Which Streaming Platform Has the Most Pride?

For years now, streaming services have celebrated the coming of Pride Month by putting their LGBTQ+ content front and center. It’s a reason for platforms like Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix to exhibit their pride in the actors, writers, and countless other creatives behind some of their best content, as well as to demonstrate their solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. But as the Streaming Wars have become more competitive, with Americans watching more TV than ever and more players in the industry competing for their attention, viewers have more options to choose from when it comes to streaming television that’s perfect for celebrating Pride.

As TV fanatics, we at Ranker took it upon ourselves to look at the Pride collections of five of the biggest platforms in the TV streaming landscape: Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, and Peacock. We looked at each platform’s Pride offerings and judged them according to the depth of their LGBTQ+ catalogs, their inclusivity, and the effort put into recognizing Pride Month. Plus, to help them better address the tastes of their subscribers, we compared their collections with the results of some popular Ranker LGBTQ+ TV lists: The Best Current TV Shows With LGBTQ+ Characters (10.8K votes) and The Best LGBTQ+ Shows & Movies Of All Time (7.3K votes). Here’s how we ranked the platforms, by order of least to most Prideful.

5. Netflix — “LGBTQ” Category

Unlike the other platforms on this list, Netflix didn’t create a special section for Pride Month. Across Netflix we found a few LGBTQ+-themed subcategories: rows of content labelled “GLAAD Award Nominees” and “Critically Acclaimed LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows” appeared and disappeared from the platform’s main and TV Show homepages depending on when we checked them. For the purposes of this blog post, we checked out the “LGBTQ” category on the TV Show page, which exists every month, Pride or no.

This page’s subcategories were very general, despite Netflix’s notorious flare for creating subgenres that are specific to the point of being absurd: they included “Popular on Netflix,” “International TV Shows,” “Emotional TV Shows,” and “Romantic TV Shows.” Netflix didn’t address any specific group within the LGBTQ+ community (e.g. trans or nonbinary folks), nor did it highlight the work of queer directors, creators, or writers.

As far as the content catalog goes, the LGBTQ category features plenty of shows at the top of both our LGBTQ+ Ranker lists, including Orange Is the New Black, Grace and Frankie, and Sense8. There were, however, a few notable exceptions, chief among them Shameless. The Showtime original is ranked #1 overall on our list of The Best LGBTQ+ Shows & Movies Of All Time, and its characters Mickey Milkovitch and Ian Gallagher are the #1 couple on our list of The 45+ Best LGBTQ+ Couples In TV History. If it’s hoping to appeal to subscribers within the LGBTQ+ community, Netflix should do more to highlight this popular comedy.

Ranker Data Says Netflix Should Add:

• Shameless (#1 on The Best LGBTQ+ Movies & TV Shows Of All Time)

• Wentworth (#16 on The Best LGBTQ+ Movies & TV Shows Of All Time)

• Grey’s Anatomy (#27 on The Best LGBTQ+ Movies & TV Shows Of All Time)

• Legends of Tomorrow (#7 on The Best Current TV Shows With LGBTQ+ Characters)

4. Amazon Prime Video — “Live OUT Loud”

The “Live OUT Loud” collection comes with some eye-pleasing artwork, and it’s clear that Amazon put effort into some of the curation. That being said, both the content in this collection and the way that content is organized leave a little to be desired.

Some of the subcategories do highlight the identities and contributions of LGBTQ+ artists, like “BIPOC voices,” “LGBTQ+ filmmakers,” and “Glamazonians: titles we love.” Other subcategories, though, are pretty unclear in their meaning — we’re left to our own devices to interpret the difference between “Live OUT Loud” and “Inspire OUT Loud.”

Finally, the TV offerings aren’t very deep, with most of what’s available in the collection focusing on TV shows explicitly about LGBTQ+ themes, as opposed to more general shows that incorporate LGBTQ+ storylines and characters. That’s likely why shows like Teen Wolf didn’t end up making the cut, though Billions managed to earn a place in the pantheon anyway.

Ranker Data Says Amazon Should Add:

• The Fosters (#15 on The Best LGBTQ+ Movies and TV Shows of All Time)

• Teen Wolf (#48 on The Best LGBTQ+ Movies and TV Shows of All Time)

3. Peacock — “Celebrating Pride”

Peacock is a unique streaming service, and it puts that distinctiveness to good use on its “Celebrating Pride” page. Alongside categories like “LGBTQ+ Series,” and “LGBTQ+ Filmmakers,” the page includes a section dedicated to LGBTQ+ celebrities who have hosted SNL, including RuPaul, Elton John, Ellen DeGeneres, and Dan Levy. The service also features a curated series of clips from various shows in its catalog that it feels are particularly relevant to Pride, as well as a number of news stories — featuring everything from history retrospectives to personal interest stories and celebrity gossip — that “Focus on the LGBTQ+ Community.”

But for all its inventiveness, the catalog of TV shows isn’t particularly deep: we counted a total of 14 shows (if you include SNL) in its lineup of LGBTQ+-themed series. Of course, Peacock is a relatively new service, so it deserves a little time to build its original TV library. Still, we noted that a few series in Peacock’s catalog beloved by Ranker voters were missing: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Chicago Fire, two procedural drama shows from TV juggernaut Dick Wolf. SVU has been associated with the LGBTQ+ community in the past for the way the long-running show has tackled issues like HIV privacy, the dangers posed to trans people in prison, and conversion therapy. Chicago Fire picked up a large LGBTQ+ audience early after its premiere thanks to popular character Leslie Shay, an out lesbian. 

Ranker Data Says Peacock Should Add:

• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (#19 on The Best Current TV Shows with LGBTQ+ Characters)

• Chicago Fire (#29 on The Best Current TV Shows with LGBTQ+ Characters)

2. Hulu — “Pride”

While Hulu’s Pride collection doesn’t have fancy graphics or a catchy name, it deserves points for its prominent placement at the top of the screen alongside “Home,” “My Stuff,” “TV,” and “Movies” — every other collection featured on this list requires a little bit of scrolling to find, which undermines the idea that these platforms are “proud” to display this content.

What’s more, the subcategories in this collection demonstrate an effort to recognize the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community: Hulu’s subcategories include “Trans Stories,” “Multicultural Stories,” and “Groundbreaking LGBTQ+ Characters.” Finally, Hulu’s huge TV catalog makes it hard to compete with, boasting hugely popular series like Love, Victor (#2 on The Best Current TV Shows With LGBTQ+ Characters), Please Like Me (#10 on The Best LGBTQ+ Movies & TV Shows Of All Time), and Will & Grace (#17 on The Best LGBTQ+ Movies & TV Shows Of All Time).

Like Peacock, Hulu doesn’t seem to feel SVU particularly deserves mention as a show that deals with LGBTQ+ issues — a big mistake, according to our data. Other than that, the platform includes every series our voters count as great LGBTQ+ shows.

Ranker Data Says Hulu Should Add:

• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (#19 on The Best Current TV Shows with LGBTQ+ Characters)

1. HBO Max — “Shine On”

Though it takes a little digging to get to, HBO’s Pride collection “Shine On” is comprehensive, inclusive, and even political. Documentaries and shows based on LGBTQ+ history are featured in a subcategory titled “Our Resilience: Liberation is an ongoing fight.” Stories centering the narratives of queer people of color are featured under “Our POC Voices: Pride was, and is, a protest led by people of color.” However you feel about corporate participation in Pride Month, HBO is clearly making an effort to go beyond platitudes about “living your truth” and rainbow flag branding.

Other subcategories highlight trans and nonbinary experiences, queer characters in superhero shows, and LGBTQ+ comedians. Importantly, there’s a section that highlights TV shows and movies from queer creators, making sure to name those creators underneath their work. HBO has taken care to highlight the work of people like Katja Blichfeld and Alan Ball, acknowledging that queer people deserve recognition during Pride Month regardless of whether their work (in this case, High Maintenance and Six Feet Under, respectively) is primarily thought of as LGBTQ+ themed.

Finally, the collection also features clips with queer characters in shows that aren’t otherwise associated with the LGBTQ+ community. Those characters include Omar Little from The Wire, Yara Greyjoy from Game of Thrones, and Bill Potts from Doctor Who. It’s obvious that HBO Max took great care to curate something worth celebrating.

Ranker Data Says HBO Max Should Add:

• Nothing! Every show from HBO’s catalogue on our lists of great LGBTQ+ content was featured in the collection.

These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

MORE INSIGHTS LIKE THIS: