Netflix suddenly cares about maintaining a curated library of notable old films
You can now watch a collection of notable movies from 1974 on... Netflix, of all places
Aux News Films
We’ve entered a strange new phase in the streaming wars today, one that suggests an actual sane human at the helm of one of the biggest streaming services rather than an emotionless machine that keeps insisting people like interchangeable action movies with one or two name-brand stars (like a Ryan Reynolds or… a second Ryan Reynolds). That’s because, as reported by IndieWire, Netflix has launched a new dedicated section for films from 1974 that it’s calling “Milestone Movies.”
And these aren’t just movies that Netflix had laying around already and decided to shuffle into a new category. IndieWire says that the 14 Milestone Movies are new to Netflix this month and come from various movie studios—y’know, the ones that mostly all have their own streaming services but are pathologically incapable of retaining the rights to their most historically significant works because they’d rather make some quick cash off of them. That means Netflix, ol’ miserly Netflix, has been keeping tabs on which 50-year-old movies are for sale and has been snatching them up specifically so it can put together a curated list of 50-year-old movies, which Paramount+ and Max are clearly not as interested in doing.
As for which Milestone Movies are in the 1974 collection, IndieWire says it includes Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Black Belt Jones, Blazing Saddles, California Split, Chinatown, The Conversation, Death Wish, The Gambler, The Great Gatsby, It’s Alive, The Little Prince, The Lords Of Flatbush, The Parallax View, and The Street Fighter.
This is also apparently going to be a whole thing moving forward, with Netflix planning similar collections for 1984 in April, 1994 in July, and 2004 in October. If it’s a success, maybe we’ll get 1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005 collections next year, and then Netflix will somehow become the mainstream destination for historically significant films rather than Max’s TCM library, which should exist for that exact purpose but is probably now being used to direct people to old movies that are somehow “like” The Curse Of Oak Island or whatever.
204 Comments
Seeing him first as Willy Wonka, Gene Wilder was the reason I watched The Little Prince.I hope that collection is around when Stranger Things drops its final season eps.
Jesus Christ, how miserable must Barsanti be to approach all his articles in such a butthurt way?!?!The ostensible point of this article is that Netflix has done a neat thing — collected a bunch of iconic movies from 1974 — and is doing a bunch of other anniversary collections people also might enjoy. Why does that news have to come packaged in all this hostility and smug superiority about how everyone other than Barsanti is incompetent and terrible?
Are you new or something? This has been par of the course on this site for years.
Even more annoying is the lack of research or context: Netflix has carried older movies this whole time, and while the 1974 movies are new to it right now they’ve carried them previously. Netflix has been cycling old movies in and out since time immemorial. The news is the actual *section* highlighting these movies.It’s actually cool news imo, but more an interface change than some bold new way of operating.
Netflix really hasn’t carried many pre-1980 movies to stream of late. It wasn’t that long ago where the vast majority of pre 1980 films available for streaming were mostly flicks from India, including a very odd Bollywood remake of Dirty Harry.
The article has a point in as much as most streamers, particularly Netflix, don’t seem to care much about library content anymore. Netflix’s library is a fraction of what it used to be.However, the tone and attitude of the article is bone-headedly stupid, if for no other reason than having studios license their films to Netflix is healthy for all parties concerned and not something to be shitty about.
Does Netflix cycle movies because it only purchases rights to them for a period of time? I’d think having about half the movies in the list above full-time would be a great attraction. If I know that I’m most likely to find something like Blazing Saddles on Netflix then it substantially increases the likelihood that I’ll keep a subscription.
As i understand it the rights are on a temporary basis and revert unless renewed. Part of why Netflix has a shifting offering is a lot of studios pulled their content off other services for exactly the reason you describe: Warner and Disney want you to subscribe to their service because you *know* that’s where you’ll find Harry Potter or Star Wars and you keep your subscription so they’re always available.I think Netflix is smart in cycling their offerings for the inverse reason: they can spend more on a smaller selection of appealing choices, cycle through it, and since there’s always something good and new to see you stay subscribed.
Makes sense.
I think it’s difficult to realize just how much Netflix has always had due to ‘menu exhaustion’—it’s a daunting task to just browse, sometimes, when they’ve had literally thousands of movies and shows at any given time.
I mean, his tone is stupid, but the fact remains that Netflix is a for-profit company that is doing this because they think it will make them money, not out of the goodness of their hearts. They should be commended for doing a good thing even if it’s for profit reasons, but we must never forget why they’re really doing it, and not treat it as if they have any amount of moral high ground.
My barbershop is also a for-profit company doing business because it wants to make money. When my barber picks up the mirror after cutting my hair, I tend to just say my hair looks good, without falling into a pissy little lecture about capitalism.
Nobody suggested you lecture your barber about capitalism.
That said, I’m not immediately against the idea.
Even socialists need haircuts! Especially Marx! Have you seen that guy’s beard?
“Look, plane: I’m still charging you fifteen bucks for this haircut.”
So you’re saying that your barber has suddenly cared about your hair?
The word “capitalism” appears nowhere in that article but this is the internet so I don’t know why I’m surprised that someone is inventing a pretend reason to be mad about something.
“I mean, his tone is stupid, but the fact remains that Netflix is a for-profit company that is doing this because they think it will make them money, not out of the goodness of their hearts.”
And?
the fact remains that Netflix is a for-profit company that is doing this because they think it will make them moneyBut isn’t that true of, like, the entire entertainment industry, and industry in general? No corporation will ever do anything that they don’t believe will end up making them more money unless forced to by regulatory agencies or law (and even then only if the check doesn’t clear.)
Yes, exactly, which is why we always need to keep in mind any time a corporation does a seemingly good thing that they should be praised for doing a good thing but should not be thought of as being good.
To piggy back off your point, the studios/companies Netflix is licensing these movies from are also for-profit companies. I’m not sure why Barsanti is acting like companies licensing out their movies for “quick cash” when their own services are losing money is an act of short-sidedness and not a rational decision given the circumstances.
Oh my god? For profit businesses make decisions that earn more money!!!? Have you told anyone else about this yet? Get the word out!!!!!
ok but that’s like every Hollywood studio. Do I have to remind people that the best movie I saw last year was made by people investing money and hoping to turn a profit? Or can we just take that part as a given and say “they did a good job on that one!”
Given how often people (including here) stan for these corporate behemoths, it seems that such reminders are, in fact, necessary.
You assume the people who stan for corporate behemoths are somehow going to be changed by being reminded that those corporations (including the one that owns this very website) do things that make them profit and avoid things that lose them profit? I think they got the memo, but hey knock yourself out.
AKSHUALLY
Netflix is a for-profit company that is doing this because they think it will make them moneyWhy do you think the studios greenlit these movies in the first place?
To be fair, I’d be miserable too if every time I wrote an article everyone in the comments section talked about how terrible a person I was.
He can’t be too bothered by it if he’s still being a terrible person.
People need to stop doing that. Barsanti is a terrible writer, not a terrible person.
He can be two things!
Yeah, I’ve called out bad writing on this site as much as anyone, but the frothing rage with which people attack him as a person is eyebrow-raising, to say the least.
At a certain point it starts to feel as performative as they accuse him of being.
That’s some Fat Bastard vicious cycle-type thinking right there.Besides, his poor efforts at cutting snark came first.
I think it’s cynicism from experience. For me personally this sort of decades-spanning content is what I wanted from Netflix to begin with, but after seeing they didn’t actually have a lot I just had to settle for what they offered. The problem with Netflix trying to curate any collections is movies will probably constantly be getting removed and hopefully added due to agreements with the studios. I bet the entire collection will probably be different after a couple years.
The problem is that Netflix is the best streaming service and no one wants to concede the point. They’re like McDonald’s if McDonald’s served 3 star Michelin filet mignon for the same price as a flurry.All other streaming services trying to compete inevitably decay into a self-sabotaging system of content-cutting and cancelations. Even the myth that Netflix is a cancel-heavy network is undermined by research showing Netflix cancels shows less frequently than every other streaming service except Paramount Plus, who all as a group cancel less often than broadcast but only slightly less often than cable.So what we have is less Barsanti as an individual reacting to Netflix with a hostile skepticism but Barsanti being part of a collective entertainment journalism zeitgeist that needs to believe that Netflix’s model is bad because otherwise why would they be dissatisfied?This Milestone Movies thing also follows months after half of HBO Max’s back catalog suddenly appeared on Netflix as well. Still, the better Netflix gets, the scarier it’s going to be because it means that the idea of streaming can only be reasonably maintained by one or two dominant companies whose competitors will dutifully bow to in the near future.
I barely watch Netflix at all anymore. Most of their originals have settled into bland mediocrity, the few shows that pop DO get cancelled early with great frequency and their library content sucks.
Dude, I love that big, fat red N in the corner of their shows’ thumbnails! It lets me know which programs to skip. I fucking hate what they’ve done to documentaries. Save for the few wildlife ones they wholesale cut-and-pasted from the BBC, most of it is shitty reality TV for people who would be happier watching reality TV but consider themselves too good to watch reality TV.Better camerawork, to be sure, but they still uses all the cheap hooks and tricks and editing of reality TV.
I don’t get why people in 2024 have the gall to state that all Netflix original programming is terrible.I mean, we all saw The Killer, right? It’s fine if it’s not your particular cup of tea, but like we can all agree that it’s well made and generally critically appreciated. NNetflix makes some good s
I never said it was all crap. The BBC rip-offs are OK – I even said that. But if you told me there’s a diamond ring somewhere in the local sewerage treatment works and it’s mine if I can find it if I just spend an inordinate amount of time sifting through shit I’m not gonna strap on the waders and fire up the Minelab.I mean, we all saw The Killer, right? Did we? I didn’t. Because Big Red N. It’s fine if it’s not your particular cup of tea,If it’s fine that it’s not my cup of tea, then why are you complaining? Did you think my post, where I specifically used the singular first-person pronoun “I” was meant to speak for everyone on the planet? Pointing out something that’s clearly been communicated as one person’s personal opinion in the first place as being subjective and a being a personal opinion that’s subjective isn’t the gotcha many people think it is. but like we can all agree that it’s well made and generally critically appreciated.Appeals to popularity are one of the worst ways to analyse art. If you’re consuming art simply to make some of status appeal to an in-group, if you’re just using it as a means to an end to try to form a connection to other people via consumption…yeah. Nah.
And their docuseries tend to have the same problem as most of their fiction series, which is a complete lack of understanding of how to pace any goddam thing. The binge streaming model has fucked TV quite badly.
Yup. This is every one of their True Crime docos:Ep 1: Gosh, who could have done it? I’ve honestly no clue.Ep 2: Huh, guess Linda had a motive. Ep 3: Holy shit, yeah, it’s probably Linda.Ep 4: Jesus fucking Christ, it has to be Linda!Ep 5: WHAT THE FUCK WERE THE DUMBARSE FUCKING HILLBILLY FUCKING INBRED SHEEP-FUCKING SIX-FINGERED HARE-LIPPED FUCKING SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT FUCKING DOING NOT ARRESTING THAT HOMICIDAL WHORE LINDA?Ep 6: Oh, by the way, Linda was in hospital in a coma after a severe car crash for the three weeks during which the murders happened. That seems like a completely open and non-controversial piece of information that could’ve easily found out and put at the beginning of the first episode. Turns out it was Steve.They need to be as long as they need to be, and no more. Again, with miniseries format it allows them to use the old bullshit reality TV trick of “recapping” for an easy five, eight minutes of filler at every episode (even though we’re meant to binge them all at once, right? Right?)These are dweebs who’ve learnt all the technical aspects (I’ll bet it’s all the latest Sony and Panny mirrorlesses – not Arri or Red, it’s still done on a budget) of filmmaking, but none of the artistic aspects……but that’s OK! Netflix has got a nice template that’s been refined and fettled by billions of bits of data mine from a soulless algorithm and cross-referenced with this share price performance.
Also in Episode 2, Linda’s sister Maxine owns a dog salon. Let’s talk about that for a while. In Episode 3 we’ll explore Linda’s dollhouse collection for 20 minutes of a 30 minute show. And of course every couple of episodes we meet Steve’s coworkers, none of whom ever met Linda and only knew Steve from the job.Whaddya mean “Waste of time”? It’s human interest! The devil is in the details!
I tell ya, no one tells a 90-minute story in 6 hours like a Netflix documentary maker.And let’s all laugh at Maxine because this is a Netflix True Crime doco, and you can’t set these anywhere where your target demographic resides, but instead has to be some socio-economically inferior place so you can point and laugh while maintaining a facade of pretending to care about these people!OMG! Of course she’s fat and has a funny accent and look at that sweater and that hair it’s like the eighties never left OMG- I mean, what a tragically-deprived people I feel sorry for, but not too sorry for because I’m almost certain she has the wrong beliefs despite there being no evidence of that, so I can feel noble but yet also not obligated to help them because no doubt, really, they brought this on themselves. It’s human interest!And outside of True Crime, they still jam this shit in everywhere – where documentaries that are meant to be a things are really mostly about the people who are involved – normally hipsters and yuppies. You know. Your social betters to whom you should aspire to be like and worship, and should be totes jealous of the fact the filmmakers got to hang out with them.Oh look, it’s a Netflix documentary about lightbulbs. Cool, maybe we’ll see how the lightbulb affected how we live and work, what it meant for the environment, maybe some juicy stuff about the Phoebus Cartel and planned obsolescence- “My name is Amanda van Periwinkle, and I make handmade artisanal lightbulbs in my Brooklyn studio. There’s just something about incandescent lighting, and working with my hands-”OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
“whose competitors will dutifully bow to in the near future.”Dude, it’s just TV.
“They’re like McDonald’s if McDonald’s served 3 star Michelin filet mignon for the same price as a flurry.”
They sure as fuck aren’t.
That’s overstating the case. They’re often hard to navigate because they insist on grouping things in weird algorithmic categories, and the actual streaming quality is wildly inconsistent.More importantly The Criterion Channel exists. It may be the best of the big streaming sites but that’s grading on a curve, because frankly all of them have major problems.
Interesting. Forced to choose I’d give up Netflix. Not saying they are bad, but there’s a lot of content there I have no interest in. I think Apple TV might have an overall higher batting average.
I’m sad that I won’t get to watch Sandman S2 if it ever fucking comes out but I’ll live. (Especially cuz Yarrr, here be dragons.)
I dropped Netflix a couple of months ago for being fuckwits. They are not “good” in any way. I don’t give a tin shit about their “streaming model”, I care that they think it’s okay to upcharge me for multiple IP address access (when I was already paying extra for the fucking “privilege” of multiple screens) and continue to support transphobic shitbirds. Fuck Netflix.
Bahahhaha Netflix isn’t even close to the best. As annoying as Max is with their stupid suggestions they’re far superior. Same as Apple+.
hostility and smug superiority- the A.V. Club
He only knows one way to get people to click and comment.
Sam Barsanti is the kind of guy who cries after sex.
If I looked like Sam Barsanti, my disposition would be lousier, too.
You’re not wrong, and yet I cannot award you any credit for anything because no one who uses the term “butthurt” deserves to be treated like a human.
Yeah, this is definitely something to complain and snark about, not celebrate.
JFC, this god damn place…
I like the idea of preserving much better than the idea of making media disappear forever simply for a quick tax break.
This is very cool …. looking forward to more. Great to see Blazing Saddles on the list.1974 isn’t complete without it. Parents unknowingly took me to see it in theatre when I was 9; we all loved it though.I remember when Lords of Flatbush came out I wanted to see it so bad because Fonzie was in it. When it finally came to TV I realized Fonzie was not in it, but “just” Henry Winkler instead. (I was only 9!!!!). Have always been a huge fan of Henry Winkler; his autobiography is on my reading list for this year.
Lords of Flatbush, The Wandereres, heck even Sha-Na-Na…as a kid in the 70’s I thought the 50’s was the greatest decade ever. I named my first pet (a dog) Fonzy. Also, seeing “It’s Alive” as a classic makes my day. I love that movie, and as a kid that regional trailer they would show on WPIX, WOR and WNEW scared the crap out of me as a kid (I have the same last name as the family in it)
I hope you’re deeply ashamed that you misspelled your dog’s name.
Well I was about 4-5 so I’m good with it. I hope you’re okay with deeply shaming a 4 year old.
Plus the Grease movie!We watched Sha Na Na every week when their syndicated show aired. My brother and I loved it and Mom and Dad (class of ‘55) liked it too. It was on one of the four channels we received in a five channel market. Three VHF affiliates and two independent UHF channels
I got lucky: living in the suburbs to NYC I got six main channels, plus VHF and UHF and just a lot of craziness.
It’s weird how often Sha-Na-Na shows up in 60s/70s music fest docs.You’ve got Jimmy Hendrix and Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin and all the hippy acts you’d expect, and then sure enough, up pops this seemingly non sequitur 50s novelty act out of nowhere. You’d think the crowds might be kind of hostile to their parents’ music.
It’s Alive stood out to me as the movie not at all belonging on this list. I remember it as being total crap. Not even good crap. And I love Horror. I can’t think of any milestone it might represent.
It’s Alive probably doesn’t belong on this list, but it’s a lot better than you remember. All hail King Cohen!
Every time It’s Alive is mentioned I have to jump in with my favorite thing about the franchise: in It’s Alive 3 (“Island of the Alive”!) the monster babies grow up. Not into adult monsters, but into GIANT MONSTER BABIES.
I’m with you. I’ve never had nostalgia like 1950s nostalgia. Jesus, does anyone?
Subtle best post in the whole thread.
My contrarian viewpoint- Blazing Saddles is Brooks’ #2 masterpiece, behind Young Frankenstein. The Producers is a distant 3rd.
100%. Blazing Saddles is way too shaggy to be on the same level as YF.
They are all great. Young Frankenstein is the greatest.
They are all great. Young Frankenstein is the greatest. I agree – and I love the fact that Mel Brooks, having found out that Universal had a bunch of sets and props from their classic horror era, just decided he should make use of them. So, you know, he just went ahead and wrote a hilarious movie (which also shows respect and admiration for the original creators) to go along with his free use of props…
‘Young Frankenstein’ was endlessly quoted in my household growing up. Some words (like “Ovaltine”, for example) have been forever changed for me just by being in that movie.
“What hump?”
We had a “soundtrack” album which amounted to at least half of the film’s dialogue. Awesome.
I’ll watch anything made by Mel Brooks except Dracula: Dead and Loving it
I never made it through that one!
Hmm, well BS is number one for several reasons. It broke a lot of molds, completely subverting the genre. No one had seen that kind of film in content and/or cinematic context. YF was able to step in without much pushback and though full of funny/smart/bright and clever, it was not groundbreaking, but rather an example of more hilarity from the now emboldened writer/director.
I haven’t seen an uncut version of Blazing Saddles in forever and I am looking forward to it. It really isn’t the same movie on network TV or basic cable. We recently watched Spaceballs on BBCA and half my favorite jokes were cut for either time or crudeness. It was disappointing.
Way way back, I couldn’t understand why my wife hated Blazing Saddles. Eventually, it came to light hat she had only ever seen the local UHF Saturday afternoon movie version.“What do you like to do?”“Oh, I don’t know. Play chess.”“Well, let’s play chess.”Not so hilarious.
Well, that’s typically what happens when you find a stranger in the alps
If I’m not mistaken the great fart/campfire scene is or was edited to be off camera cows mooing instead for broadcast TV.
Spaceballs is barely crude at all, at least compared to “Saddles.”
I weirdly caught it on HBO about a year ago and was shocked how many jokes / scenes were cut from the basic cable version. I own the DVD but no player anymore!!!!
I haven’t seen any cuts of Blazing Saddles in forever and I’m not sure how I’d feel watching it now.
A lot of things that seemed hilarious years ago seem kind of problematic now.
It helps that it’s very clear that the racists are the butts of the jokes and are idiots, and that Richard Pryor was involved in writing the movie. That doesn’t make the n-word any less jarring when it’s used. I think the part that aged the worst are the gay dancers from the movie studio scene that leans too much into old homophobic stereotypes.
What, are modern NFL players too pussy to punch out a horse?
It’s a good set of movies. Notably The Parallax View , which is wonderful and which no one should ever, ever attempt to remake. (There was talk about it years ago but fortunately nothing happened…)I recently rewatched The Conversation, which holds up perfectly, and I watch Chinatown at least once a year. I’ve got most of these on DVD, so I’m not the target audience, but I hope Netflix presents these in such a way that people who’ve never seen these “old” movies are tempted to check them out. (Maybe some commercials, or at least prominent placement on their main page…)
Some of these films are like unknown ghosts to modern audiences, and I am glad to hear they will be easily queued up if someone wants to see or revisit some of these classics. When I was a travel nurse I ended up working for some time in SoCal and took advantage of the frequent showings of older films on the big screen. Movies such as The Godfather held up beautifully, and I couldn’t believe how nuts the audience went over “Some Like It Hot” as if they had never seen it (maybe true?) with loud laughter throughout. One that did not hold up interestingly enough was “Gone With The Wind” maybe because the projection was not quite right (looked cut off) or maybe how overly mannered and unreal the acting and characters seemed? I liked it on TV, not at all in the theater.
Man, do I miss the days of revival theaters. There were a ton in California when I lived there – two or three movies each night, changing every day or so. So fun to watch, with a youngish audience, a bunch of Marx Brothers or WC Fields movies. I mean you missed a lot of lines because of the laughing, but it was such a treat.
50 years isn’t old when it comes to film. Here’s hoping films from their disc library from the 1890s to 1973 also get put on streaming.
“50 years isn’t old when it comes to film.”
I mean, yes it is. Nearly half of the entire life if film, it’s definitely old.
if you thought the blazing saddles header image was outrage bait, wait until its birth of a nation
A surprising amount is available on YouTube (particularly for films in the first 20, 30 years of cinema). And Max has a weirdly large number of early experimental silent shorts for some reason (guess it costs them nothing to keep them in the TCM slot).
That’s not actually the point here.
50 years isn’t old when it comes to film.50 years is old when it comes to film. Film has only existed for 100 years.But we’re old, so 50 years doesn’t feel as old as it really, really is.
Does anyone know why when you search the Apple TV app for Blazing Saddles you only get the option to buy it when it is clearly on Netflix? Most movies when they are on other platforms show up on Apple TV but Apple TV will give you a link to watch them in their respective streaming platforms. Is it Netflix or Apple that doesn’t want to play ball? Two weeks ago I had a urge to watch Blazing Saddles. So naturally I first went to Max. But why would a classic WB movie be on a WB owned streaming platform? Then I went to Apple TV to see where it might be streaming and they only had it for sale and I didn’t feel like buying it. So I gave up and went to Netflix to find something else to watch and sure enough, there it was.
could just be a backend error no? i’ve always just gone to the individual services to search for something specific (and inevitably have to turn to a torrent site when it doesn’t turn up on any of them)
Possibly, but every thing I can think of that I don’t own that is available on Netflix doesn’t show up when searching on Apple TV other than buying a digital copy of the movie. Another example I’ve found is Oldboy. But if I want to watch Wolf of Wall Street Apple TV will gladly send me to Peacock to watch it. In fact it doesn’t even have a link to buy it from them digitally.I could have always been this way with Apple and Netflix, but I don’t think it was.Edit: Did a little search and it looks like it’s Netflix that doesn’t want to integrate with the Apple TV search. Which is weird they’d cut off traffic to their site like that.
It’s Apple. It wants not just the ball, but the entire field.
I know someone who works for Apple and he claims Netflix is the one not wanting to play ball.
Saw something that stated the same thing. Weird thing to opt out of since it ultimately drives people to your platform.
I know someone who works for Apple and he claims Netflix is the one not wanting to play ball.They work for Apple.
And thus have insights that some of us who don’t work for Apple might not.
Netflix is totally gonna buy all of TCM when Zaslav puts it in a box outside his house with a sign “20 bucks or best offer”
Think of the tax writeoff!
Funny you should say that, Ben Mankiewicz was just ringing my doorbell trying to sell me subscriptions to Movie Pass. No thanks, rip me off once? Piss off forever.
Thank GOD someone has saved “The Gambler”
Seriously. Someone knew when to hold it.
I’d rather take my turn staring out the window at the darkness.
Hey, fred, you got a cigarette?
Meanwhile The Criterion Channel has been absolutely kicking everyone’s ass up, down, and sideways with their truly inventive topical curation of late. Cat films, motherfuckers, I’m a talking a whole section of big-mood cat films. It’s great.
I thought “motherfuckers” was the second in a list of categories there.
Is there a big screen version of Oedipus Rex?
Should there ever be one, Tom Lehrer has the theme song covered:
That wouldn’t be innovative. Lots of sites already collect movies featuring mother fuckers.
“Please clarify: do you want Samuel L Jackson movies? Or movies with fathers?”
I’m a talking a whole section of big-mood cat films. It’s great.I’m sure it is, but does it include The Cat (1992)?
actually yes it absolutely does
You bet your furry alien ass it does.
Mmmm. Natasha Kinski…
i think it’s a good thing that market research dictates this was worth doing and worth continuing to do for an entire year. whenever i got to a rep screening it’s FULL of young people.
The kids are hungry for old movies! It’s the boneheaded studio execs who wrongly assume there’s no money there.
i saw boogie nights and it was packed. guy next to me said he wasn’t even born when the movie came out. everyone cheered like an avengers movie for phillip seymour hoffman’s entrance. it was great.
Part of that is the amplification of idiots that happens on the internet. One young Tik Tok star says “Black and White movies suck and all movies made before 1996 are racist” and the conservative right and studio execs assumes that is the majority opinion
and i imagine that actual cool young people aren’t making tiktoks like that, they’re out doing stuff.
TCM has it’s own streaming service, available if you have a cable subscription that includes TCM, which makes available all of the films broadcast on TCM for the past 30 days or so. Not sure how much the TCM streaming costs if you’ve cut the cord.
“Not sure how much the TCM streaming costs if you’ve cut the cord.”
From TCM’s website: Yes. You must be subscribed to Turner Classic Movies at home through a cable or satellite TV provider in order to use Watch TCM.
Well now this is news I can use. I had no idea. Thanks!
As far as I can tell it’s not possible to sign up for it if you don’t have a cable plan, so if you cut the cord it’s not available at all.
I think HBO Max has a TCM channel dedicated to old movies as well. I’ve never dug into it.Then there’s always the library….Because that still exists. And if you have Kalypso (it’s free) you don’t even have to leave the house.
Max has a TCM hub on it. But that is really more of the sense of “classic” meaning old instead of “classic” meaning great/timeless. They seem to funnel anything 20+ years old into that hub.
The TCM channel on Max is pretty bad. Tubi actually has a lot better selection of older movies.
If you can’t afford Criterion Channel you can always check out their program calendars for each month, and there will probably be a few titles (especially the B-movies; Criterion isn’t snobby!) also on Tubi. I agree it’s a poor-man’s alternative.
Max’s TCM hub has its moments (including some big-league Criterion Collection titles and silent animation retrospectives) but it’s not really curated. Basically anything prior to 2000 or so can fall under it. It’s not comparable to the beautiful work Criterion Channel does.
The first time I knew TCM was shite was watching the channel about 20 years ago and they were airing “Navy Seals.”
I get royalties and everything but I never understood why there is not a streaming service that just has most or all old movies available. Some money from streaming royalties is better than no money, right? Maybe I do not understand royalties very well at all. Why not have nearly every movie over say 70 years old on some streaming platform(s) for people to watch?
Something something taxes.
i imagine it’s the infrastructure, servers, marketing, etc. the up-front costs have to be astronomical, before even including the millions you’d have to spend on licensing stuff.
Criterion Channel probably fits the bill to an extent but I’m sure there are still tons of old / classic movies they don’t have.
Stuff gets moved in and out of Criterion too.
Criterion Channel shuffles things in and out regularly, depending on what companies they have deals with, but they do always let you know what’s leaving at the end of the month and that can be a nice incentive to catch something you hadn’t seen yet.
Not to mention they have a lot of different studios to work with. For the Cat Movies program they introduced this month they actually got two DISNEY titles that are relative deep cuts (the original That Darn Cat and The Cat from Outer Space), which has me hoping they might find reasons to feature films that don’t have berths on Disney+ yet. (Disney+ is terrible when it comes to pre-1990 content that aren’t really big titles like the animated features and Mary Poppins.)
You would be surprised how many films are owner by industrial conglomerates that have nothing to do with Hollywood and little interest in exploiting their properties.
I probably wouldn’t be, unfortunately…
Criterion Channel has to license all titles that come from outside their core Janus Films library (and those are mostly foreign-language titles), so there’s a lot of movies rotated in and out from month to month. Actually, this year they’re doing a 100 Years of Columbia program where films on loan from them (or actually part of the Collection, like The Last Emperor) are getting singled out.
Probably the same reason it’s so hard to license old songs for DVD and streaming releases of old movies and shows (the “Wonder Years Conundrum”) – the studios don’t want to set a precedent of debasing their licensing value, even if it means no one want to license them at all. They’re deluding themselves and losing money in the process. Studios convince themselves they have libraries worth billions but can’t put that value to the test to see what the market would currently pay to actually show them.
Royalties probably don’t play a very big role. The older a movie is, the harder it will probably be to track down all of the stakeholders and get them to agree to a streaming deal. A lot of movies are co-productions, and studios go out of business, or merge, or split up. Unless you’re only showing movies so old they’re in the public domain.
Criterion Collection
Royalties is not the term you mean to use. Pretty much no creatives are collecting royalties from a 50 year old movie. It’s just not how contracts worked then. You’re more talking about licensing, where a studio licenses a film to be distributed (streamed) by whatever distribution source agrees to the arraignment. Why not have nearly every movie over say 70 years old on some streaming platform(s) for people to watch? You can still watch them. As an experiment I just went through my noir dvd collection and everything from Criss Cross to Night of the Hunter is available to stream. As is my Japanese collection. Ozu, Kurosowa, Mizoguchi, etc. it’s all there to stream. The image quality is not so great on some I just tested though. The biggest thing is that these old films don’t get views so studios will just license them out. If Netflix gets a bunch of youngins to watch movies from the mid-seventies, then good. Though I’d love if they did their “year of influential movies” thing much earlier. The 50s is really where cinema moved to interrogating emotionally broken characters in a realistic way.
Pretty much no creatives are collecting royalties from a 50 year old movie. It’s just not how contracts worked then.That’s why HBO’s Dream On used the TV show clips it did during episodes: they were made before SAG negotiated royalties.
Most of the old movies have nothing in their contracts about streaming so they have to invest a lot to make that happen. It’s a small part of why there are so many reboots of IP’s as well.
Dude, don’t be salty about studios licensing their films to other streamers.
It’s literally the only way to save the streaming model. Having each studio just hang on to their own titles doesn’t make anyone any money, which is why so many of them don’t even bother throwing them up on their respective sites.Having a robust relationship of licensing deals among the studios and streamers is a win-win for everyone.
Don’t be an idiot.
I didn’t read that as salty, more as just a laugh at how absolutely no one has figured any of this out, since just licensing content to Netflix turned out to be a bust and every dedicated studio streaming service is something between a loss leader and a money pit. Having a service that only offers content from your studio that is also not the exclusive service offering that content is definitely conceptually laughable, if no less of a financial disaster than all of the alternatives.
And anyone with half a brain could have foreseen that asking people to sign up for a half-dozen services in order to have a reasonable amount of content options, to the point that it was more expensive than the cable they were ostensibly cutting, was a losing proposition. There’s just not room for more than a handful.
I would argue that any one service is offering a reasonable amount of options – or at least purporting to. Who’s the psychopath that watches everything released on, say, Hulu in a given month?It’s like getting three different gym memberships because you like the brand of treadmill one gym has, but you would rather use the stairmasters at a different gym. Streaming subscriptions just happen to be cheap enough and offer content different enough from one another that subscribing to more than one won’t break most people’s banks. But it’s still wild to me to see people act like the price of one brand-new DVD for everything in any given streamer’s library is unreasonable.The key to more than a handful of streamers surviving will be for services to stop trying to offer something for everyone and focus on offering content for a very specific target audience (i.e. Shudder).
Yeah, but if I just decide to swing by Hulu for instance, and look at their top rated shows, newly added, etc…most of it is shit I’ve never heard of. I might find some diamonds to binge for a bit, but that’s not a long-term hook to keep me subscribed. It’s like the NFL and quarterbacks – there are not enough for every team to be successful.
If it’s not enough to keep you subscribed, then unsubscribe. That’s information Hulu can use to adjust how they spend their budget on content if they decide re-engage lapsed customers. Plus, what’s shit to you might not be shit for other people. That’s why I said the future is services focus on targeting specific audiences: it’s easier to keep your customer base happy if you know exactly what they all want.Just because there aren’t enough quarterbacks for every team to be successful, it doesn’t mean the unsuccessful teams dissolve until the number of teams matches the number of good quarterbacks.
Which is what I’ve done. I can’t imagine that kind of churn is fun for Hulu.
Every streaming service experiences churn. My point is that services can reduce it to a manageable amount by focusing more on customer loyalty than growing as fast as possible, and in the process their business models would be more sustainable.The entertainment industry isn’t a zero-sum game, and there’s plenty of room for more than one streamer. The problem Max, Disney+, et al ran into was that they spent way too much money on producing and licensing content. If they had kept spending to a sustainable amount, they would have been fine. But that’s not really what shareholders are interested in.
I’m not inherently against what you’re saying here but FFS, when the Emmys can’t even decide whether The Bear or Succession or Barry are “comedies” or “dramas” it’s a little hard to take the idea of “targeting specific audiences” seriously. When I think about all the TV shows and movies I love I have a hard time nailing down common elements that you could use as an umbrella. I loved Reservation Dogs, enjoyed Dark Winds, and loved Letterkenny. So should I subscribe to an Indigenous Channel? My favorite TV shows are Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Muppet Show. My favorite movies are Evil Dead II and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I could watch Hereditary and Hard Boiled over and over. What targeting would you suggest there?
I would suggest targeting any audience that’s large enough. I already gave Shudder as an example, but honestly you could start by looking at cable channels in their heyday. Networks like MTV, Discovery, the History Channel, Cartoon Network, etc. had (AGAIN, IN THEIR HEYDAY) well-defined identities that were all about serving a very specific thing to their audiences. For all of the talk of streaming becoming like cable, I don’t think it’s enough like cable. Bring back cable channels and just let me subscribe to each one individually and be able to cancel them whenever I feel like it without talking to a human being.There’s obviously an opportunity for brand-specific services too. For example, I could see an A24 streaming service doing well, because they have a distinctive, recognizable style and have built a devoted audience over time. Marvel Studios, if Disney would let them they wanted to, could easily launch an All-Marvel streaming service. The key is to have a big enough library of older titles that new audiences can discover while waiting on new content to arrive every month.The biggest challenge for each individual streaming service will be finding the right price point, because people instinctively want to compare services to each other. Some services might offer a shit ton of new content for $10/month or whatever, while other services offer less new content every month, but what they do release is higher quality (aka the pre-AT&T HBO model).Obviously we’re in fantasy land now, but my biggest desire would be to see streaming content not kept exclusive. Release in theaters, release on home video, VOD, all the outlets. I think for streaming to be sustainable it has to be one option, not the only option.
$3200 a year for all my stupid subscriptions (including non-streaming) according to Rocket Money. Needless to say, I went on a purge.
Oh ok
I love my Shudder but it’s also relatively cheap and they don’t have stupid rules. When Netflix rocketed up to around $20/mo and they instituted their stupid fucking “one IP address per account” shit I said fuck you and dropped them. The *actual* key to streamer survival will be a stop to chiseling everyone and just accepting that password sharing is a thing.
No one likes when prices go up. That’s normal, rational consumer behavior, and I think Netflix is a victim of being the originator of the entire business model. When they started streaming movies and shows, studios were willing to license content to them for cheap because they didn’t know streaming would severely injure their other revenue streams (look at the state of physical media sales, natch). They kept prices relatively low for years even as licensing costs went up and they spent billions of dollars producing original content. Trust me, I lost access to Netflix when they cracked down on the IP address thing, so I’m not happy about it. But I do believe that the higher prices more accurately reflect the value of what you’re getting every month.Now that we know streaming is a thing, newer services can set more realistic prices (and therefore expectations) upfront.
In theory, maybe. But as we’ve seen with most goods and services there’s unfettered price gouging. And of course behind it all is the very boring and repetitive but no less true problem of corporatist Unending Growth.FWIW, I think most people preferred Netflix when it was a warehouse of old shit we liked to rewatch. It’s kinda bullshit that subscribers had to foot the bill for Netflix deciding to get into the original content game. I know that was partly due to the rise of other streamers taking away the licensed content but I don’t think the answer should have been “Fuck it, we’ll spend a ton of money to produce or distribute our own material and pass the cost on to the subs.”
I mean… it’s a theory based on trends over the past 10+ years. TV ratings down, physical media sales down; some of this is due to people just finding other things to do, like play video games, but you can’t ignore the impact that streaming has had on those revenue streams. And yes, behind it all is shareholders’ laser focus on neverending growth – which also put pressure on Netflix to keep their prices relatively low so they could keep growing at the pace they were.I don’t know that I agree that most people preferred Netflix when it was mostly old shit, because Netflix is still the streaming service with the biggest subscriber base. Plus, I think that we’ve gotten a lot of exciting and entertaining shows that wouldn’t have existed if Netflix didn’t produce them itself. I would think if anything’s kinda bullshit, it’s that people like you footed the bill for the original content game that people like me enjoyed by using someone else’s password.But I would agree that Netflix is kinda shit now.
I think you’re really underestimating inertia. And yeah, of course it has the biggest subscriber base. It was the first. I also question “a lot” and “wouldn’t have existed”.And if it wasn’t perfectly clear from the specificity of my ire, “people like” me only kept Netflix because I have retired parents who use streamers all day long. I footed the bill for other people’s entertainment. Which I was fine doing until Netflix decided to be dicks about the IP thing. I was even okay paying extra for “multiple screens” but fuck them on the IP lockdown. If I want to access their shit catalogue from the college I teach at, from my brother’s house when I spend the weekend, from Timbukfuckingtu I should have every right. If these other streamers follow suit I’ll drop their asses too. I’ll go back to fucking cable. I pay for access. Don’t tell me where or how to do so.
But I’m saying it’s still the biggest. You keep pointing out the ways that Netflix is antagonizing customers – raising prices, cracking down on password sharing, enforcing one IP address – and I think we agree customers will only put up with so much of that before they look for the “Cancel Membership” button like you did. But now that we’re a year (?) out from things like the password sharing crackdown, we’ve had time to see the effect and Netflix actually converted moochers into paying customers:https://www.avclub.com/netflix-says-people-just-kind-of-rolled-over-and-accept-1850657631That article isn’t about people who couldn’t be bothered to take Netflix off auto-renew; it actually gained subscribers who wanted back in. We can speculate on the motivation all day, but I’m just going to let the numbers talk.For me, Hulu has replaced Netflix (which if I haven’t made clear yet, I’ve never paid for and haven’t used since the IP address thing) as the service that I use to rewatch old shit, even though they host a lot of original content too. I also question “a lot” and “wouldn’t have existed”.Okay, well… maybe it’s subjective then. I follow a lot of pop culture sites and podcasts and I feel like there was a good stretch of years where all the buzz was about this Netflix show or that Netflix show. To your point, those sites and podcasts probably weren’t representative of how all Netflix subscribers felt about its library. From my own experience though, I do feel like there was a time when they were consistently putting out several original shows that I really dug. YMMV
For sure they have had their share of material I liked. And there are things I will miss out on like the last season of Stranger Things and the second season of The Sandman. And for some stupid reason they’re the only place Noah Baumbach seems to like for distribution.I know what the article is about. And I know why *most* people are arguing about it. Because they hate Barsanti and would say that the sky was maroon if he said it was blue.
I linked to a William Hughes article…
I misread “that” as “this”.My point stands, though. More people give a shit about this article than not solely because it’s an opportunity to shit on Barsanti, who at this point feels a bit like a guy in a dunk tank at a county fair. Yeah, he signed up for it but people don’t have to be so gleeful and personal about knocking him into the water.
Shudder’s $60 a year or whatever is the perfect price point that will keep me there forever. They curate a good library of older films, and they are the absolute best place for indie horror films to find a home. I’ll support them just for the second reason, even if I only find the time to catch a movie on Shudder once or twice a month.
That’s my feeling exactly. There are months where I won’t watch anything on my Shudder but I’ll likely never cut it.Of course there are months where my brother uses it every other day. Because Shudder aren’t a bunch of assholes who charge you for accessing the service “outside” of your “home IP address” or what-the-fuck-ever.
There was an analysis last year that the only studio that had done well from streaming was Sony, because they had the good sense to not start a streaming service but to instead just license their content to other services. All profit, no insane server costs for no gain.
Completely unsurprising. Every studio didn’t start its own Blockbuster Video.
and even sony technically did try some kind of bizarre tv programming/streaming thing on playstation with that powers show that literally noone watched.
Far out. I was a fan of that comic and I didn’t even know that show existed. Solid cast, too. Shame it aired in a void.
At least with cable it’s one bill, one box, not juggling eight different passwords and accounts and cancelling and re-opening them according to some arcane schedule.
Cable was a nightmare and the “one bill” thing wasn’t worth it IMO.
Licensing your own content to Netflix (or wherever) is the ONLY way you’re going to make money on streaming. As you said, each studio’s own boutique services are money pits.
Exactly. I don’t want one monopolistic streamer, but it’s also unsustainable to have our entertainment siloed into a ton of different streaming services, some of which I suspect basically no one is watching. Barsanti’s specific gripe here was about Warner Bros. licensing the Lord of the Rings films to Apple to coincide with the release of The Rings of Power. But that move was good for both consumers and Warner Bros. No one who subscribes to HBO Max is doing so specifically so they can watch 20-year-old Lord of the Rings movies. But Apple had a particular reason it wanted the Lord of the Rings movies at the specific moment, and presumably paid a premium to license the movies. For consumers, that meant some people who don’t subscribe to HBO Max had a brief window where they could see the movies on Apple, maybe because it was fun to watch them in conjunction with a new series.
I’m not sold that the streaming model SHOULD be saved. It really isn’t a better model for anyone except a handful of C-Suiters. Not companies, who have constant churn of subscribers. Not the production companies and artists, whose work can disappear at the whim of an accountant. And certainly not the customers, who get worse technical quality, ever changing libraries, ever-rising rates. Even the idea of having more choice isn’t really a good thing, as anyone who’s spent an hour surfing through 4-6 services looking for something to watch can attest.
I know the genie isn’t going back in the bottle, but I really don’t see how streaming is better than cable and broadcast tv in any way. It’s one more case of techbros walking into an industry to “disrupt” it, but not having the least bit of idea what made the business work in the first place, so they just leave it broken and limping along to be swallowed by the next conglomerate.
California Split is so underrated. Peak dirtbag 70s gambler cinema. Segal + Gould: you cannot go wrong. I get why flashier Altman films like Nashville and even The Long Goodbye tend to take up all the oxygen, but California Split is excellent. (Also really wish a streamer would revive OC & Stiggs.)
1974 is great, but 1975 is literally the best year for movies ever. Just look at it:One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
NashvilleDog Day AfternoonGrey GardensJeanne Dielmann…Rocky Horror Picture Show
JawsPicnic at Hanging Rock
Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
Movies are new to Netflix this month and come from various movie studios—y’know, the ones that mostly all have their own streaming services but are pathologically incapable of retaining the rights to their most historically significant works because they’d rather make some quick cash off of them.You know those streaming services have been losing money, right? It’s not so much quick cash as it is trying to stop the bleeding
They got 1973’s Charley Varrick on there now. If you have never seen it, do your self a favor and check it out. Great heist movie!
They got 1973’s Charley Varrick on there now. If you have never seen it, do your self a favor and check it out. Great heist movie! Nothing much to add except that I agree – and love the fact that, for a brief moment in history, Walter Matthau was a viable star of thrillers. (This one, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, The Laughing Policeman, Hopscotch… they are great and Matthau is great in them.)
This is true, though whenever I see him in a film from that era I can’t help but hear James Adomian’s Matthau impression in my head.
When everything, including good news, is greeted with snark, snark kinda loses its punch.
Sure. And when every time Barsanti writes an article it includes snark, commenting on the snark loses its punch as well.
Fair enough, but as I haven’t commented on Barsanti’s snark [to the best of my recollection] ever, I hope you’ll grant me this one.
I’m not really in a position to “grant” you anything. But sure. And while this was in direct response to you, it wasn’t really *about* you. If you’ve been around here for any amount of time you’ll have seen the drubbing he takes. Which is only partially earned.
I had taken a pretty long hiatus and only recently returned, so while I am used to people complaining about the site in general and comparing it to the old days, I was not aware he gets a lot of complaints. I’ll roll my eyes in the future and comment on other things. No need to beat a molecules that used to be a dead horse.
It’s tough because he does earn complaints by leaning on snark as a crutch, just not the weirdly personal invective that people tend to use when doing so. It’s the difference between “You suck, get an editor” and “You’re a terrible human and should burn to death in an open air offal pit surrounded by your loved ones, who are also terrible humans because they love you.”
Yeah that kind of stupidity I just don’t get. I can’t remember the writer now, but she was reviewing a show (Maybe the Leftovers?) a long time ago and said something directly or indirectly stating that white people can’t be victims of hate crimes. That’s a very dumb thing to say and I was in the comments early on saying perhaps she should ask Matthew Shepherd’s family their thoughts on the matter and wondering why an editor didn’t caught that one.
What happened next though was a tsunami of harassment on this site and (as I recall) following her to other places online. I guess that’s just what happens when you give some humans an anonymous place to fight back against their own feelings of inadequacy, powerlessness, etc. But it was depressing.
If Barsanti was a woman the bile would probably be so much worse. Maybe there would be less of it because some of the people who shit on him constantly don’t strike me as misogynists so much as weirdos with an axe to grind against NuAVClub who have chosen him as their scapegoat, but still.
i’m here for this new feature. I keep finding out about loads of old films i’ve never heard of, so i welcome something that will enable me to watch more of them. Recently i’ve seen the Umbrellas of Cherbourg and some Elaine May films and John Cassavetes films
It’s Alive and Chinatown. Discuss their sameness down below.
Cool. Nothing more, nothing less.
No Phantom of the Paradise, Amarcord, or Ali: Fear Eats the Soul? Booo!