies spanning various genres: action, comedy, crime, horror, sci-fi, westerns, and more. Accordingly, such films saturate the Night Flight Plus library.

Browsing films on Night Flight Plus is even easier with content hubs from top-shelf studios and boutique Blu-ray labels like Arrow Video, Blue Underground, Church of the Subgenius, Cult Epics, Full Moon Horror, Grindhouse Releasing, Rifftrax, Severin Films, Something Weird, and Vinegar Syndrome. With 11–50 films each, the hubs are a fantastic way to sample each entity’s library.

Partial list of movies on Night Flight Plus

Data as of post date.

A scene from Wesley Willis: The Daddy of Rock ‘N’ Roll as viewed on a Samsung QN90A smart TV via the Roku Ultra.

Concert films and music docs on Night Flight Plus

Music was always integral to Night Flight, and it remains so today with tons of concert films, documentaries, and music videos.

Many of these titles are incredible—but watch out for the service’s many unauthorized music docs (look for “Under the Influence,” “Under Review,” or “Unauthorized” in the titles). These lack the artist’s participation or music, which is disappointing and weird. Fortunately, the good stuff is more abundant.

Partial list of concert films and music documentaries on Night Flight Plus

Night Flight Plus also includes content hubs for contemporary indie labels like Sub Pop, Mexican Summer, Drag City, Sacred Bones, RVNG Intl., Dais, and Dark Entries. These contain video profiles for the label’s artists, including music videos. (Incidentally, these vids comprise the majority of content on Night Flight TVi.)

Shows on Night Flight Plus

Don’t expect the usual TV series from Night Flight Plus—just enjoy the strange variety. Also, this is pretty much every series on the service.

Complete list of shows on Night Flight Plus

Data as of post date.
* Night Flight Plus exclusive.

Night Flight Plus specs and features

We already know that Night Flight Plus has unlimited simultaneous streams, which is outstanding. But let’s see what Night Flight Plus offers regarding simultaneous streams and offline viewing.

Night Flight Plus simultaneous streams

Data as of post date.

As we’ve said, we’ve never heard of a streaming TV service with unlimited simultaneous streams. Some services don’t put a number on available streams, so they might not limit them—but only Night Flight Plus is open about it.

Night Flight Plus offline viewing

Not to sound greedy, but you’d think that a service with unlimited streams would allow downloads for offline viewing. Alas, Night Flight Plus does not. We’re guessing that this is due to music-licensing red tape.

Night Flight Plus app

On all of the devices we used to test it, the Night Flight Plus app is pretty basic. On the Roku Ultra, the Night Flight Plus home screen has the Night Flight logo sandwiched between a horizontal, five-link menu (top) and 50 carousel menus (bottom).

Night Flight Plus supported devices

Data as of post date.

The Night Flight Plus app supports enough devices that you probably won’t need to buy a new one to use the service.

Some users, however, won’t like that there’s no Night Flight Plus app for Android, gaming consoles, or smart TVs. At least Android users can watch Night Flight Plus on their smartphone or tablet’s web browser. We wish we could say the same for smart TV owners—our Samsung QN90A smart TV’s Internet browser lets us sign in, but it won’t play content.

Night Flight Plus video and audio quality

Night Flight Plus doesn’t list its streaming resolution. Based on our testing, the app appears to adjust quality depending on your internet speed.

We tested the Night Flight Plus app in six different configurations of screens, streaming devices, and internet connections.

Night Flight Plus testing details at a glance

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

In five out of six tests, our picture quality dipped below 1080p HD only when using our mobile data connection on the Samsung smartphone. That’s normal when you’re away from home.

The only other time we experienced a resolution dip was on older movies and shows that stream at their original 720p standard-definition (SD) resolution (also typical).

Jon-Mikl Thor punches a punk in Zombie Nightmare as viewed on a Windows 10 laptop via Google Chrome.

Night Flight Plus FAQ

Methodology

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

Also, we compared Night Flight Plus 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 Night Flight Plus.” Accessed August 26, 2022.