High quality older movies are hard to find across most streaming services. Titles more than a decade old are largely buried under noisy home pages and poor algorithmic recommendations. Even specific searches for a title, actor, or director often give disappointing results.
When we lose cinema’s past greats, I worry we’re losing a treasure trove of films that could appeal to potential movie lovers. Without them, many view movies only as modern blockbuster franchises, limiting their interest to occasional trips to the multiplex.
Older movies expand our perspective through the lens of different time periods and creative teams. Many remain exceptional highlights of genre or showcase remarkable performances. Mainstream studio releases from decades ago regularly featured original, non-franchise stories across a range of genres. Genres that were once commonplace — romantic comedies, courtroom dramas, adult-oriented thrillers — rarely get much exposure given today’s blockbuster-dominated theaters. Ultimately, a richer back catalog encourages interest in the medium.
Psychological thrillers like Memento (2000) or Gone Girl (2014) pair well with seventies paranoia films such as The Conversation (1974). Big fans of John Wick (2014) would likely appreciate John Woo’s films like Face/Off (1997) or Hard Boiled (1992). Those older selections might inspire someone to explore an actor, director, or an entire decade of film. That’s exactly the kind of exploration that keeps movie culture thriving.
Yet my research on the JustWatch database confirms how heavily the big streaming services favor new releases. Over 90% of Netflix movies are from 2010 or later. For Prime Video it’s 70%, while on Max, Disney Plus, or Hulu, it’s around 50%. (I used US availability for my research.)
The quality of pre-2010 movies available isn’t especially standout either. To measure this gap, I started with a popular Letterboxd list featuring movies with at least ten thousand ratings and a high average score. This consensus-driven selection of two thousand quality titles includes arthouse festival selections (4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days), mainstream Oscar winners (A Beautiful Mind) and popcorn blockbusters (Interstellar, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse). I used Letterboxd’s built in JustWatch functionality to determine how many of these films were available across popular streaming services. My criteria for “old” films spanned forty years: 1970 through 2009.
Netflix subscribers have access to a mere 2% of the films on this Letterboxd list over that forty year span. Combined Hulu and Disney Plus subscribers reach to 6%, as does Prime Video. Max performs best at 11%, thanks to its inclusion of many films from the Criterion Collection. Even with zero overlap between the top three US streaming services — a generous assumption — you’d still have access to no more than 19% of the best films from 1970 to 2009.
While viewers can find more options through video-on-demand rentals and purchases, most rarely look beyond their preferred streaming service. According to research from the Digital Entertainment Group, an astounding 93% of all U.S. home entertainment consumer spending in 2024 went towards subscription services. Digital sales, rentals, and physical media all declined over the last year (down 10%, 3%, and 23% respectively), while streaming services increased by 25%.
These trends align with what I wrote about earlier this year: the future of any media form, including film, is driven by a casual market that prioritizes convenience. That convenience factor favors subscription streaming, where the next selection is just a tap away. When streamers monopolize the home movie market but offer few quality older films, it becomes an uphill battle to get causal viewers to watch classics.
The solution, as with many aspects of film culture today, lies in grassroots influence. As major streamers become less appealing from rising subscription prices and declining original content, encourage friends and family to try specialty sites with a larger classic film selections like Mubi or The Criterion Channel. Share trailers, reviews, and rental links to make it easier for the others to check out an older movie you think they’d enjoy. For fans of a specific actor, remind them of their earlier work. Sometimes all it takes is a little push; the right selection might show someone that finding older gems is worth the extra effort.
The burden falls on individuals because the corporations behind most film output, from Netflix to Warner Discovery, see little financial upside in old movie catalogs or repertory theater sales. They represent a rounding error, a tiny trickle of interchangeable ‘content’ mixed among TV and live sports events. I wouldn’t be surprised if the limited availability of older films on streaming continues to worsen.
But just because a classic movie isn’t available on Netflix doesn’t mean it ceases to exist. The beauty of the on demand era is practically everything is available for those willing to pay. Apple continues to offer the vast majority of movies ever made for rental and purchase, from eighties studio comedies like Trading Places to cult horror like Possession and Audition. Cloud storage is cheap, and a thirty percent sales cut generates healthy profits. Niche independent distributors like Criterion and Arrow Films continue to release restorations of classics on Blu-ray.
So while the streaming market may look bleak for classic cinema, the larger film landscape still provides hope for those willing to seek out older films. Although corporations may see little value in preserving film history, individual moviegoers can look beyond the algorithm to discover and cherish greats from the past.