Seven great movies expiring from Netflix on December 1st
November 24, 2014 11:36 AM   Subscribe

"Every month, Netflix quietly clears its virtual shelves to prepare for the arrival of new offerings. There are roughly 80 movies expiring from Netflix Instant at the end of November. We've picked seven that we think you should make sure to watch before they’re no longer streaming – one for each night until Dec. 1." (Paste Magazine)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (85 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
(It's worth noting that some of these films are already posted and ready for discussion over at FanFare, e.g., a post I did on The Untouchables, a really fun film.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 11:41 AM on November 24, 2014


They didn't pick Robocop 2 as the best? This list is flawed...
posted by Benway at 11:42 AM on November 24, 2014


"Netflix quietly clears its virtual shelves to prepare for the arrival of new offerings."

What? No it doesn't. There are no virtual shelves. It does it to save money by giving customers less choice.
posted by howfar at 11:43 AM on November 24, 2014 [26 favorites]


That's kinda what real shelves do too, howfar.
posted by ODiV at 11:45 AM on November 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


Netflix has seven great movies?
posted by bondcliff at 11:46 AM on November 24, 2014 [9 favorites]


We watched Helvetica this weekend because we saw it was about to expire. Streaming is nice, but most of the kind of movies we want to watch aren't offered. If they ever got rid of their DVD-by-mail, we'll be switching to Facets. In fact, I'm not sure why we don't switch to Facets now.
posted by hydrophonic at 11:50 AM on November 24, 2014 [9 favorites]


Spice World is going bye-bye on December 1st. You better watch the best film of the '90s now.
posted by NoMich at 11:50 AM on November 24, 2014 [22 favorites]


We've picked seven that we think you should make sure to watch before they’re no longer streaming – one for each night until Dec. 1.

THE SEVEN DAYS OF QUONSMAS
posted by duffell at 11:53 AM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Noooooooo you can't take C.H.U.D.
posted by Lemmy Caution at 11:54 AM on November 24, 2014 [6 favorites]


I'm a big fan of "The Apostle". Christian filmmakers take note: If you want to reach people emotionally, make a movie about an interesting character, get a great actor to play them, and excise any "persecution" nonsense in your script that seems to be the raison dêtre of every other "Christian" film on the market these days.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 11:55 AM on November 24, 2014 [18 favorites]


Crap, Young Sherlock Holmes is going? I've been meaning to watch that for ages. Guess that's what I'm doing tonight.
posted by rifflesby at 11:55 AM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


They take movies offline now? Yet another way in which "piracy" trumps any real service you can get a "legitimate" business to accept money for providing.
posted by DU at 11:56 AM on November 24, 2014 [8 favorites]


Seconding "The Apostle". If you had to watch just one of these seven, I'd start there. Robert Duvall is fantastic.
posted by vverse23 at 11:56 AM on November 24, 2014 [7 favorites]


What? No it doesn't. There are no virtual shelves. It does it to save money by giving customers less choice.

That's not quite true. Netflix colocates servers at ISP locations near end users to function as a form of close-by caching to improve performance and to reduce the traffic load on providers. Those servers have capacity limits. So there is a least one space constraint in their system.

What's rubbish about Netflix and all the other streaming services is how they seem to deliberately obfuscate their libraries with lousy interfaces and APIs (Netflix is killing their public API off as well as quietly eliminating Saturday deliveries from their DVD mail service which cuts service to heavy DVD users like me by about a third. I think they are reading the Google customer service playbook)
posted by srboisvert at 11:56 AM on November 24, 2014 [8 favorites]


Seven great movies about white men you won't be able to watch on Netflix anymore.

But no worries, they have plenty of others.
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:59 AM on November 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


That list is self-evidently crappy (Mission Impossible III?), but overall it's been sad to watch Netflix go from amazing to just sort of ok. Some of that has been imposed on them by studios playing games with the negotiations for access to movies and tv shows, but a lot has been purely self-inflicted. I'm still a subscriber but it's starting to feel like cancelling is just a matter of time.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:02 PM on November 24, 2014 [7 favorites]


Ishtar expires Dec 1. Plan accordingly.
posted by mazola at 12:03 PM on November 24, 2014 [6 favorites]


That list is self-evidently crappy (Mission Impossible III?)

Actually Ghost Protocol is the fourth film in the series, not the third. MI3 was the one directed by JJ Abrams, which was pretty decent (Philip Seymour Hoffman as the baddy, and some truly remarkable action sequences), as opposed to MI4, which is exceptionally well done.
posted by mightygodking at 12:08 PM on November 24, 2014 [6 favorites]


I rebuke and reprove Netflix's cowardly policy of quietly removing expired movies from my queue without so much as a friendly reminder, while simultaneously spamming me with BEHOLD, WE JUST ADDED A FIFTH SEASON OF UNDERCOVER BOSS emails. I haven't torrented this much since 2008.
posted by theodolite at 12:08 PM on November 24, 2014 [10 favorites]


You guys do all realize that Netflix doesn't just remove stuff from its service for good? Chances are, all of those movies will rotate back in within six months, due to the nature of their licensing agreements with the studios. Browbeating Netflix because they don't keep everything on streaming forever and ever is absurd -- I think of myself as a fairly discerning movie and TV buff, and I've never had a problem finding something decent to watch, so it's not like all of their content is boiling away into thin air or something.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:10 PM on November 24, 2014 [23 favorites]


That's good of them to include the complete "retirement" list, because just cherry-picking a few makes the article a silly little listicle of movies most people will like.


Dip Flash: That list is self-evidently crappy (Mission Impossible III?), but overall it's been sad to watch Netflix go from amazing to just sort of ok. Some of that has been imposed on them by studios playing games with the negotiations for access to movies and tv shows, but a lot has been purely self-inflicted. I'm still a subscriber but it's starting to feel like cancelling is just a matter of time.

The end paragraph to a kind of fluffy piece on Forbes is a pretty good encapsulation of the issue:
Netflix is in an all-you-can-eat buffet business at a Golden Corral price. They throw in a chocolate fountain (Orange is the New Black, House of Cards) to cover up the fact that they took away the Lobster Newburgh and those ginger snaps you loved because not many others ate them and the lobster supplier asked for 30 cents more per pound.
Streaming could be about long tail content, but licensing agreements don't (seem) to work that way. And so ...

DU: Yet another way in which "piracy" trumps any real service you can get a "legitimate" business to accept money for providing.

(By the way, they've taken videos offline since pretty much the beginning, this is just a new article about the on-going article.)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:11 PM on November 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


Netflix colocates servers ... to reduce the traffic load on providers. Those servers have capacity limits. So there is a least one space constraint in their system.

Perhaps they could just locate these less popular movies in one location and just deal with the latency. This is my number one gripe with e-libraries. THEY decide what is popular, or worth storing because they need to turn a profit. On another note I just love how Verizon is constantly reminding me that if I buy a movie rather than rent it I will own it forever*

*forever being as long as I am a verizon subscriber. I'd love for someone with a few extra bucks for lawyers try to sue Verizon et al when they won't let them keep the movies they "own".
posted by Gungho at 12:13 PM on November 24, 2014


I've seen these types of articles before, what I'd like to know is where do they get these lists? Is there a NetFlix site or directory that lists them? Also does one exist for Amazon Prime?
posted by FJT at 12:19 PM on November 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


Movies I've never seen, that I've noticed on Netflix but have been putting off:
The King’s Speech
Reds
The Serpent and the Rainbow


Old Favorites I should catch again while I can:
Transylvania 6-5000
Count Yorga, Vampire
Cry-Baby
Double Indemnity
The Promise
The Return of Count Yorga


Old Favorites I'm glad I caught again recently
Chaplin
Five Easy Pieces
The Ghost and Mrs Muir
The Paper Chase
They Might Be Giants
The Vampire Lovers


I'd better get a move on on those first three, anyway.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:22 PM on November 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


Perhaps they could just locate these less popular movies in one location and just deal with the latency.

Because "but the movie is less popular" isn't an answer to "your service sucks". Consistency of service performance is an illusion they work pretty hard to maintain, especially since it's an increasingly competitive space.
posted by kjs3 at 12:23 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Half of all comments on Netflix-streaming TV shows:

THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD WHY DON'T YOU HAVE THE NEWEST SEASON UP YET? NO STARS
posted by duffell at 12:28 PM on November 24, 2014 [9 favorites]


Netflix has seven great movies?

If they do, these aren't them. Except Double Indemnity, which it's always a good idea to see because TCM seems to show it once every thousand days but for some inexplicable reason clears space to show Splendor in the Grass and Tammy and the Bachelor at least once every two months.
posted by blucevalo at 12:29 PM on November 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


Streaming could be about long tail content, but licensing agreements don't (seem) to work that way.

A good argument for drastically reducing copyright terms. Imagine if anything over, say, fourteen years was fair game?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:35 PM on November 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


Seven great movies expiring on Dec. 1, the real list

C.H.U.D.
Event Horizon
The Stuff
Night of the Creeps
Robocop 2
Ishtar
Spice World
posted by naju at 12:41 PM on November 24, 2014 [10 favorites]


The Other Side of the Mountain
The Other Side of the Mountain, Part 2


Shouldn't one of these be called "This Side of the Mountain"?
posted by Beti at 12:47 PM on November 24, 2014 [22 favorites]


How are they getting this information? I know instantwatcher.com used to have it, but last I heard, Netflix shut off the API they used to scrape that information. I miss having a RSS feed of expiring titles!
posted by entropicamericana at 12:47 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


"The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is they're dead."
Night of the Creeps

hurry up.
posted by GrapeApiary at 12:49 PM on November 24, 2014


If there's one thing Netflix streaming has made me realize, it's just how many shitty movies there are. I always kind of suspected that the vast majority of Hollywood product was garbage, but seeing everything all grouped together in a thumbnail grid really underlines the point. In fact, I've found that great movies—masterpieces, even—seem just a little bit shittier by dint of their proximity to so much utter dreck.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:51 PM on November 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


If you haven't seen Double Indemnity, go watch it right now. Seriously. I've been watching a lot of Wilder pictures this year and I'm astounded great they almost all are.
posted by octothorpe at 12:57 PM on November 24, 2014 [9 favorites]


I have Netflix, and it's a great way to watch TV and movies.

I also still buy DVDs. Maybe it's gauche now, but I like having physical copies of my favorite movies that I can watch whenever I want. I burn backups, and I own multiple players, so I figure I'm good for the foreseeable future, regardless of whatever way the digital streaming winds blow.

Still, it would be nice if movies on Netflix stayed on Netflix.
posted by KHAAAN! at 1:02 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


My kid is still pissed they removed Mighty Machines.
posted by davros42 at 1:07 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was really, really well done, a lot of fun, and featured a woman of color in a staring role in an action movie just... doing stuff and kicking ass like anyone else, just the way it should be. There are much worse ways to spend an evening this week. :)
posted by joycehealy at 1:17 PM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


I pirate for nearly everything, go to the theater for really praised and/or visually spectacular stuff, buy Blu-rays for Criterion-ish masterpieces and my absolute favorites, and use Netflix for random larks and obscure trash/gems. This system works out pretty well and I recommend it.
posted by naju at 1:18 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Chances are, all of those movies will rotate back in within six months, due to the nature of their licensing agreements with the studios.

Exactly. Both Transylvania 6-5000 and They Might Be Giants have disappeared from and re-appeared in my streaming queue a few times now. There's no guarantee the studios will never say "Nope, not renewing this time" but I've been pleasantly surprised a few times now to see previously-expired films back in my queue.
posted by Spatch at 1:18 PM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Spice World and Young Sherlock Holmes??!? I know what I'm doing tonight.
posted by fshgrl at 1:20 PM on November 24, 2014


Have to watch Night of the Creeps again. Still mad about Mistress Of The Moon disappearing. I have never seen a copy anywhere else. Has anyone?

(Following the inline quotes thing -)

Thrill me.
posted by Samizdata at 1:22 PM on November 24, 2014


Man, I grow weary of this constant game of Whack-a-Mole.
posted by sourwookie at 1:28 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Worth noting that not only does Duvall give an amazing performance in The Apostle, he also wrote & directed it. Truly a great, great film.
posted by the bricabrac man at 1:31 PM on November 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


Is there a similar feed or report of what will be added on Dec 1?
posted by billcicletta at 1:34 PM on November 24, 2014


Didn't you read the thread? Undercover Boss s18.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:38 PM on November 24, 2014


If you have Netflix and haven't seen Double Indemnity before this, you don't deserve Netflix.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:42 PM on November 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


I'm under the (potentially-misinformed) impression that Netflix rotates stuff out because rights-holders would like to license their shit to other companies, but if Netflix had the legal right to stream whatever whenever in perpetuity, no one else could compete. That wouldn't be a desirable situation for rights-holders, so they require Netflix to abide by certain limitations or pay through the nose.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:57 PM on November 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


MI4 is shit-hot. I heart Tom Cruise.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:00 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


There's still no way to search these services by length of film, right?
posted by curious nu at 2:05 PM on November 24, 2014


It's not how long it is. It's what they do with it.
posted by spock at 2:09 PM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


It's not in the expiring list, but a quick Netflix recommendation for The History of Future Folk. If you would like to see an indie SF-Comedy-Romance-Action-band origin myth, pick this one.

Hondo.
posted by fings at 2:13 PM on November 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


Netflix is paying seven dollars a month to search through a gigantic bargain bin of film. Sometimes you get wonderful stuff, like The Russian Ark and Chinatown, sometimes you get "sounds the same as transformers" cash-in shit from The Asylum. I like the fact that it's always changing - it gives some meaning to finding a gem on there, and it means your getting a constant churn of new stuff. A savvy person can use a combination of public libraries and piracy to get what they want, but half the fun of Netflix is hunting for treasure.
posted by codacorolla at 2:14 PM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


If I keep finding stuff like the BBC series "Happy Valley", my $7.00 per month is well spent.
posted by davebush at 2:18 PM on November 24, 2014 [8 favorites]


Double Indenetiny is THE film noir and one of the finest thrillers ever made.

Night Of The Creeps has a sorority girl with a flame thrower
posted by The Whelk at 2:26 PM on November 24, 2014


Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol also has Jermeny Renner doing a strange/endearing little butt dance at one point.
posted by The Whelk at 2:28 PM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


To Netflix, for hastening my dementia by making me question whether I really ever added Flashdance to my queue: Thanks
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:33 PM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Well, I guess it's time to watch Robocop 2, again. And The Stuff. And The Pirates of Penzance.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 2:44 PM on November 24, 2014


I'm under the (potentially-misinformed) impression that Netflix rotates stuff out because rights-holders would like to license their shit to other companies, but if Netflix had the legal right to stream whatever whenever in perpetuity, no one else could compete. That wouldn't be a desirable situation for rights-holders, so they require Netflix to abide by certain limitations or pay through the nose.

I was also under this impression, does anyone know whether this is how it works or not. I want to know why various animes keep disappearing and re-appearing.

Spice and Wolf!
posted by edbles at 3:14 PM on November 24, 2014


As a kid, I loved The Great Waldo Pepper. I am a little afraid to watch it now for fear it won't live up to my memories. Also, I would put The Proposition above both Mission Impossible and The Untouchables.
posted by qldaddy at 3:19 PM on November 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Spice and Wolf!

You can get virtually all of Funimation's catalog -subbed or dubbed, whichever you fancy- straight from them for less than 5 bucks a month right now.

posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:36 PM on November 24, 2014


I'm just going to come right out and say it: Netflix UK removed John Carter recently and I'm still reeling from the loss.
posted by Chichibio at 3:39 PM on November 24, 2014


Everything on this list that I'd actually bother with:

Coffee and Cigarettes
Cry-Baby
Minnie and Moskowitz
Reds
The Serpent and the Rainbow

Not sure if I'll watch Minnie and Moskowitz again. Cassavetes was great but takes a very specific mood that I'm not in often.
posted by graymouser at 3:57 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Netflix isn't getting enough credit here for their amazing selection of television shows. IMO that alone justifies the cost of a monthly subscription, and any interesting films they have are just icing on the cake.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 3:59 PM on November 24, 2014 [7 favorites]




where do they get these lists? Is there a NetFlix site or directory that lists them?

Once upon a time, anybody could develop for the Netflix API, nowadays not so much.
posted by Megafly at 4:38 PM on November 24, 2014


Hmm, Ghost Protocol doesn't seem to be streaming anymore, at least on my Netflix (US-based).

And yes to Double Indemnity. I almost broke up with someone for refusing to watch that movie with me despite his insistence that he "loved noir." You don't know noir until you've seen Double Indemnity.
posted by sockermom at 5:32 PM on November 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


What? Seriously it's one of the Ur-Noirs it's key to understanding the genre, and is really fucking great
posted by The Whelk at 5:35 PM on November 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


Spice World is amazing just for the cast list: Elton John, Elvis Costello, Stephen Fry...plus, Hugh Laurie and Dominic West before they landed on American TV. All for a kid's movie. They only got one James Bond--but even still--it stands as a testament to how important the Spice Girls were to Britain in the late '90s.
posted by riruro at 5:49 PM on November 24, 2014 [6 favorites]


Is there a similar feed or report of what will be added on Dec 1?

There are actually numerous services that will survive the API lockdown (the well-liked A Better Queue, alas, not among them), and if you put the Netflix keyword into Google News you will find 3-6 stories on a regular basis telling you what is arriving and/or leaving.

I'm a bit sanguine about the streaming "Netflix dance" because it's really just the rights holders being very, very arbitrary about how much of a license they'll grant for how much coin. At this moment only Netflix has the viewing numbers and it's unknown how much of that they share with distributors. But after Nielsen starts measuring Amazon and Netflix numbers some things may change -- although I fear that may have the most severe effect on the farther end of the long tail.

I did actually get a notice on my DVD queue page today that about a dozen titles from my Saved list were no longer offered, meaning they're not even saving a database slot for them. That disappoints me because for many of these there is no other option (some of them you can buy for market prices, others are pearls of rare price indeed).

I have to say again, as I always do, that while I'm not here as an apologist for Netflix, between the DVD and streaming services I have 800 films queued up (and a personal list of bookmarks that's closing on 200). So I can't say that they don't have stuff I want to watch, because that's obviously false. Some of it is less urgently interesting than others, of course. But I really think that frustration is more about the expectations of availability than the reality. If your tastes are at all mainstream, there's plenty; it's only at the extreme of wanting the biggest hits NOW or having such esoteric cinephile tastes that you run into empty mineshafts. There are so many great movies that have been made that opening yourself to an unexpected pleasure, say, a lesser-known 60s comedy like How to Steal a Million, is well worth your time. But if you're the type who has his list of five movies you've got to see, yeah, it's going to need to intersect with your luck.
posted by dhartung at 5:53 PM on November 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


Strange Interlude: I've never had a problem finding something decent to watch

You should maybe come to Canada. It's the same price, and finding something decent to watch on Netflix is easily half the fun. Maybe more!
posted by sneebler at 6:07 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


psssst, guys, adfreetime.com is super awesome as a way to get into other countries' Netflixes for two bucks a month, and it's DNS-based so you can use it on literally anything with network settings. It's how I use American Netflix from Japan, along with Crunchyroll
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:33 PM on November 24, 2014


Spice World isn't a kids movie. I know because me and a friend took a gaggle of 8-16 year old nieces to see it when it came out. They didn't get a single joke. We were in stitches the entire time. It's a movie for GenX. Specifically the kind of GenX kid who imprinted on Roger Moore as Bond, knows all the words to Paradise by the Dashboard Light and went to a lot of raves.
posted by fshgrl at 6:43 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]




If you have Netflix and haven't seen Double Indemnity before this, you don't deserve Netflix.
I was saving it! (Doesn't anybody else do that? Queue up a bunch of justifiably famous movies, and then ration them out slowly, intermixing them with the mass of streamable mediocrity?)

But I do appreciate the "heads up!"
posted by Nerd of the North at 7:22 PM on November 24, 2014


Every one of these movies appears to be available for the foreseeable future via Netflix DVD. If you can't wait a couple of days for your fix you've got a nasty jones. And DVD's may be primitive compared to virtual distribution but they avoid the whole licensing clusterfuck which isn't Netflix's fault.
posted by localroger at 7:44 PM on November 24, 2014


Guys. Monkey Shines. Monkey Shines!.
posted by Vendar at 8:37 PM on November 24, 2014


@ Underpants Monster (?!) Reds is on my very short list of best movie hugs. And it's a great story to boot.
posted by wensink at 9:37 PM on November 24, 2014


This is like an advertisement for piracy.
posted by ryanrs at 10:52 PM on November 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well this list is really tedious and boring et al but I'm grateful it was posted here because I would have otherwise never learned about Facets, which sounds exactly like the kind of thing that's been missing in my life.
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:28 PM on November 24, 2014


The answer to the question "I wonder if that's on netflix" is almost invariably "no." I've stopped bothering to look. I'm not really the sort of person that just watches 'whatever is available', so netflix is really a crappy deal for me. I'll be super happy whenever HBO Go goes online only though.
posted by empath at 7:25 AM on November 25, 2014


The movies on HBO Go are terrible, though. The selection is limited and most of the stuff looks like utter crap.

I'm a TV watcher and not very interested in movies, and Netflix is the best for streaming TV. I hate the ads on Hulu, so I refuse to get Hulu+. Amazon Prime's streaming TV is mostly shit, but I use it to supplement Netflix and watch SG:1 occasionally.

The only movies I'm vaguely interested in seeing are the big superhero films that fill my Tumblr dash, but those are pretty rare on streaming/
posted by Squeak Attack at 9:04 AM on November 25, 2014


As a kid, I loved The Great Waldo Pepper.

I just re-watched it after (gulp!) 40 years.

You will still like it. The real-time aerial stunts are alone worth it.
posted by Chitownfats at 10:10 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


FJT: I've seen these types of articles before, what I'd like to know is where do they get these lists? Is there a NetFlix site or directory that lists them? Also does one exist for Amazon Prime?

One way is to crowdsource the effort of finding which movies are expiring when.

As for Amazon Prime, it looks like there are a smattering of similar posts on different sites. Here's a list of 16 movies, and there's a weird link to Amazon that doesn't really seem to tell you what is expiring when.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:33 PM on November 26, 2014


Oh man, I had totally forgotten just how very much I fucking love Reds.
posted by naoko at 1:42 PM on November 26, 2014


You will probably like Interstellar then because it spends almost as much time visually quoting Reds as it does on 2001.
posted by localroger at 3:29 PM on November 26, 2014


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