Inasmuch as the index at JustWatch is accurate, it paints a dire picture of the movie library at Netflix. The fact that Netflix makes it incredibly difficult to navigate their library based on things like release date makes it hard to confirm this, and it’s hard to come away thinking that navigation choice isn’t deliberate.
The oldest movie Netflix currently features seems to be “White Christmas,” from 1954. In fact, that seems to be their only movie older than 1962.
https://www.justwatch.com/us/provider/netflix/movies?release_year_until=1961&sort_by=release_year
Is that accurate? How could we be sure? Clicking on the names of the actors in that movie doesn’t pull up any other movies, even though Bing Crosby was in more than 100. That’s suggestive.
In 1962, a second movie appears! Its original title is “प्रोफ़ेसर”, but in English it translates to “Professor.” Then in 1966 we get “आम्रपाली” and in 1969 we get “Prince,” another Hindi movie. If you’re looking for something in English, your second choice is a 1972 documentary called “FTA,” about Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland’s opposition to the Vietnam War and the titular Army engaged in it.
1954, 1972, and then in 1974 we get the disaster movie “Earthquake.” Finally in 1975 we get “Jaws,” a Robert Redford movie, and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Three whole movies! From a year which IMDB reports had 3,682 movies, although that admittedly include a lot of non-English films.
Back when I got red envelopes mailed to my house, I could watch basically any movie ever made, or at least any movie released on DVD, and I am sure I watched more than three movies made before 1975.
JustWatch believes that the Netflix movie library currently has 3,916 movies, which is quite a comedown from what Marketwatch once described as “4,335 in March 2016 and 6,494 in March 2014.” Still, it’s higher than when I checked JustWatch in May of 2021, which reported 3,622 movies then.
We’re paying more and more for less and less. Companies are pulling movies and shows from streaming to abuse tax law, and we have no legal recourse. This isn’t the fault of Netflix, or at least not Netflix alone, but it’s badly broken.
I meant to include the MarketWatch link from which I quoted: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-not-your-imagination-netflix-doesnt-have-as-many-movies-as-it-used-to-2019-12-04
