Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies From IMDB's Top 250 List (streamingobserver.com)

According to Streaming Observer News, the quality and quantity of Netflix's movie library has declined over the last two years when cross-referenced with IMDB's Top 250 movies list. From the report: Well, it's a pretty common fact at this point that Netflix's library is shrinking. Of course, what Netflix needs to do as it shrinks its licensed movie library is make sure that movies it does have are good ones. But according to our analysis, it's going backwards, unfortunately. A while back we noticed a post from this Reddit member who, two years ago, cross-referenced the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) top 250 movies list with Netflix's movie library to find out how many of the top movies Netflix carried. When u/clayton_frisbie posted his list on Reddit, Netflix had 49 of the Top 250 movies on the IMDB list. That's just under 20 percent, which isn't terrible. But we wondered how that number has held up over the last two years in the face of a quickly shrinking library. So we reran the analysis. How many of the top 250 movies does Netflix now have? As of September 2016, that number has dropped to 31, or about 12 percent. [You can view the list via Streaming Observer News.]

Comments

That is not Netflix's plan

[nitehawk214]

Their plan is become original series only. And then they can entirely drop the catalog of movies and shows.

It protects them from getting pinched by sites that have deals with content producers.

However, are people going to be willing to pay Netflix's fees for just the new series?

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[AmiMoJo]

The original series are the reason I subscribe, the other stuff is just an added bonus.

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[Austerity Empowers]

There are months, maybe years worth of TV shows and what not on there too that Netflix didn't make but probably don't cost a fortune in license fees. Plus Netflix has more, good, original content than say HBO. It's not doing too bad.

Movies I can get via mail if I want them, but increasingly I don't.

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[Moheeheeko]

Agreed. The quality of the original shows they make is well in the top 3 for networks.

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[The Rizz]

That's the HBO model isn't it ? At least you can subscribe only to Netflix, you can't do that with HBO courtesy of the cable industry fucks.

Actually, you can. That's what their HBO Now service is for. It costs more than Netflix does, but if you like HBO's original programming and don't want to wait for DVD/BluRay, it's definitely worthwhile to look into.

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

He's loss?

But seriously, their spectrum of shows isn't wide enough yet. Too much "real life" stuff, too much "fantasy" stuff, barely any sci-fiction stuff.

They did completely nail the 80's feel and vibe with Stranger Things, though.

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[lucm]

I hope you'lll find something nice to do with that $8/month you're going to save once your wife is done watching 17 seasons of Midsomer Murders. Maybe treat yourself to a nice latte and cupcake?

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[ArhcAngel]

Every time I fire up Netflix these days I see more original content. It actually takes me a while to peruse the new titles to see if they interest me. They are being very aggressive in that regard it's simply that they are in the early stages so the library is still relatively small compared to a Paramount or WB. I mean they announced two years ago DareDevil would be the first of five new Marvel titles. Jessica Jones followed and Luke Cage was released a couple of weeks back. Iron Fist is just around the corner to be followed up by The Defenders. Heck The Punisher rated so well in DareDevil they green-lit a new series for him as well. And that's just the Marvel stuff. They have content for most popular genres.

Re:That is not Netflix's plan

[91degrees]

Fair enough. I've watched a whole load of them.

I'm the type of customer they're trying to attract. TV shows are much lower risk, and much broader appeal. It's also the stuff that's getting talked about. House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black are shows that get a lot of media attention.

Not Netflix's fault

[Daemonik]

People blame Netflix for this like it's something they want, which is untrue.

Fact of the matter is that the studios that own the rights to these films won't sign with Netflix because it competes with the cable companies that own them both for on demand streaming and cable channels, as well as studio owned fronts like Hulu.

This is what happens when content providers consolidate with the content delivery companies. Collusion, false monopolies and fixed markets.

It's time for the government to step in and break up the cable/studio/isp's into their separate pieces again.

Re:Not Netflix's fault

[H3lldr0p]

In addition to the breakup, I'd like to see movies and television put under a compulsory licensing scheme after, say five years. Set up a similar system to how music royalties get collected and paid out. This way companies like YouTube and Netflix can stop worry about this and follow where the demand takes them. The five year buffer doesn't stop studios from cutting deals to get shows and movies out to platforms of choice earlier and gives them time to sell the physical media.

Re:Not Netflix's fault

[SvnLyrBrto]

Those studios are shooting themselves in the foot though. Who wants to have to deal with multiple accounts and hunt down the show they want to watch across Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Go/Now, CBS whatever, Vudu, Crackle, FXnow, and so and so on and so on? For many, Netflix is the first and only stop, and if what they want to watch isn't there, they wont scour the ends of the internet for it. They'll goto the one place they know it will be available: The Pirate Bay.

Re:Not Netflix's fault

[lucm]

Government isn't the answer to nearly 99% of the questions it tries to answer..

True. That's why we badly need someone who could make America great again.

Re:Not Netflix's fault

[Daemonik]

The problem that small limited government people like you seem to never understand though is that we need the government to balance out the already overpowered corporate system. As it is corporations still have too much power but remove government as a counter and we'd be nothing more than barcoded slaves living a dystopia.

We where founded with the principle of LIMITED government, with LIMITED powers that left us free in as many ways as possible.

Also stop living in the past. The US was also founded on the principle's that only land owners got to vote and slaves counted as 3/5ths of a person. Things change.

Re:Not Netflix's fault

[drinkypoo]

corporations still have too much power but remove government as a counter and we'd be nothing more than barcoded slaves living a dystopia.

That argument made more sense before the corporations got control of the government.

Whant to guess why I canceled?

[dbialac]

I came to realize I was paying to watch one original series for a week a year, five seasons of Top Gear and Futurama. I could get everything else that I might watch elsewhere and more. It stopped being worth subscribing.

dvd.netflix.com

[Kludge]

I still have not subscribed to the streaming part of netflix.
I still get the dvds.

Re:dvd.netflix.com

[somenickname]

The nice thing about the Bluray/DVD service is you can just rip the disk to your file server and send it back. Well, I mean, if you wanted to... Not that I would ever amass dozens of terabytes of ripped Blurays or anything... Never.

I don't use Netflix for movies much anymore

[JMZero]

I'd much rather Netflix spends their money on TV shows (especially originals) than chasing expensive, popular movies. If I feel I need to watch The Dark Knight again (and I don't expect to) I'll find a way. No - I stay subscribed to them for TV: Stranger Things and House of Cards and Better Call Saul.

Well, that and my kids have been into Digimon lately.

Re:There is an old saying in business

[tripleevenfall]

Or there is not a difficulty in turning a profit without paying the license costs, so they don't pay them.

DVDs instead of streaming

[SeriousTube]

This is why I get their DVDs instead of streaming. I haven't made a count but they have a far higher percentage than that on DVD. I've gotten the impression they have 8 or 10 times as many movies on DVD as on streaming.

It's one foot or the other

[H3lldr0p]

I'll give the studios some credit in this. It would appear they looked at what happened with music and book publishers and decided they didn't want any one company lording over them and being able to cut deals like Amazon and Apple did. For them, it's a choice of either shooting their left foot and let Netflix have what they want at whatever price they can get or shoot their right foot by forcing people to have more than one account.

Only time will show which one they shot.

Re:There is an old saying in business

[PRMan]

Or maybe Netflix's algorithms show that we've all seen these movies already and don't watch them again. I mean, Amelie and Inception were interesting, but I would never watch them again.

Re:There is an old saying in business

[cayenne8]

For most newer movies or deeper movies...I still have my Netflix DVD/BluRay subscription...and you have a wider choice of titles there....

Re:There is an old saying in business

[alphatel]

There's also the fact that IMDB's top 250 simply ain't what it used to be. I mean seriously... Deadpool? Zootopia?

Correction to article & summary

[MobyDisk]

Well, it's a pretty common fact at this point that Netflix's *streaming* library is shrinking.

ThePirateBay has all of them

[PeeAitchPee]

Just torrent from the green and pink skulls and you can be pretty sure you're not ending up with malware.

Re:ThePirateBay has all of them

[Kohlrabi82]

Yeah, it's not only that Piratebay and friends obviously offer the bigger catalogue of content. It's also that you get a DRM-free version you can play anywhere, anytime without being online.

Do sites like Netflix really expect to be paid for worse service? I'd still be willing to pay for a service (monthly, or per-content) if it allowed the ease of use and freedom of pirating sites. Not that I really use those, I essentially stopped watching TV shows and movies, except for one or two shows hosted via Amazon Prime, Netflix wasn't at all worth it because I only was interested in one or two shows, but since I don't binge-watch, finishing one might take months, which makes this service much more expensive than a box set of Blurays.

But sadly Blurays are shit and insulting. I have to sit through minutes of shitty menus and anti-piracy shit, even though I paid €15 for a movie. I cannot play Bluray on my PC without buying some software for playback, like the now-defunct AnyDVD, or MakeMKV. I certainly won't buy a shitty special player software, which locks me in even further.

Streaming sites are shit. Ever changing catalogues, small amount of content and the fact that sometimes they only offer half the seasons of a TV show (Amazon, I'm looking at you). Add to that that I am forced to be online. So it is unusable on business trips on the plane or in hotels with bad WiFi, a situation where I'm more likely to just watch a movie or show than at home. On top we have DRM playback software, which forces me to use Chrome.

Offer me a way to get the content onto my PC DRM-free, without jumping through hoops, and we might have a deal.

Re:There is an old saying in business

[KingMotley]

I agree. There is no way deadpool should be at 234. It is easily a top 50.

Re:I might sound like a broken record

[cshay]

Enjoy:
http://instantwatcher.com/sear...

Re:There is an old saying in business

[sittingnut]

imdb lists(or aims to list) and allows its users to rate, all movies produced at all times at any place.

Re:There is an old saying in business

[mwvdlee]

I dare bet most people would be interrested in an ever-growing movie database. Ever-changing is something they settle with as a second-best solution. What they're actually getting is ever-cheaper with expensive movies being replaced with cheaper movies. The reality is that the IMDB Top 250 is mostly movies popular with movie buffs; a relatively small group. They don't include many of the movies that are popular with a larger crowd. Guess which type of customers Netflix would prefer; a small group of highly opinionated and critical people or a much larger group of people who just want whatever movie was recently released. Netflix picks movies based on what makes them the most money, not on what's had the highest review scores. They optimize supply and demand just like every other company that doesn't give a shit about anything but profit (i.e. every other company).

Re:There is an old saying in business

[serviscope_minor]

The sloth's running the DMV was genius and makes the entire movie worth a watch.

That bit had me in stitches! I HAVE BEEN THERE!

I think only me and my partner were the only people laughing at that bit. We're in the UK and so don't have the DMV, we have the DVLA in Wales which you interact with via the common remote means, so the joke just didn't strike as true.

Re:There is an old saying in business

[michelcolman]

So, I want to see a particular movie tonight, let's see, it's not on Netflix... iTunes will only sell it but not rent it... what other services are there... ah, found it, Bittorrent.

Why does the MPAA keep trying so hard to push us into piracy? Jeez, I actually switched from being a pirate to wanting to rent movies fair and square, and then I get all this "not available in your area" bullshit. OK, you got your chance, bye!

Re:There is an old saying in business

[Maritz]

I'm weirded out. It sounds like you're saying blackmail and police corruption are bad things...?