
Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List - Daviey
http://www.streamingobserver.com/netflix-now-31-movies-imdbs-top-250-list/
======
bcrescimanno
TL;DR: A former Netflix employee isn't surprised because films very little
business sense for Netflix.

Former Netflix employee here--though I left in late 2013. I remember sitting
at a company meeting and Reed Hastings explaining that AAA film content was
never going to be the bread-and-butter for Netflix for several reasons. Most
importantly: Between traditional, "linear" television and Netflix, the
experience that Netflix brings with a combination of a low subscription cost,
no commercials, and the ability to watch as many episodes of a show as you
want to watch whenever you want to watch them is VASTLY superior.

Netflix survives and thrives on binge-watching--and people just don't do that
with movies (they have a LOT of data to back up that statement). Combined with
the realities of the costs associated with feature film licensing and there's
very little incentive for Netflix to put any emphasis on films.

The only way they could do it is to tack on a pay-per-view service for films
(because their subscription fee alone will absolutely NOT cover the cost of
licensing more feature film content) and they are highly averse to such a
service. The general feeling is that it's better for the average user if they
can open up Netflix and watch whatever is there without ever thinking about
whether it's an "included" title or a "PPV" title. When I was there, we
regularly revisited this assumption and research always found that it
continued to be the prudent move.

~~~
paol
If that's the case, that leaves the problem (from the consumer's point of
view) of where to get access to a complete(ish) catalog of films. Netflix
actually achieved this back in the disc-by-mail days. So we're actually moving
backwards.

I'm not particularly ashamed to say I turn to unlicensed torrents for this
purpose, but I would prefer if it weren't necessary.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Netflix actually achieved this back in the disc-by-mail days."_

Netflix's DVD service still exists.[1] They have a fantastic selection,
compared to their streaming service.

[1] - [https://dvd.netflix.com/](https://dvd.netflix.com/)

~~~
caleblloyd
Their DVD service may still exist, but my DVD player does not.

~~~
oldmanjay
That's not really a flaw of netflix, is it? If you believe it is, I'd love to
understand your reasoning.

~~~
caleblloyd
I used to love going to blockbuster to rent a flick, because I could do it on
a whim (near-instant gratification). Because of streaming services like
Netflix, blockbuster went out of business.

I don't plan for movie night days in advance. I'm not going to rent that shit
in the mail. So after a few years of not touching my DVD player, I threw it
out.

The content owners are the real ones losing out here. I'd pay $4 to stream any
movie, there's just no service I'm aware of that offers them all digitally at
that price.

~~~
gozur88
Isn't that about what the cable PPV channels charge? Or am I out of date?

~~~
auno
Then you'd have to get cable first, with whatever that entails. I don't have
any kind of TV connection to my apartment at all.

------
SCdF
It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution. Don't get me
wrong, some of their own content is great, but I don't want to subscribe to 10
different streaming services that all have their own original content, I want
to subscribe to one.

Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile,
and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again.

~~~
roboguy12
Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty
recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO
Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have
(and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or
rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to
the best of my knowledge) does not allow you to do that, presumably because
they want you to buy their Fire TV instead.

So, we spent the $6 to rent the movie on Google Play. About 10 minutes into
the movie, the quality plummeted and playback stopped with an error code. We
called customer support and they talked us through possible solutions for ~35
minutes before we gave up and asked for a refund. It wasn't a problem with our
Wifi, since Netflix/Youtube and other services worked just fine, it was a
problem with Google Play streaming to the Chromecast.

After searching and trying for over an hour to watch a movie legally using
paid services, we went to putlocker, plugged an hdmi cable into my computer
and streamed it just fine. We really, really tried to do it the legal way and
pay money for the content we wanted to watch, but it was far too complicated
to even find a place to watch it, let alone actually successfully watch it. I
was reminded a lot of this comic
[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones)
throughout the whole thing. All of this fragmentation is going to become a
huge problem again, when piracy is just so easy and convenient.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yeah I'm not sympathetic. The alternative to finding (and failing to find) a
service to watch the show could possibly be - not watching it? The conclusion
'naturally we then had to steal it' isn't entirely justified.

Shoplifting is easy and convenient too. Next time you forget your wallet at
the corner store. Just sayin.

~~~
sgeisenh
Piracy and larceny are entirely different crimes. Nobody "stole" anything, in
this particular situation. In order for something to be "stolen", the victim
must lose something that they _already_ had. You might try to argue that
streaming services lost a sale, but they never had the sale and they make the
process so arduous that they would never get the sale.

To be clear, I am not promoting piracy, it does pose ethical problems. The
metaphor to stealing simply fails to illuminate any of them.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
The 'book value' of items in the corner market is negligible. The real value
is in having that soda available, cold and ready for you. And in marketing
that fact.

So in a very real sense, stealing the soda and stealing the movie are hardly
any different?

~~~
mbesto
> So in a very real sense, stealing the soda and stealing the movie are hardly
> any different?

But again, stealing a soda voids the ability for someone else to obtain the
good. "Stealing" a movie via piracy doesn't neglect someone else from obtain
the good. This is the GP's point - stealing implies there is something of
loss.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...only if they run out. Read my comment again.

------
Coincoin
Here in Canada almost all English language content is licensed to a single
company, Bell. They systematically deny any access to Netflix and started
their own service, Crave TV. They are the one responsible for the great
Proxy/VPN banning this year.

They are taking advantage of a government granted monopoly they had in the
1900's and now control a disproportionate amount of the media in Canada.

~~~
eatbitseveryday
Off topic, but...

> They are the one responsible for the great Proxy/VPN banning this year.

At first, I thought this meant Netflix banning all use of VPN for streaming.
Searching news articles shows in fact a Rogers VP rep had called on the
government to outright ban VPN universally[1], but this was back in spring
2015. You are saying this has actually been made law and is enforced?

How did this pass when major corporations require VPNs, and I presume also
government officials use it for sensitive communications?

[1] [http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/carriers/rogers/rogers-
governme...](http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/carriers/rogers/rogers-government-
shutdown-vpn/)

~~~
ohstopitu
It's not yet banned (Hospitals still use them, as do all major corps). I found
the following post as late as Dec 2015 but nothing later than that.[1]

[1] [http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/liberal-government-may-
blo...](http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/liberal-government-may-block-vpn-
use-to-access-u-s-netflix/)

~~~
eatbitseveryday
This is _insane_ if it actually happens .. a move I want to compare to China,
except here it's the government bending to the will of a corporation, not the
other way around!

Dumb stuff is proposed all the time in US proposals[1,2] but with great effort
they get rejected (not all, sadly).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States)

[2] [https://www.whitehouse.gov/net-
neutrality](https://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality)

~~~
digi_owl
At some point one may wonder where the line goes between large corporations
and governments.

------
Y-bar
And of these 31 remaining almost half are missing in the Swedish Netflix:

    
    
        5. Back to the Future
        6. Gladiator
        7. Sunset Boulevard
        8. Cinema Paradiso
        9. Django Unchained
        12. Reservoir Dogs
        13. Braveheart
        17. Amadeus
        21. Trainspotting
        24. There Will Be Blood
        25. Spotlight
        26. The Princess Bride
        27. Zootopia
        29. Jaws
        31. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
    

And yet Netflix want the same monthly cost for less of a service. Why?

~~~
jug
Yes, also in Sweden and when I once tricked Netflix into showing the US
library I kind of wanted to cry.

Now I'm tempted to make a pretty graph of "Movies and TV shows per dollar" for
the countries they're established in. Should be pretty interesting. I expect
major differences.

~~~
yaegers
Not a "per dollar" graph but still a graph just how big the different catalogs
are: [http://cordcutting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/netflix-
ca...](http://cordcutting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/netflix-catalogs.png)

~~~
chewyfruitloop
hummm.... i wonder why jersey and gurnsey have 1 different in their numbers...
considering they're both channel islands... thats a fairly odd chart

------
beautifulfreak
I'm glad for Netflix original content. It's been high in quality, and I've
already seen all the top 250 IMDB movies I want to see. What Netflix could do
to prove its love of movies, and which would probably make good business
sense, is unearth movies that have never been shown on TV, or never been
digitized to DVD or even transferred to VHS. There are websites devoted to
those lost treasures, and movie lovers who would bow and genuflect to Netflix
if those movies were ever aired. Consider that eBay does big business selling
VHS tapes to people who don't even own VHS players, but who buy and send those
tapes to services that will rip them to DVD. (My latest is "We're Talkin'
Serious Money" with Dennis Farina - a 6.0 IMDB rated movie I just HAD to see
again.) Who else has the power to deal with rights holders who control rights
to old movies not deemed worthy of a VHS or DVD release? I type this hoping
that someone from Netflix understands and agrees with me. They could make it a
big event, build excitement, even though those movies are not high rated.
They're just unobtainable rarities, like the 1998 movie with Molly Ringwald,
Twice Upon A Time, that I've wanted to see again for 15 years... Great movie,
too bad you can't watch it.

~~~
yalogin
Yeah but most people don't care about unearthing movies. All I want are the
hits and popular escapist fare which Netflix is not willing to spend on.

~~~
talmand
>> which Netflix is not willing to spend on.

Or, just maybe, the license holder isn't willing to make a deal with Netflix
because they want to start their own streaming service.

------
jhbadger
While I'm sure it's not entirely Netflix's fault (media companies realizing
their back catalog has a value), it seems to be a common evolution for movie
services to move to providing their own content. Look at HBO. In the 1980s, it
was all about showing movies (the name even meant "Home Box Office"). Now it
is all about Game of Thrones and what not. With things like House of Cards,
Orange is the New Black, etc., that's what Netflix is doing as well.

~~~
bagacrap
HBO is a good example but I don't see blockbuster or Redbox creating content
so I wouldn't say it's inevitable. Where are the movie companies hawking their
back catalog if not Netflix?

~~~
luma
Blockbuster is a great example of a company that didn't do that. How are they
doing these days?

------
koonsolo
I find it strange that Spotify is able to list almost any band and music out
there, and streaming video providers not. They are even forced to create their
own content.

Seems that the music industry has a better separation between content creators
and providers than the movie and series industry.

~~~
rayiner
Music is subject to compulsory licensing. Something that made sense when only
big companies could record and distribute music (making cartel behavior easy),
not so much now that anyone with an iPad and an internet connection can do so.

~~~
scarface74
It's a little more complicated than that.

-There is a compulsory performance license that allows radio stations to play any music. They have to pay the song writers and the music writers (?) a fee based on a mandated structure but not the actual singers.

-There is a separate compulsory licence for Pandora like services where you can't choose your music and there are guidelines that Pandora has to abide by.

-There is _no_ compulsory license for on-demand subscription services like Spotify where you can choose the music you want to listen to.

~~~
rayiner
Good point.

------
howdydo
I was about to complain about the lack of 8+ IMDB rated films on Netflix UK,
but after doing some research[1] it's actually quite high.

Although one thing I did notice by picking a handful of random films is that
some are rated 8+ but only have 50-100 votes, which reminded me of this
excellent article by Evan Miller on how not to sort by average ratings[2].

Personal opinion now: I'm more of a movie person than a TV series person, but
I do appreciate some of the Netflix Original series, but I'm finding it harder
and harder to justify the monthly cost when I also have a NowTV movie
subscription which __seem __to have more decent films and are regularly
updated (even though research[3] shows they don 't have many 8+ movies)

[1]
[https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movies?providers=nfx&rating_imd...](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movies?providers=nfx&rating_imdb=8)

[2] [http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-
rating....](http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html)

[3] [https://www.justwatch.com/uk/provider/now-
tv?content_type=mo...](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/provider/now-
tv?content_type=movie&rating_imdb=8)

------
wyldfire
Netflix is clearly making heavy investments in what we've tended to call
"Television" programming. It's often deep dramas that are very engrossing,
much more so than TV offered a decade or two ago. Netflix likely sees higher
returns here.

Movies are quickly becoming the "short story" of the cinematic world, IMO
(though those countless sequels and prequels are an exception). When done well
they have a strict beginning, middle and end.

~~~
MrZongle2
I couldn't agree more. I think about "Daredevil" season one: 13 episodes, each
almost an hour long. We saw more character development in a single season (of
both the titular character and Vincent D'Onofrio's excellent Kingpin) than in
_years_ of Marvel movies.

If an episode's story needs to run a bit longer, it runs longer. Commercial
breaks don't affect pacing. Nobody has to worry about sponsors being upset
about content, an episode being interrupted by breaking news or postponed due
to a sporting event.

I'd like Netflix to have a larger movie catalog, but if they continue to crank
out quality long-form stories I'm quite happy to remain a subscriber.

(Now we just need them to secure the rights for Patrick O'Brien's
Aubrey/Maturin novels)

~~~
veridies
This is off topic, but I recently watched Hornblower, a late 90s British
series based on Forester's novels. It was surprisingly good, and it has
basically the exact same setting as the Aubrey/Maturin novels. I'd definitely
recommend it if you're in the mood for that kind of thing.

(And, relatedly, it's not available for streaming anywhere that I can see. I
had to buy the DVDs.)

------
arkitaip
I can understand that the media companies don't want to cooperate with Netflix
by denying them access to their IP but it's sad that they haven't been able to
launch a real alternative to Netflix during all these years.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Sure they have. Torrents are popular and effective. They work great. The
studios clearly prefer we use them; their repeated decisions leaving them as
the sole functional choice show that.

~~~
pforpineapple
"The studios clearly prefer we use them" : what do you mean ?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I think it's safe to say he, sarcastically, is implying that failure to match
the ease of getting torrents of movies means that movie studios are by default
leaving torrenting as the best way to watch. Thus they seemingly endorse
torrenting by offering no proper competition.

------
flycaliguy
Surely I'm not the only person who isn't interested in watching IMDB's
favourite content.

Give me the 6 outta 10s, that's my bread and butter. I'd rather be surprised
and discover a personal favourite or have something on the TV that I won't be
expected to dissect with the nerds at work.

~~~
ko27
You are basically saying that you can't "discover a personal favourite" when
they are highly rated and talked by other people. That's probably the worst
mindset for a avid film watcher.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Seems to work well for the Indie music crowd.

~~~
afterburner
Doesn't the indie crowd also rely on word of mouth?

~~~
TallGuyShort
My comment was somewhat tongue in cheek - a reference to the stereotypical
hipster who always has to have liked something before it was cool, and once
it's cool they only like the older stuff (that you probably haven't heard of).
In reality, I'm sure they do rely on word of mouth, or at least less
mainstream, centralized-but-still-kind-of-centralized sources to aggregate and
filter new stuff for what's good.

------
subliminalpanda
It's getting to the point that their OC more than makes up for it.

The big studios are just asking for more piracy at this point.

------
mark_l_watson
I look at it as a matter of cost vs. benefits. My wife and I watch a fair
amount of stuff on Netflix each month and our family plan is less than
$10/month. How anyone can say Netflix does not provide sufficient value
doesn't make sense to me.

We also subscribe to Hulu Plus to watch network TV with no commercials. Also a
good deal. If we want to watch a new release, I rent it on Google Play Movies.
I don't mind using a few different vendors, and competition is good.

What is not a good deal is cable TV. We hardly ever use it and it is
relatively expensive.

------
2T1Qka0rEiPr
As a UK resident, with access to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Sky, I
actually applaud Neflix's conscious move away from blockbuster content.

Netflix has created some of my favourite shows in the past few years (e.g.
House of Cards and Narcos) and I'd rather have that original content given my
access to the other services - Sky is better probably better able (through
it's Fox parent company) to deliver the blockbusters should I want to watch
them.

The obvious cost is that we have to subscribe to multiple services, and that
necessitates cost both in money and in time to find content legally as you
have to go through each in turn. If Amazon and Netflix both move further
towards unique content then we'll also have reduced competition in the
blockbuster space, which might increase prices and encourage a move back to
privacy.

(Finally, I have major respect for Netflix as a developer, and so I probably
view everything with a certain bias).

~~~
throwawayReply
I agree, but it's conditioned on the fact that in the UK netflix never had
good movies, it was all about it's TV box sets rather than movies from the
start here.

Netflix UK doesn't push movies, I'd be surprised if it had more than 5 movies
from the top 250, although the catalogue is so hard to browse it's hard to
verify.

If netflix was previously advertised here based on it's movie offering I would
be annoyed about it's pivot to focus on TV.

------
dmalvarado
My younger colleagues at work simply can't believe that I still have a DVD
plan with Netflix. I'm not that old! In response, I can't believe THEY are
satisfied with what's available on streaming. Netflix isn't interested in
paying royalties for blockbuster films. In house content makes so much more
sense.

~~~
nathan_long
Ditto. I have a DVD Netflix plan, and streaming, and Amazon Prime.

Yes, it's _ridiculous_ that in 2016, I'm still regularly getting bits via
snail mail. DVDs are sometimes scratched, and my player often forces me to
watch previews. It's terrible.

Except for the selection. Try this: go to
[http://www.imdb.com/chart/top](http://www.imdb.com/chart/top), then start
searching for those on [https://dvd.netflix.com/](https://dvd.netflix.com/). I
tried a few, and they were all there.

I don't have crazy weird esoteric tastes, but I like to be able to say "hey, I
heard that Movie X was good" and be able to add it to my playlist. I can
pretty much always do that with the DVD service. I can pretty much never do
that with streaming services. It's like, "oh, they have a sequel and a
spinoff, but not the original."

I'm about 98% sure that the difference in selection is because of Hollywood
being jerks about licensing, so I don't blame Netflix or Amazon. But as long
as there's such a vast difference in selection, I'm going to keep renting
DVDs.

~~~
TheBeardKing
It depends on how many movies you watch whether the mail plan is cheaper than
paying on-demand. On-demand prices drop fairly quickly, go on sale
periodically, and things like Google Rewards earn you digital credit. Also,
RedBox is still an option if needed.

------
JustSomeNobody
I bet Netflix would absolutely love to provide all of these movies. I don't
have any insider knowledge, but given their past behavior, I cannot help but
think the content providers (of which a lot are owned by cable cartels) are
preventing this. They are either prohibitively pricing the movies or are
trying to dictate too many terms under which viewers have access to the
movies. Then there's the fact that some of these movies didn't exist in a
"streaming" world and so their licenses (for the music, etc) don't take this
into account and so all that has to be renegotiated (which goes back to the
prohibitive pricing, surely).

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If we had 20 year copyright terms then most of the back catalogue issues would
be moot. Companies would have to get their act together and make the most of
licensing new works with the added competition of others offering only PD
works.

Of course the poor starving actors of all those old movies -- Marilyn Monroe,
Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, etc. -- would perish under such a regime. They
might even stop making new works! /s

------
larrik
Netflix's real value is in binge-watching TV shows. I wouldn't be surprised if
movies just don't get the viewers to justify their cost.

As a non-stop Netflix subscriber since 2004, I've only streamed 1 or 2 movies
in that entire time (although my kids have).

~~~
ghaff
You and others would presumably watch more if there were more better
(especially recent) movies to watch. Personally, I keep my minimal Netflix DVD
rental subscription mostly to trickle in the previous year's Oscar nominations
etc.

>I wouldn't be surprised if movies just don't get the viewers to justify their
cost.

Presumably that is also true. Whatever deal the content providers are
offering, Netflix doesn't see the ROI.

To your broader point about TV vs. movies though. A former senior technical
Netflix guy once told me that "People come for the movies and stay for the TV
shows." (And this was before they had nearly as much original content.)

The danger to the studios here seems to be if people just get out of the habit
of watching movies as a format. But that's probably a pretty big leap from
where we are today.

------
nfriedly
I recently set up a Plex server and started ripping all of my DVDs onto it.
There were a couple of hiccups, but overall I've been pretty happy with it.
You get a nice netflix-like interface for browsers, it still works great when
my crappy internet drops to <1mbs (happens a lot in the evenings, presumably
because all of my neighbors are watching Netflix and the local ISP vastly
oversold the capacity). And if you pay $150 for the lifetime pass, you get the
ability to sync content for offline viewing on whatever device you want + a
few other niceties.

Ripping DVDs & renaming things to Plex-friendly form is still more work than I
think it should be, I'd really like to see something equivalent to CD-ripping
software that "just knows" what the disk is by fingerprinting or whatever.

In general, Plex doesn't provide anything that I couldn't do with existing
(and mostly free) tools, but it provides a friendly enough interface that my
wife can use it without help, and being able to sync content to my iPad before
a trip and have it "just work" is really nice.

------
elpocko
I'm a subscriber for a couple weeks now, and I've run out of content I'd like
to watch in my free month. The homepage is filled with stuff I'll never watch,
and I can't even tell them that fact. There is no button to hide stuff. Back
to piracy I go.

~~~
ajmurmann
It always was very interesting to me how so much bad stuff is on the front
page and meanwhile there are some gems in their platform (like the top IMDB
movies listed in the article) that you might never find out are there. Many
years ago they made it much easier to discover content but then they did this
massive redesign and made it impossible to find stuff. A few years ago I just
pulled a list of movies via their API that listed movies ranked by their
prediction of how much they think I will like it. That was super useful. Why
doesn't Netflix do this? Meanwhile they suggest me movies they themselves
predict I won't like.

This is interesting to me because it's so bad that I can only conclude that
they must have incentives for making suggestions to me other than me watching
something I like. Do they pay licensing fees per vote? Do they pay different
fees per view for different movies? I would love to know the details!

------
ctdonath
Remember the promise/hope of "the long tail"? How did so many pundits get that
so wrong, overlooking the battles for licensing value?

------
uxp100
I always appreciate that Hulu has its Criterion collection section.

And I very recently signed up for Seeso for $4 a month because I was craving
some Monty Python's Flying Circus. I don't plan on keeping it long term, maybe
just a month, to get it out of my system.

And then I still end up digging through shitty cheap roku channels
occasionally to find stuff. Mostly just schlock, but I saw, for example, niche
titles like Millennium Actress, Ninja Scroll, and Ghost in the Shell 2 on free
services.

The idea of one streaming service that has it all is dead, but it kind of
reminds me of DVD bundles at Walmart. 10 Sci Fi movies for $10, and one of
them will be Existenz and the rest will be straight to TV or DVD.

~~~
ascagnel_
Hulu is about to lose the Criterion Collection license. Turner Classic Movies
picked up the license for a new service called Filmstruck that's launching (in
the US) next week.

[https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4252-filmstruck-
laun...](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4252-filmstruck-launches-
october-19)

~~~
jrnichols
Oh great. Just what the market has been wanting... yet _another_ streaming
service.

Sigh.

------
diegorbaquero
There's no one single service that can gather all movies. Netflix is moving
towards creating their own content. Piracy will not cease to exist unless you
want to pay many subscriptions to access all recent content.

------
sotojuan
No film lover I know uses Netflix for them. They all purchase DVDs, torrent,
or are waiting for [http://www.filmstruck.com](http://www.filmstruck.com)

------
mockturtle
I am someone who vastly prefers films to tv. When Netflix launched as a dvd by
mail service, it was the perfect service for film buffs. It was cheap, fast,
and had a seemingly endless selection. Now that that part of the business is
severely neglected, I'm back to requesting films from the local library and
waiting months or spending $30-50 for a single film. I am sure their choice
makes sense from a business standpoint, but leaves one-time customers like me
in the cold.

------
london888
I managed to watch everything I was interested in (Narcos, The Get Down, House
of Cards) during the free trial period and nothing else caught my interest so
I never had to pay.

------
qwrusz
Why would a company using a monthly subscription model pay to license the most
expensive top-rated classic film catalogues?

Why would you want them to? A big portion of the money you pay Netflix every
month would then go to have indefinite access to films you don't watch or _don
't watch again_ often enough to justify this ongoing cost.

Would you lease a Ferrari you drove one or two days a year? Especially if a
one-day rental or buying is an option?

~~~
nathan_long
What's the point of paying said monthly fee if you frequently can't find
anything you want to watch?

Why can't I pay a la carte to stream pretty much any movie ever made? Even if
that's a fee on top of the monthly fee, I would do it sometimes.

~~~
qwrusz
I don't see the point there. I couldn't find anything to watch on Netflix and
canceled it a long time ago.

There is no technical barrier for a la carte streaming of pretty much any
movie ever made.

------
imagist
Competition in the streaming content industry does not benefit consumers as
long as streaming providers compete by trying to monopolize content. There are
a few solutions to this which I can think of:

1\. Add government regulation that makes exclusive licensing of content to
streaming services illegal. This feels heavy-handed to me. Streaming
entertainment just isn't important enough to warrant the attention of
government.

2\. Companies self-regulate: this would be cool, but it's not gonna happen
without some serious outside intervention.

3\. Removal of copyrighting that allows companies to enforce their licenses.
This is arguably bad for content producers, but in practice content producers
aren't receiving the bulk of the profits--labels and studios are.

4\. Go back to an ownership rather than a rent model of content distribution.
DRM essentially breaks this, however, and again it's unlikely that content
distributors will stop using this.

I favor 4, but at a personal level, 3 is the only one really available to me,
de-facto.

------
dorianm
So it went from 49 from 31 in the US Netflix, but it's even less in the french
Netflix.

(e.g.: not Zootopia and Sunset Boulevard for instance)

------
awqrre
Netflix’s US Catalog Has Shrunk by More Than 2,500 Titles in Less Than 2.5
Years: [https://www.allflicks.net/netflixs-us-catalog-has-shrunk-
by-...](https://www.allflicks.net/netflixs-us-catalog-has-shrunk-by-more-
than-2500-titles-in-less-than-2-5-years/)

------
oelmekki
In the end, the licence owners will lose. Spotify makes it useless to download
music illegally because it's so much easier and pleasant to use spotify.

If they don't want to play fair game with Netflix, people will just keep /
start again downloading the movies they want to watch, because it will be
easier.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _Spotify makes it useless to download music illegally because it 's so much
> easier and pleasant to use spotify._

Spotify has to pay for the content they're streaming. As of now, they're
losing money with that model. _You_ might like it as a customer, but content
owners and creators don't seem to, and they hold the cards.

~~~
oelmekki
> As of now, they're losing money with that model

Indeed, just seen that they were not profitable at least in May [1]

> You might like it as a customer

That's something :) Let's wait and see how they do in the next five years.

[1] [http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/27/spotifys-annual-
rep...](http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/27/spotifys-annual-report-shows-
just-how-hard-it-is-t.aspx)

------
ensiferum
Meanwhile in the warez land _everything_ is just 1 click away, hassle free and
non-DRM encumbered.

~~~
ascagnel_
This is definitely not true. If you're looking for stuff that's popular here
and now, you'll do fine (especially if you're a fan of Hollywood
blockbusters). But as soon as you start looking for back catalogue stuff,
you're in a mess of dead torrents and broken links.

Want to find a mostly-forgotten science fiction movie from the mid-90s (in my
case, Strange Days)? Two hours of hunting for a way of downloading it led me
to buying it through a VoD service instead.

~~~
knotty66
I literally just opened The Pirate Bay, typed "Strange Days", and clicked the
top result which has 20 seeds. Couldn't be easier... although maybe it is more
difficult in your country, or with your ISP.

[https://pirateproxy.vip/search/Strange%20Days/0/99/0](https://pirateproxy.vip/search/Strange%20Days/0/99/0)

~~~
kodablah
This is actually a great example. There is only one torrent with more than one
seeder referring to the movie (it has 17 seeders). So I am forced to use a
single format to view the movie in, can't easily use an app to show it on my
TV (key word being "easily"), can't choose subtitles for my language of
choice, etc, etc. By accident you are making other people's point.

Were a more distributed, anonymous storage system to exist instead of on
prioritizing seeding and recently used, larger catalogs and quality options
might exist.

------
patja
Netflix still ships physical media, and has a much wider selection than
streaming.

Unfortunately many of the discs you get from Netflix are made specifically for
the rental market and have been purposely degraded by having features such as
7.1 DTS-MA audio removed.

------
ainiriand
How the 'legal' side could fight against 'piracy' sites? Seems that Netflix et
others are losing the war again... I want to use Netflix model but for all the
movies I want, not the ones they give me. Solutions?

------
tankenmate
In the UK only 4 of those movies are on Netflix

------
bargl
Does anyone else find this a really bad metric? This list is relatively static
if princess bride is still on there. What about the top 10 by year? Most
people want to see the best and latest movie not the best older movie.

~~~
dexterdog
But when looking for an older movie they are going to be more likely to look
for the really great movies from the past.

------
jordache
if it's netflix's intend to become another one of the networks (NBC, ABC,
etc.. ) with their own shows and made for TV movies, then it's business plan
made to fail.

People want to see the blockbuster movies..

~~~
josho
Rather, it's a smart biz plan. By creating their own content they can provide
exclusive access to it. By continuing as they have they risk becoming a
commoditized service or even getting locked out of content as other
distributors build their own subscription platforms (as they have already
built).

I will agree with you however that as a consumer I'd rather have a
commoditized subscription service for tv/movies. I suspect however that
investors will disagree with us.

------
pforpineapple
I find it interesting that Netflix is such a success, despite the availability
of many great films.

As the presence of great films on the platform may suggest, it's a long shot
to assume that they're more interested in creating their own -great- content
than simply offering you great content. But given the unavailability of a
single legal platform to rule them all, the bet on original ideas propelled
with data and smart marketing was and is still the best one.

IMO, if Netflix had all the content in the world, they would probably stop
creating their own.

------
sun_n_surf
Netflix is now basically an OTT TV channel. This puts to rest the content
aggregation platform model for video which, unlike music, is highly
differentiated with higher cost, which rules out commoditization.

This basically reduces online video to two categories: user-generated content
platforms and commissioned, curated content platforms. In my view there is
only room for one player in the former (YT), but in the latter category, it is
basically business as usual for the traditional TV networks. ﻿

------
hathawsh
A tip for movie lovers: VidAngel has 100 of the IMDB Top 100. (I'm not sure
about the top 250.)

VidAngel costs $1 or $2 per movie after sell-back. They filter the movies, but
you choose your own filtering, so it's not censorship.

(No, I don't work for VidAngel, nor do I have any ties with them; I'm just a
happy customer who wants to see them continue to grow and thrive. I'm aware
they are being sued, but I think VidAngel will win due to the Family Home
Movie Act of 2005.)

------
Havoc
Netflix first, then Prime, then Usenet. Usually gets me what I want. Downside
is that this already means paying half a dozen companies just to watch movies.

------
geodel
It seems good number to me. Was it really expected that a service at
fractional cost of cable TV will have majority of top movies in any defined
category?

------
Taylor_OD
Was it significantly higher at some point? Seems like useless number unless it
was previously a much higher number.

Edit: Missed it in the article. It dropped 12%.

~~~
gdulli
It dropped a lot more than 12%. It dropped _to_ 12% (out of 250 titles,) from
49 titles to 31.

------
njharman
TIL Netflix has a lot of great movies I'd like to see.

But my viewing time is already overfilled with all the Arrow, Flash, iZombie,
and other shows I'm binge watching. And 80% of the time I'm more interested in
seeing some "weird" Indian/Turkish/European movie than same Hollywood drivel.

------
aj7
and nothing worth watching if you're traveling in Europe.

------
bisRepetita
Because of that, I feel that the value proposition of a video rental store
next block is becoming quite good again. Cheaper than renting/buying from
Prime or Play.

Too bad they're all dead now.

I am not sure the new video movie world is better now than it was 10 years ago
for consumers.

------
JoeAltmaier
So, if I want to re-watch old movies (IMDB's alltime top movies) I've already
seen, I shouldn't go to Netflix. But for new stuff? They're adding content all
the time. Not sure this statistic is meaningful to me.

------
treehau5
A lot of those movies appear in the big $2 dollar DVD bin at Walmart.

------
cakeface
Who is going to make an automated service that rents the DVD from
dvds.netflix.com, loads the DVD up on their cloud rentable DVD players, and
streams the result to your device?

------
mooveprince
I am subscribed to both Netflix and HBO. After reading this it strikes me that
I always watch original Content / Network Series in Netflix and movies in HBO.
No wonder why

------
pmoriarty
Netflix still has a great DVD selection.[1]

It's only their streaming selection that sucks.

[1] - [https://dvd.netflix.com/](https://dvd.netflix.com/)

------
barrystaes
FTA: “I haven’t heard of any of these movies. Aren’t there any good movies on
here?”

Well theres a big assumption right there.. Movies yet unknown are not bad.

------
marcoperaza
$10 a month.

$10 a month.

$10 a month.

I'm repeating this because this is something that seems to be escaping people
here. You're paying $10 a month for access to a massive library of content.
Having every popular movie available for instant streaming is worth WAY more
than $10 a month. If you want to watch recent blockbusters and popular movies,
you can rent them on Amazon or iTunes.

To the people using this to morally justify their pirating, give me a break.
Renting/buying movies on Amazon or iTunes couldn't be easier. The only problem
is that you would rather steal than pay.

------
vehementi
Maybe they're trying to become IMDB's Top 250 before...

------
pescolly
Let's not equate the IMDB Top 250 with good movies.

------
dmtroyer
What is a "common fact", exactly?

------
gamache
When I want to watch a movie, and it's not on Netflix, I generally do not
watch that movie. I wonder who this benefits.

------
nikolay
It's time to cancel Netflix - it's been totally useless to me in the past 2+
years - I end up buying from Amazon, Google Play, or Vudu. I'm not into TV
shows - I'm not sure why they think everybody's into that.

------
shocks
Offtopic, but does anyone know of a good solution for ragged line balancing on
the web?

On desktop, the last word of the title ("List") on this page is on it's own
line. Infuriating! Haha.

edit: This comment definitely deserves downvotes. Definitely.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's wildly off-topic ... [https://github.com/adobe-webplatform/balance-
text](https://github.com/adobe-webplatform/balance-text) might help, or
[https://codepen.io/samirsr/pen/sojCi](https://codepen.io/samirsr/pen/sojCi) .

------
ihsw
It should be noted that IMDB is owned by Amazon, but setting that aside it
most definitely is unfortunate to see that so many great films are locked up
behind licensing barriers.

We may never see them get released into public domain.

~~~
kgwgk
> It should be noted that IMDB is owned by Amazon

Does it have any relevance?

~~~
jlebrech
they could change the ordering of some of Netflix's offering, I'm not sure if
it would do anything.

