Prison Break – Picture: 20th Television
Despite wrapping its fifth season up in mid-2017, Prison Break remains one of the most requests shows we get asked about here at What’s on Netflix. Are seasons 1-5 of Prison Break on Netflix where you live and if not, why not? Let’s take a look.
Most of you are probably well aware of Prison Break. The series aired on Fox from 2005 through to 2009 before getting a 9 episode revival in 2017.
It starred Dominic Purcell, Wentworth Miller, Robin Tunney, Peter Stormare, and Amaury Nolasco and told the story (multiple times) of a pair of brothers attempting to break out of a high-security prison.
The show was truly one of a kind and leaves behind an impressive legacy and therefore, is still highly sought after television.
So let’s get into the show’s availability on Netflix now.
Is Prison Break on Netflix in the United States?
We’ll begin in the US where the answer is no but it was once streaming.
Long-term subscribers of Netflix will know that Netflix did once carry the show before sadly lost every season (at the time only seasons 1 through 4) on October 2nd, 2017.
Currently, the show is exclusive to streaming on Hulu which is where it’s been streaming since leaving Netflix all those years ago.
Given Disney owns 20th Television (who distributes the show) and they own most of Hulu, it’s likely that’ll continue to be its long-term home in the future.
Disney has licensed out some of its shows to Amazon via IMDb TV in recent years so we don’t want to rule it out moving to other platforms entirely.
Is Prison Break on Netflix internationally?
Internationally, the picture is far more rosey for Prison Break on Netflix.
According to Unogs, at least 28 countries (they don’t monitor every country) are streaming the show including:
- Australia
- Belgium
- Canada
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Mainland Europe
- Japan
- Israel
- The United Kingdom
So that means that most regions of Netflix still have access to the show but for how long is unknown.
Although 20th Television does still license to Netflix, they’ve definitely pulled back in recent years. In fact, with Disney’s ownership of the company, we imagine that Netflix will stand to lose the majority of its content from the provider as it invests in the Disney+ Star offering.
In most regions, Disney+ Star already has the show streaming in full already. How long this period will be is anyone’s guess. Most TV shows are renewed on an annual basis and Prison Break will come up for renewal one October but we don’t know what year.
Is the Prison Break spinoff on Netflix?
Easier to explain is that Breakout Kings, the spin-off series which is written by Matt Olmstead and Nick Santora is not streaming on Netflix anywhere.
Do you wish Prison Break was on Netflix where you live? Let us know in the comments.