The People Who Still Love Renting DVDs From Netflix

Chris Stokel-Walker

For you, the start of an evening in front of Netflix might begin with the tudum jingle. But for some, it still starts with opening a small red envelope. Not for long. The end of Netflix's DVD rental business might be long overdue, but for some it was Netflix—and for all of us, its demise is a reminder that streaming captures just a tiny fraction of the movie industry's storied history. Soon, that will be much harder to find.

"My parents subscribed to Netflix way back when it was just DVDs," says Jeff Landale, who works in the digital rights and privacy space. While Landale and his brother moved to Netflix's streaming service some time ago, their parents—in their late sixties and early seventies, and living outside Boston—still treasured the mail-order service.

As well as providing them with entertainment for regular movie nights, Landale's parents will also miss Netflix's DVD service for another reason. They care for Landale's grandmother, who suffers from major health care issues, including a decline in memory. "One of the big things they’re asking me is to help them find where they can get movies and TV shows from when my grandma was a lot younger," he says. "They’re trying to find stuff they can watch with her that, given her memory issues, is familiar and easier for her to follow along with."

Netflix, founded in 1997, became a streaming service only in 2007. Since its launch, the company has shipped more than 5.2 billion DVDs to 40 million customers. Netflix's most popular movie by mail is the Sandra Bullock–led book adaptation The Blind Side, which profiles Michael Oher's rise to play in the NFL. But Netflix won't reach the 6 billion DVDs shipped number.

The market for physical media such as DVDs still exists, though it's rapidly shrinking. DVD sales are in double-digit year-on-year declines, according to Tony Gunnarsson, principal analyst of TV, video, and advertising at Omdia. In 2021, Technicolor Home Entertainment Services, which produces more than 80 percent of every disc-based format around, still shipped around 750 million discs, including DVDs, to market. The company was renamed Vantiva in September 2022. While Vantiva has decreased disc production to meet lower demand, according to its 2022 financial results, the company still produces hundreds of millions of discs, including DVDs, every year.

Still, Gunnarsson thinks that Netflix's decision is something that could mark a major shift in the fortunes of companies that produce DVDs—and that this might be the beginning of the end for the format.

The death knell for DVDs has long been predicted, and repeatedly. In 2002, people thought Wal-Mart starting to rent DVDs in-store would kill off Netflix's mail-order service; in reality, the supermarket's foray into the rental business lasted just three years. In 2006, Apple and Amazon launching their streaming video platforms was enough for some to call time on DVDs by mail. And Netflix's own tentative pivot to streaming in 2007 fired the starting gun on a real decline in mail rentals. But the fact it's taken until 2023 for Netflix to call time on this arm of its business is a vindication of how keenly some people cherish—and need—physical media.

The end of Netflix's DVD rental service doesn't just cut off people who’ve not made the switch to streaming, it also cuts all of us off from tens of thousands of films. Netflix reportedly had around 100,000 titles for rent on DVD, adding new titles monthly (11 new titles were added in April 2023 alone). That's far more than the 6,200 or so titles currently available on the US version of Netflix, according to one estimate.

As well as being a shallower pool of content, it also draws from a narrower range. Want to watch a movie from the 1940s, the decade that gave the world classics like Citizen Kane, The Third Man, and It's a Wonderful Life? You’re out of luck on Netflix's streaming service: Zero movies from the decade are available at present. The only recognizable movie out of the four from the 1950s available to stream right now is White Christmas. A movie fan sitting down twice a week in front of Netflix would even exhaust the platform's collection of 1990s movies within a year.

"There were a better range of films, especially what some would call art films and classic films, on the Netflix DVD service," says Dan Therriault, screenwriter of HBO series First Time Felon. "Those films most likely will not appear on the streaming service. Audiences seeking that cinematic experience will have to go elsewhere," says Therriault, who subscribed to Netflix DVDs in the late 1990s but shifted over to the streaming service a few years ago. "Which is what the company was pushing people to do," he says. It's that rich depth of content that Landale's parents and grandmother will also most keenly miss. "I don't think there are any movie rental places nearby," Landale says. "Netflix seemed to kill off most of those."

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