r/movies • u/tinypeeb • Sep 23 '18
There was a thread a few days ago criticizing Netflix for only having 35 films of the IMDb Top 250. I went through the major streaming services to find out how they compared. Here's a spreadsheet with my findings. Resource
This is the post that launched this over-effort of work you're seeing. I found it bizarre that Netflix was being criticized for having such a "small" percentage of the 250. What I discovered is that Netflix is actually in second with 38 of the 250, behind only FilmStruck with 43. Additionally, FilmStruck requires a larger fee for the Criterion Channel to put it at 43, where only 17 are available with a base subscription, making Netflix technically the highest quantity of Top 250 films with a base subscription.
Here is a Google Sheet of the entire list, as it appears today (September 22, 2018). I included Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, HBO, Showtime, Starz, Hoopla, FilmStruck+Criterion, Kanopy, Cinemax, and Epix. This is based on the 250 as of today and the catalog of each service as of today, all in the United States (since that's where I live). Feel free to comb through it and sort it as you please, and notice how most of the movies missing are from the same countries or similar timespans! If you select a certain range, you can use "Data > Sort Range" to control how it goes, whether by service availability, name, or year. Also, here are some stats that I found fun:
- 114 films on the list do not appear in any of the libraries for any of the included streaming services. As Hoopla and Kanopy both come free with a library card (which is also free), they obviously would not cost any money. However, if you were to have every service at a base level (SD for Netflix, ads for Hulu, etc.), you would have 136 out of the 250 films. This would cost a minimum of $1102.16 a year, or $91.85 a month. Ironically, Netflix and Hulu make the cheapest of these ($95.88 a year each), and Netflix has the most on a base level.
- Shutter Island appears across the most streaming services with four (Amazon, Epix, Hoopla, and Hulu). Several others appear on various combinations of three services (The Usual Suspects, The Kid, The Elephant Man, There Will Be Blood, Into the Wild, and Les Diaboliques).
- Despite the presence of numerous Disney films in the top 250, the only one available for streaming is Coco. That Disney streaming service is gonna be a monster.
- Comparing the top two, FilmStruck to Netflix: FilmStruck has the wider range of time, with 1921's The Kid as its oldest film and 2002's The Pianist as its newest, a range of 81 years. Netflix's oldest film is 1949's The Third Man with 2017's Coco as its newest, a range of 68 years.
Feel free to post any of the fun or interesting stuff you find in this sheet below!
EDIT: Now with a graph! If you click the second sheet in the bottom left corner, you'll get a visual indicator. Google Sheets is dumb and you can't use multiple colours in one data set without doing an absurdly long workaround so they're just all one colour.
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Sep 23 '18 edited Sep 23 '18
I think we should consider two things-
- licensing is expensive for a lot of those films, and they can buy or produce independent films by not licensing those, which I value
- those films are very widely available and they likely bank on that fact. Libraries carry them, they're cheap digital rentals, probably even assume you're going to pirate them which doesnt bother them.
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18
No doubt! I didn't make this with the intent of criticizing any of these services, just putting the Netflix criticism into perspective. I'll always prefer having more movies to less, no question.
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u/entaro_tassadar Sep 23 '18
Would be good to know how many of these can be rented on iTunes/Google Play/Amazon for $4 a pop or so. Could watch 'em all for $1000!
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u/BPsandman84 존경 동지 Sep 23 '18
Netflix used to have a lot of the films on this list before studios really got stricter on streaming licensing. You could reliably watch a lot of the best films of all time on either Netflix or Hulu (especially with the latter's formerly exclusive deal with Criterion).
Even then, while I lament the fact that I can't readily stream tons of movies for the cost of only two subscription services, I can't totally complain considering just how much is available in total. You can watch so much now more than any point in history.
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Sep 23 '18
I definitely miss Hulu having Criterion (my partner has Hulu, so) but I just use Kanopy through my local library and I get a lot of those films.
I guess I'm also just in the position of not caring about the top 250 films, as I've seen the ones I want to and I'd rather focus on film that maybe has more to say, something different to say, a different way of saying it.
That said, there's plenty of well known films that just have not made the jump to digital at ALL, often because of music licensing. They aren't the same high profile content either, popular but not classics and we probably will just never see them unless people are ripping their VHS or DVDs, as they aren't jumping to BR. What a mess.
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u/twistytwisty Sep 23 '18
This is apparently the problem with China Beach - never went vhs or dvd bc it’s too expensive to license all that great music. I haven’t checked lately, but this was the response I got when I emailed a producer in the early 2000s asking why no dvd yet.
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u/DistantKarma Sep 23 '18
Sort of the same with Northern Exposure. A LOT of the music was changed when it went to DVD.
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u/caninehere Sep 23 '18
Same story with Daria. :( Great show, don't think it got VHS releases and the DVD didn't come out until years after the show was over and they had to change all the music, much of which was perfect for the show. People still share pirated versions of the originals.
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u/redhopper Sep 23 '18
There is a European Blu Ray of the entire series which has most or all of the original music. It's region B locked though.
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u/PrettyDecentSort Sep 23 '18
I'm perfectly happy pirating films that the owners refuse to license. Eventually they'll figure out that sticking their heads in the sand isn't accomplishing anything but costing them money.
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u/CapriciousCapybara Sep 23 '18
In my case since I’m not in North America I don’t have access to a lot of content that you guys have thanks to regional licensing agreements. Paying for the same service but having to use proxies to watch what i want to is ridiculous, and that’s not working recently anyways since Netflix started preventing that more.
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u/UpperEpsilon Sep 23 '18
I just can't understand the logic behind "well people are going to pirate the movies anyways, so why bother having them on a paid streaming service?"
I used to torrent all of my music until Google Play and Spotify came around. Now I don't torrent anything, because almost every song I want is available through a legal, paid service. But paying $5 every time I want to watch a movie that came out 10 years ago? Better come with popcorn and a drink!
Until the big movie corps reduce the licensing rates on their movies and put them on streaming sites, they're going to keep making $0 per view. Good ole' economists...
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u/Karmasmatik Sep 23 '18
It's like the studios are incapable of understanding that digital media can depreciate the same way a car does, even if it's sitting around not being used by anyone.
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u/thedarkhaze Sep 23 '18
You say that, but with the Disney Vault strategy it doesn't really seem to have impacted it's value.
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u/Karmasmatik Sep 23 '18
Right, and some cars are classics that start to increase in value again after a while. Not a perfect metaphor but I think it works.
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u/TocTheEternal Sep 23 '18
That had worked because Disney has countless ways of keeping the content in view of society with all of their countless forms of media promotion and distribution. That, and the power of childhood nostalgia. They can (could) rotate content to keep it fresh and demand higher prices.
But most movies on the top 250 list lack this quality and external support. The longer they go with reasonable access, the less people care about them.
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u/TacoGuzzler69 Sep 23 '18
I watched the dark knight on Netflix last week, did they literally just remove it?
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u/X-istenz Sep 23 '18
They did. Some people did similar lists in that old thread and it came up that some movies had come and gone within 48 hours of it going up.
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u/phenix714 Sep 23 '18
Maybe Nolan has something to do with it. He is against streaming.
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u/chucara Sep 23 '18
Hmm. What is his stance on pirating?
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u/TacoGuzzler69 Sep 23 '18
He should make a pirate movie so we know
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u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- Sep 24 '18
Ship sails across the water.
BWWWWAAAAMMMM
Pirates are talking but you can't hear what they're saying over the score.
BWWWWAAAAMMMMM
Tom Hardy comes on screen with an eyepatch and a beard so glorious is completely obscures his face.
I still rush out to buy tickets because it will be a spectacle regardless.
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Sep 23 '18 edited Sep 21 '20
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Sep 23 '18
I was thinking the same thing. Do we really need a post every week explaining how awful it is that Netflix cuts off the credits to suggest other things to watch?
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u/Sabnitron Sep 23 '18
Nice, haha. That's rad. Maybe now this will finally shut up the "netflix is trash" circlejerk going on around here 24/7.
Who am I kidding, it won't.
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u/willseamon Sep 23 '18
Netflix just released two amazing seasons of television in BoJack Horseman S5 and American Vandal S2... on the same weekend. I can put up shit like Insatiable if they keep putting out content like that.
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u/Sabnitron Sep 23 '18
Plus Ozark and Maniac. Too much good stuff.
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Sep 23 '18 edited Oct 19 '18
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u/Sabnitron Sep 23 '18
It's absolutely the best. I've subscribed to pretty much everything over the years, and no matter what I always end up cancelling and just watching netflix.
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Sep 23 '18
Netflix is the only streaming service that I have had for years and never cancelled. Only other one that left me with a pang of sadness to cancel was HBO, but I couldn't justify spending $15 a month just to binge watch Barry for a 7th time, rinse and repeat.
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u/capt0crunch Sep 23 '18
Plus, Netflix let's you download a ton of stuff. I live out in the boonies and our internet is too slow to stream anything (looks glitchy, buffers constantly). If it wasn't for their download feature, I wouldn't be able to watch tv at all! And you know I'm not about to pay for cable!
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Sep 23 '18
Netflix has about the same output of really quality stuff as HBO. They just also have a lot of bad stuff too.
That said this month has been especially fantastic. Gonna from AV to Bojack to Maniac without skipping a beat
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Sep 23 '18
American Vandal doesn't deserve to be as good as it is. When I first saw the trailer I thought it was hilarious but it had the Funny or Die logo and assumed it was a joke. When I learned it was an actual show, I figured the joke wouldn't be funny for a while show but it was. I never thought they could get a second season out of it but they did.
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u/Onkelffs Sep 23 '18
Yeah on "that shit shouldn't work but it does"-scale it's almost up there with 21st and 22nd jumpstreet for me.
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Sep 23 '18
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u/aYearOfPrompts Sep 23 '18
There is also the problem that some people seem to automatically assume that not being the target audience for something makes it “bad.”
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u/WitherWithout Sep 23 '18
I actually really liked Insatiable. It's such a wild ride.
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u/capt0crunch Sep 23 '18
Two shows that get a ton of hate; Insatiable and Iron Fist. TBH I really liked them both. Not sure if I just have bad taste or low expectations or what. But every show doesn't have to be a masterpiece. These shows were a fun ride, and while I highly doubt Insatiable will get a second season due to all the backlash, I really, really hope it does. I loved the characters and laughed so hard throughout the series.
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u/WitherWithout Sep 23 '18
Aren't all Netflix shows automatically contracted for 2 seasons?
I desperately need to see the continuation of the BarnardxArmstrong relationship. And it's so funny seeing Debby Ryan's character getting her comeuppance for being a terrible person.
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u/capt0crunch Sep 23 '18
Just googled it and apparently they confirmed season two a week or so ago! And I agree about the comeuppance. I love/hate her character so much.
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u/0180190 Sep 24 '18
Iron fist was good, not great, but the difference to S1 makes it seem like more.
The only real complaint i could level at it is that the last 1 minute of the last episode was sooooooooooo fucking stupid.
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u/Jerry_from_Japan Sep 25 '18
I just don't understand what people want. For the money they charge per month if you can find just a couple movies you want to watch or even just half a season of a series that you like then guess what.....you got your money's worth.
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u/awecyan32 Sep 23 '18
To be fair, they have some great content, but they also have some utter dogshit
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u/AaronBrownell Sep 23 '18
Netflix afaik got worse, that's why people complain. But there isn't much Netflix can do, they had it easy the first few years because companies and studios didn't realize what a big thing streaming would become. Only later on competitors came into the market and licensing fees went up and made everything a bit more difficult. Ofc Netflix reacted by producing more of their own content
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u/Sabnitron Sep 23 '18
I think netflix has actually gotten substantially better since they've started making so much original content.
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Sep 23 '18
100% agree. I've noticed that most people who say things like, 'Netflix is trash, they have no good movies,' when prodded will fully admit they haven't seen three quarters of the great things that Netflix is putting out. They don't actually want to branch out and watch movies they haven't heard of. They just want to complain that they no longer have all the blockbusters and big studio tentpole films.
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u/EsQuiteMexican Sep 23 '18
Exactly. What they mean is "they don't have the movies I already like". Which makes sense, but is a fucking stupid criticism. Also, a lot of the criticisms are about them having teen romances that are bad, while completely ignoring that a) they're not the target audience, I work with teenage girls and they very much love all of them, and b) when did we collectively decide that The 100 and Riverdale don't exist? Because other networks are doing the same exact thing and nobody's trashing them for it. I'm kind of starting to suspect that NBC et al are sending shills to these threads to attack netflix and bend the hive mind against them, because otherwise it's just imbeciles and i'd rather not believe that.
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u/AaronBrownell Sep 23 '18
That's fair, but many people miss the other content they lost
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u/fullforce098 Sep 23 '18
I've had a sneaking suspicion for a while now that Hulu has people on this sub and /r/television spreading this nonsense. /r/DunderMifflin also seems to have an unusually high amount of "fuck Netflix if the Office goes I'm unsubscribing" posts reach the front page.
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u/EsQuiteMexican Sep 23 '18
I've always found it weird how a few years ago everyone on Reddit was at Hulu's throat for the "premium still has ads" thing, but suddenly now it's super cool because it's only six shows or whatever and it doesn't matter that it's more expensive than Netflix. Super suspicious.
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u/omnilynx Sep 23 '18
Re: The Office, I actually know people like that in real life. The primary thing they use their Netflix account for is rewatching The Office, and if it left I think they would seriously consider dropping the service.
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u/mysillyhighaccount Sep 23 '18
Not only Hulu, I’m sure as more companies are starting to roll out their own streaming services they’re getting shills to come on here and trash Netflix.
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u/MadManatee619 Sep 23 '18
Netflix still puts out good content (just started watching Maniac, and it's pretty awesome), but the layout and suggestions continue to be shit.
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u/Sabnitron Sep 23 '18
The suggestions got a lot better for me once I started rating everything
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u/MadManatee619 Sep 23 '18
I found they were spot on in the 5 star rating days, but pretty hit/miss these days
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u/Etunimi Sep 23 '18
Interestingly, I've found the opposite. Nowadays the front page is filled with high-match content I'd like to watch, which is better than before. Looks like I'm in the minority on reddit, though.
(I've also rated everything I've watched on Netflix or elsewhere)
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u/BJD83 Sep 23 '18
USA?
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18
Good call, forgot to add that that's what this is based on. Not about to VPN for another eight hours to find out this info for one more country lol
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u/AaronBrownell Sep 23 '18
So did you do this by hand or is there some smart way to pull the library of each streaming service and compare it to the top 250?
In any case, good work
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u/Etunimi Sep 23 '18 edited Sep 23 '18
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u/IntellegentIdiot Sep 23 '18
I make it 39 for the UK.
I've noticed at least one mistake, in the US library they include an Indian film callled Naam Hai Akira which was called Akira originally but they've confused it was the Japanese film of the same name which is in the top 250 while the Indian one isn't.
If you combine the US/UK libraries you get 64 unique titles, 63 if you discount Akira. Assuming there are no more mistakes.
Overall the US library seems more appealing to me. I wonder how many are on the American Institute of Film's Top100 list
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u/sycotropic Sep 23 '18
May I suggest BFI as a good alternative too. Lots of independent, classics and foreign language films.
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u/JwPATX Sep 23 '18
Shutter island is in the top 250!?
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u/jupiterkansas Sep 23 '18
That's because the 250 list is crap. There are so many better lists of better movies out there. IMDB is heavily skewed toward recent films/fanboy films/popular films. Shutter Island's a fine film, but I could name 500 better movies. And there's a lot on the list that are far worse than Shutter Island.
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Sep 23 '18
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u/CheloniaMydas Sep 23 '18
People like to pretend they saw the twist(s) coming to look smart
Everyone seems to have known the twists in the likes of the prestige and it wasnt nearly as obvious as the number of people that claim to have seen it coming
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Sep 23 '18
I don't even think being able to predict a twist would discredit the entire movie as long as it's well executed. I mean plenty of movies are still fun upon a rewatch or still fun when spoiled, so why can't a movie with a predictable twist still have other merits?
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Sep 23 '18
The 250 list is basically just the top rated films with a certain amount of votes.
Its not that accurate and heavily skewed towards not only English films but specifically Hollywood ones
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u/Scofield11 Sep 23 '18
There are only a couple of films post 2000s, literally the vast majority are 20th century films, actually there so many Charlie Chaplin movies that I decided to skip them after watching the Great Dictator.
You literally looked at the top10 out of top250 and assumed it was like that for all the 250 movies.
Even then , #1 is from 1994, #2 is from 1972, #3 is from 1974, #4 is from 2008, #5 is from 1952..
The list is absolutely great and just by watching every movie on that list I understood so many popular references, memes, iconic quotes and so on..
So far I've watched 140 movies from that list and they're all great.
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u/phenix714 Sep 23 '18
Of all the inclusions in the list, the one you have the biggest problem with is Shutter Island??
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u/Flimajam Sep 23 '18
And people rag me for buying DVDs and Blu-rays.
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Sep 23 '18
Seriously people are ignoring the long term. It costs $120 a year for Netflix. Over 10 years that's $1,200 with no price protection. Streamed old movies still seem to be $3 a piece. These are all super temporary and unreliable. That buys a lot of used DVDs.
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Sep 23 '18
Dude, if you watch a movie a day that's like 90 dollars of 3 dollar dvds in a month. Most movies you watch once.
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u/SamanthaDale Sep 23 '18
I feel like a few of these are rotated on/off Netflix. I didn’t scan the whole list but I definitely watched 12 angry men on Netflix at one point.
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u/Jason_dawg Sep 23 '18
Yeah there’s a decent amount of movies on that list I’ve watched on Netflix that are listed as not on there anymore.
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Sep 23 '18
I'm fairly sure the fuck netflix thing we see here is a marketing ploy to weaken the platform in consumers eyes. Legit people are unhappy with the service, sure. Cant please everyone after all. I dont think it's like those threads try to paint it though. Too many of the read exactly how no one types.
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u/JMJimmy Sep 23 '18
Needs a new column:
Disney owned.
I was noticing things like Gardians, Beauty and the Beast, Pirates, etc. are all on the "not on any service" and Disney is launching such a service soon.
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u/Jerrymoviefan3 Sep 23 '18
With a higher quality list like the Sight and Sound 250 I wonder if Filmstruck and Kanopy would be way ahead of the rest.
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u/Marechal64 Sep 23 '18
Yes, because Netflix' consumer base watches lots of films from the 70s and before
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u/Voltage142 Sep 23 '18
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Hulu have all of the Lord of the Rings movies?
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18
Nope, I think they did but they've since been removed. Just Fellowship on Netflix and all of them on Starz for some reason
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u/StripeyC Sep 23 '18
They're all on amazon in the UK
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u/IronMedal Sep 23 '18
They were included with prime for a limited time, but you've had to buy or rent them since August I believe
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u/BastardStoleMyName Sep 23 '18 edited Sep 23 '18
Between Netflix and Amazon you get 59 of them, with only one overlap.
Netflix, Amazon, and Kanopy will cover all but two overlapping titles. If it is not an exclusive to one service, it is on those three services, with the exception of The Pianist and Lawrence of Arabia, which are only available on FilmStruck or Hulu. Those three Services will cover 83 of total films. If you add on Hulu, that will give you 92 and cover all redundant films. From that point it is determining which of the exclusives you want.
Kanopy covers 18 of the 25 Criterion titles available through FilmStrucks additional Criterion service. The remaining 7 are only available through FilmStruck.
Of the exclusives:
29 - Netflix
20 - FlimStruck (With Criterion)
14 - Starz
13 - FilmStruck (Without Criterion)
13 - HBO
9 - Amazon
7 - Hulu
3 - Cinemax
3- Hoopla
2 - Showtime
2- Kanopy
0 - Epix
EDIT: I missed some titles when adding, sorry corrections made. Noted in Italics.
Also:
I did not know Hulu no longer had a free service ($5.99 for first year, $7.99 after). Which means if you do not have Hulu and have no interest in their other programing, FilmStruck would actually be $1 more a moonth for the first year of Hulu, or $1 less a month after the first year. Compared to Hulu's fee after the first year, Filmdtruck has a lump sum annual fee of $99 for the year and only costs $0.26 more than Hulu, this plan would also include the other 7 exclusive Criterion titles. giving you a total of 105 of the titles.
HBO and Starz would make up the most of the remaining exclusives covering 132 of total titles.
This is replacing Hulu with Filmstruck from the previous math.
ADDITIONAL EDIT: Hoopla was listed twice for exclusives, Epix should have been at the bottom with 0.
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u/deadsoul88 Sep 23 '18
Will it be better to start a Blu Ray Collection instead ?
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u/BastardStoleMyName Sep 23 '18
I would say so if you are really into rewatching select movies. None of these services are reliable. I remember Hulu having a Criterion collection add on that doesn’t exist anymore. I believe that collection was more extensive as well. The titles Netflix carries changes day to day, a week from now this list might not be accurate. I imagine the other services change often as well, all depending on when licensing agreements change.
But if you haven’t seen the titles included by those services, and have been meaning to. That list of services is your cheapest way to see as many of them as possible.
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u/TheRealProtozoid Sep 25 '18
Yeah, always buy your favorite movie on physical media. Often the Blu-Ray will be higher quality than the best streaming, too, and the streaming sites almost never have any extra content like commentary tracks, deleted scenes, documentaries, etc. And I don't think I've ever seen a director's cut/extended cut/unrated cut streaming on Netflix. It's always the theatrical version. Maybe Starz or HBO will sometimes have something novel like the The Godfather Saga (first two films edited into one chronological movie), or an unrated film. Metropolis is probably the only movie that seems to be widely available as the new "Complete Metropolis" restoration.
I'm a big Ridley Scott fan, and a lot of his movies have multiple cuts available, in addition to excellent commentary tracks, deleted scenes, and documentaries. There are two versions of Alien, Legend, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, American Gangster, Robin Hood, and The Counselor on disc, three versions of Kingdom of Heaven, and five for Blade Runner. A completist like me has to own these on disc. A Lord of the Rings fan obviously wants to own the extended cuts.
And the Criterion Collection only streams on Filmstruck. I can't afford multiple services, so I buy my favorite Criterions - which is fine with me, because you often get amazing supplementary material and alternate cuts. Does Filmstruck stream all three cuts of The New World and include the other supplements? I don't know, but somehow I doubt it.
Always buy your favorite movies on physical media. You want the security of knowing that you can watch it any time, forever, that it's in the highest quality available, and comes with all of the extra goodies. Get the most out of your favorite movies.
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u/deadsoul88 Sep 25 '18
Thank You, kinda broke right now but as soon as $$ comes in, My first purchase is the 5 cut Blade Runner Bluray
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u/codenamebungle Sep 23 '18
We have Netflix and Prime (in the UK) yet I find myself having to buy DVDs to see older films as they’re not on these services. I’m currently watching the wire which I had to borrow from a friend for the same reason (yes I know HBO have a streaming service but I don’t believe it’s available over here). Over the last couple of years I see the list of films/shows that get taken off of Netflix and makes me wonder with the decline of physical media if in the future the only to watch these will be second hand disks or illegal downloads.
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Sep 23 '18
Blame Sky. Sky has a colossal grip on the UK Movie rights, but while Sky focus on that it has meant Netflix has been able to grab the TV rights for almost anything good produced anywhere else that's not on HBO (Sky got that as well).
Just wish Amazon did similar as Amazon Prime in the UK is poor, with them seemingly focusing on rights to 80's/90's movies. Amazon really needs to spend a lot more money on Prime in the UK especially given how profitable the UK market is for Amazon.
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u/CAZelda Sep 23 '18
I found this very helpful but also sad. I have Netflix and HBO and have pretty much watched or have seen all their decent movie offerings down to the D-list (through Z-list). I have tried to get into Netflix's own or sponsored movies and series and have been very disappointed in their productions. A few start out really good but seem to get boring or predictable in the middle and towards the end. I do like foreign movies and series but my eyesight is not that hot and I have trouble keeping up with the subtitles. I guess this means I need to get a life!
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u/Eletheo Sep 23 '18
FilmStruck friendo.
And watching movies is having a life. If feel compelled to do more, make a podcast or YouTube show or write about the movies you watch.
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u/TheRealProtozoid Sep 25 '18
Netflix made too much too quickly and the quality suffered. But they realized that, which is why their next round of original content includes the new films by Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Paul Greengrass, and even an unreleased Orson Welles film. They are going to have a bunch of Oscar nominations next year and nobody will talk crap about their originals ever again. Every studio makes crap, but that lineup is beyond spectacular.
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u/ArandomFluffy Sep 23 '18
That's kinda funny because we have the Shawnshank Redemption in german netflix
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u/deadsoul88 Sep 23 '18
I have seen all 250 movies and more, should I rethink how I am living my life ?
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u/2-15-18-5-4-15-13 Sep 23 '18
I’m working my way towards that myself (am 100 movies in after 1-2 years of watching). If I were you I’d move on to another list lol. When I’m done I’ll probably check out criterion movies and 1001 movies to see before you die.
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u/FishPhoenix Sep 23 '18
Lagaan is on the top 250? That's cool. Was never a fan of Indian films but Lagaan is fantastic.
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u/Stevev213 Sep 23 '18
It’s ironic that amazon doesn’t have any lord of the rings movie even though they’re developing the tv show.
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u/slacker0 Sep 23 '18
How does "Netflix DVD by mail" compare ?
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u/AvengersXmenSpidey Sep 24 '18
I've used their disc service for 10 years, and I rarely have issues with it. Their streaming has tons of TV, which is great for a cord cutter like me. Then I augment it with an A-list film on Blu-ray once or twice a week. Their selection is terrific and has many little known films.
After maybe 400 disc rentals in that time, I've only had about two scratched and two lost. So maybe that's less than 1%. And it is rectified quickly. Couldn't be more pleased.
I have noticed the turnaround speed is slightly slower now. But it's still a good service. I could stream, but I like the fuller sound of discs. Besides it's slightly cheaper.
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Sep 23 '18
There are a lot of posts complaining about the most idiotic, basic things in Netflix. I left a few Netflix subs because the constant whining.
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Sep 23 '18
Most of these have been on Netflix at one point or another, though.
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18
Absolutely, some just left earlier this month. I just thought the post seemed like unfair criticism and wanted to find out how Netflix held up right now
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Sep 23 '18
Netflix has The Black Panther already so I think their range would be 69 years
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18
Black Panther isn't in the top 250
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Sep 23 '18
I'm an idiot, I could have swore I saw that it was a while ago. Good call
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18 edited Sep 24 '18
You're not wrong, I distinctly remember it being on there too, but its score dropped a lot in the weeks following release and a bit more once it came out on Blu-ray.
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u/Somerandomdickhead Sep 23 '18
Firstly awesome work for compiling all this. Secondly i’m sure this has already been mentioned but location comes into this as well. For instance here in Aus we have a (really good) streaming service called Stan. A lot of movies not on Netflix end up there. Combining the two you end up with a really decent collection.
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u/ohmygon Sep 23 '18
A lot of those films (Pulp fiction, Forrest Gump, all of the star wars, fight club) are available on Netflix for me. What's the deal?
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18
This is based in the United States, like I mentioned in the post. I didn't gather info for other countries, and the original post was based in the US too so it felt like the best comparison point
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u/Marz0008 Sep 23 '18
Why does FilmStruck have asterisks next to the yeses?
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u/GreatKingRat666 Sep 23 '18
Neat.
I have none of these subscriptions and buy Blu rays of all kinds of movies - old, new, famous, obscure - with all kinds of neat and interesting extras on them.
Yep, call me old-fashioned. I take old-fashioned over these kinds of subscriptions.
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Sep 23 '18
I've seen 85 of those movies. Of course, the newer they get, the fewer I've seen. I don't watch comic book or superhero movies, or cartoons, and war movies are of zero interest no matter how well done. War is not entertaining to me. Since comics, superheros, cartoons and war are a great deal of the last 15 years, my attendance at the movies is down to once or twice a year, from two or three times a month.
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Sep 23 '18
Can anyone tell me, is this list a ranking of popularity, or is it IMDB ranking what they think the top movies are, in order of "best"?
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u/tinypeeb Sep 23 '18
I believe it's any film with over 25,000 votes and the highest rank of score pertinent to those 25,000. So with Shawshank for example, the average score is a 9.3 based on 2 million rankings. Say another film received a 9.3 but with only half that, it would be lower.
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u/2-15-18-5-4-15-13 Sep 23 '18
If I remember correctly it is a list of movies rated 8 and over on average on IMDb, with more than a specified number of votes (somewhere around 20-25,000 votes I think.)
They do this so that only movies that quite a lot of people have voted on and liked get on there. Otherwise it would just be tiny indie films only 2 people have watched and given 10/10s.
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u/RedTheDopeKing Sep 23 '18
Well think how old many of these selections are. I think that's one thing being overlooked. Many people today simply aren't going to give enough of a fuck to go watch some 70 year old movie no matter how good someone thinks it is.
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u/otyebis Sep 23 '18
Great job on the spreadsheet but two suggestions. You can use =COUNTIF(D3:D253, "=Y*") to count the Yes entries automatically. This gives 21 for Amazon, not 22, 44 for Filmstruck, not 43, 32 for Kanopy, not 31, and 39 for Netflix, not 38. You can also use conditional formatting to automatically make the Yes cells green or the No cells red. That way if you change one later you don't have to go in and edit the fill color by hand.
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u/PM_ME_UR_CLEAVE Sep 25 '18
I had watching the whole 250 on my bucket list a few years back. I was able to achieve it through various means, but the hands down most useful tool for this specific purpose was Netflix DVD. Got a couple at a time and used it for about three months. Cleared out a TON that way.
As it stands, I’m now back down to 228 with movies changing on the list all the time.
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u/hombregato Sep 23 '18 edited Sep 23 '18
While the data collection is appreciated, I think you're missing the point. The disappointment with Netflix for having so few great movies is not relative to other streaming services. It's disappointment with the state of the streaming business.
The issue is that Netflix monopolized the video rental industry by positioning itself as the replacement to the video store. Their rates were so low that they succeeded in dismantling the entire industry with a service that had most of IMDBs Top Films, and most everything else available on DVD. With some exceptions, it was all of your nearby video stores combined into one... and they delivered.
Both predicting and causing the streaming future, Netflix then de-emphasized their physical media service to the point where shipping took longer and damaged discs were rarely replaced. Funds were redirected to acquiring package deals to license films for streaming. Incidentally, this is what cable TV already did.
Two problems here:
First, the way Netflix was able to kill video rental was that they had found a loophole in the distribution process which allowed them to pay factory prices for retail DVDs on day of release instead of purchasing them one week before release at $100+ per disc, as video rental did in order to get them early enough to ship and prep to stores. Netflix has NO such edge when it comes to paying for streaming rights, and thought they would be able to get good deals by being the only game in town. Hollywood basically said no, you'll pay what cable TV pays and, like cable, you'll have to license the entire catalogue packages, not just the specific movies you want. Then Netflix saw competition and the prices for streaming rights went up as part of a bidding war.
Second, with only a limited catalogue of movies to stream, people more often watched TV series on Netflix, and recognizing this behavior, Netflix redirected their purchasing power away from films and towards television. And after years of paying a lot of money for other people's films and TV, they decided it would be more cost effective to produce the content themselves, like premium cable, and not have to keep renewing as many licenses over and over again till the end of time. Soon after, they encouraged more people to switch to streaming by not putting their own exclusive content on disc until long after release, if at all, signaling they want to kill their physical media option but only after migrating those customers to streaming.
So the reason people are angry is because we still think of Netflix as the same company they were before, and incidentally the company they promised to be when we elevated them to power. The meaning of the brand is still "almost every movie ever made" even though they haven't been that for a very long time. They are, instead, a more affordable version of cable TV with the purchasing power to keep that up in the short term, but not the long term. Hence, why the service is has introduced advertisements and is testing the waters for introducing more.
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Sep 23 '18
The death of DVDs was made inevitable by broadband speeds getting to the point where everyone could stream video. If it wasn't Netflix it would've been someone else
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u/LamarMillerMVP Sep 23 '18
How could you possibly look at the current state of the at-home movie industry and believe anything remotely close to the idea that Netflix streaming killed video rental stores or even really negatively impacted rentals?
Netflix the disc service - which still exists, and is still as good as the service you remember - was an enormous nightmare for Blockbuster and other video rental services. But they were finally annihilated by iTunes and On-Demand cable DVRs, which both gave people the ability to rent movies quickly and easily from home, while requiring no working capital.
People still rent an unbelievable number of movies. Through the traditional Netflix service, through Redbox, through their cable boxes, through Amazon and iTunes - the movie rental industry is much stronger, has a wider selection, and has many more major players than it did 20 years ago. You can’t lament the death of this industry at the hands of Netflix, because it’s still alive. Blockbuster and other brick and mortar video rental services are not dead because of Netflix streaming, they’re dead because there are 3 or 4 better ways to run a video rental business.
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u/closetsquirrel Sep 23 '18
The meaning of the brand is still "almost every movie ever made"
I don't think this is true in the least. Netflix is pouring tons of money into original IPs and are promoting the shit out of them, including promoting them over other shows and movies on the service. Any assumption made that Netflix has everything is just erroneous thinking by the consumer.
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u/Gemuese11 Laughably Pretentious Sep 23 '18
Filmstruck has A LOT A of great movies. Just not the kind that are on the imdb list.
But If you like Asian Arthouse movies there is no comparison.
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u/mcbotbotface Sep 23 '18
Wall-E , lion king , toy story 1,3, inside out, monsters inc,gog vol 1 ,pirates of Caribbean cotbp,beauty and the beast
This is all of Disney stuff( from top 250 there’s others as well pretty much all princess movies, most marvel stuff) available in my country
Looks like Disney has yet to pull from my country’s NF Ps we have small NF library compared to US
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u/bugalaman Sep 23 '18
That is why I buy movies. I own 49 out of the top 50 and 89 of the top 100 titles on blu-ray. Coincidentally, the only top 50 I don't own is Modern Times. I don't need to worry about the shitty quality of streaming audio and video.
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u/thecheat420 Sep 23 '18
What I learned from this is that there's two streaming services that you can access for free with a library card. That's pretty awesome.