Psycho Killer

Netflix offers fewer than 25 movies made before 1950. What does that mean for future film fans or hollywood’s past?

- Zach Schonfeld

REED HASTINGS, the Netflix CEO who cofounded the company long before “streaming” entered the popular lexicon, was born in 1960, a fairly remarkable year for film. Among the classics released: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom.

In the vast world of Netflix streaming, there’s one movie from 1961 available (the original Parent Trap) and one selection from 1959 (Compulsion), but not a single film from 1960. It’s like it never happened. Neither, for that matter, did 1968, 1963, 1955 or 1948. There are no Hitchcock films on Netflix, no classics from Sergio Leone or François Truffaut. When Debbie Reynolds died last Christmas week, grieving fans had to turn to Amazon Video for Singin’ in the Rain and Susan Slept Here. You could fill a large film studies textbook with what’s not available.

As of this month, Netflix offers just 43 movies made before 1970 and fewer than 25 from the pre-1950 era (several of which are World War II documentaries) on its streaming platform. If you’re one of its 4 million DVD subscribers, you get a much wider selection, but the company is increasingly shifting to streaming and original content. And what does that say to a lover of classic cinema? “That those movies have less to offer,” says Nora Fiore, the 26-year-old writer behind a blog devoted to old films, The Nitrate Diva. “It’s a terrible message to put out there.”