Posts tagged technology

Netflix Roulette

Netflix launched in Britain a week ago and I was really excited to sign up and check it out, after years of hearing how great the US service is.

Put simply, it’s a disappointment. On a technical level it’s great but that’s ruined by the gaps in its content library.

A few probing searches to see how bare its cupboard is turned into what I call Netflix Roulette — you keep searching until you get a match.

That sounds harsh, but I think the list below — my searches, but re-ordered alphabetically — shows the problem quite clearly. (There’s no particular logic behind what I searched for.)

  1. 28 Days Later? No.
  2. Ali? No
  3. Alien? No.
  4. Apocalypse Now? No.
  5. Batman Begins? No.
  6. Blade Runner? No.
  7. Boogie Nights? No.
  8. The Bourne Identity? No.
  9. Brick? No.
  10. Burn Notice? No.
  11. Casablanca? No.
  12. Citizen Kane? No.
  13. Collateral? No.
  14. Cry-Baby? No.
  15. CSI? No.
  16. The Dark Knight? No.
  17. Dawn of the Dead? No.
  18. Deadwood? No.
  19. The Deer Hunter? No.
  20. Die Hard? No.
  21. Dirty Harry? No.
  22. Double Indemnity? No.
  23. Dr Strangelove? No.
  24. ER? No.
  25. The Exorcist? No.
  26. Friends? No.
  27. The Godfather? No.
  28. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish one)? No.
  29. Good Will Hunting? No.
  30. Hairspray? No.
  31. Heat? No.
  32. Hill Street Blues? No.
  33. Hitch? No.
  34. Hot Fuzz? No.
  35. Independence Day? No.
  36. Juno? No.
  37. Jurassic Park? No.
  38. Kingdom of Heaven? No.
  39. LA Confidential? No.
  40. Law & Order? No.
  41. Layer Cake? No.
  42. Magnolia? No.
  43. Miller’s Crossing? No.
  44. Mission Impossible? No.
  45. NYPD Blue? No.
  46. Ocean’s Eleven? No.
  47. The Passion of the Christ? No.
  48. The Prestige? No.
  49. Psycho? No.
  50. Pulp Fiction? No.
  51. Raising Arizona? No.
  52. Rambo? No.
  53. Rocky? No.
  54. Shaun of the Dead? No.
  55. The Shawshank Redemption? No.
  56. The Shield? No.
  57. The Shining? No.
  58. The Silence of the Lambs? No.
  59. Six Feet Under? No.
  60. Sliding Doors? No.
  61. The Sopranos? No.
  62. Southland? No.
  63. State of Play (TV series or film)? No.
  64. Third Watch? No.
  65. Toy Story? No.
  66. True Blood? No.
  67. Vanilla Sky? No.
  68. The Wire? No.

The one that finally ended it was Along Came Polly, which, er, was on Five last night.

The lack of titles is so bad that if you search for anything with “the” in the name then the odds are pretty good that The Office (US) or The Inbetweeners will be in the top results. Searching for The Shawshank Redemption returns — in this order — The Office (US), Saw: The Final Chapter, and The Inbetweeners. Not good for such a popular and well-regarded film.

Nor is the lack of classics such as Casablanca, which came out 70 years ago. Or how about Citizen Kane — 71 years old and still often called the “greatest film of all time”.

As much as I want to like Netflix, I can’t justify subscribing when it’s missing so much. I’m not sure many people could, even at just £6 a month.

A handful of decent films, plenty of crap ones, some ITV dramas and lots of kids’ programmes aren’t a great sales pitch.