By the mid-2010s, as streaming options such as Prime and Netflix supplanted physical media, I began to sense that the central promise of streaming – every movie or show ever, available at your fingertips – was false. Too many great films are inaccessible. In 2017, I wrote about Netflix’s abysmal catalogue of classic films to stream. As of 2023, the US service offers just 35 movies released before 1980. Far more are available to rent on Amazon, but certainly not everything. Many culturally significant films, like Pink Flamingos(1972) or Rebecca(1940), remain mysteriously unstreamable.


Meanwhile, streaming content seems increasingly disposable because the corporate powers treat it as such. In the US, HBO Max (soon to be Max) recently removed a handful of its own original films and shows, including The Witches (2020) and An American Pickle (2020), starring Seth Rogen. If HBO Max can’t even be trusted to care for and preserve its own original movies, how can it be trusted to care about anyone else’s?

We were told that “everything’s on streaming now”. We thought we’d have access to 120 years of cinema history. Instead, we have access only to the content that can be readily and easily monetised, trapped in garish and unreliable platforms. There’s no guarantee your favourite movie will still be streaming next month. It feels as if the internet’s vast early possibility has shrunk.