Remember direct-to-video movies? Fare like (with Mila Kunis and Williams Shatner), 5-10, 5-19(!), They weren't all bad, but a lot of them were...
not good. The rise of streaming has had an interesting effect on the market, as content-hungry streaming services began premiering big budget movies that would have previously played in theaters, and the pandemic only accelerated the trend. While playing in theaters still gives films a certain legitimacy, many excellent movies have never played on those 100-foot screens.
Though they may have played on the festival circuit, or saw a brief limited release (just enough to make them eligible for the big awards), the following 30 worthwhile movies all skipped theaters entirely in favor dropping directly on one of big streamers. With its first original film, , Netflix attempted to pioneer a model that fell apart almost immediately. The Idris Elba-led film about a child soldier in West Africa certainly seemed like a movie that could have done well in theaters, so the streamer released the movie simultaneously in theaters and what was then its on-demand service.
The problem was: Theaters hated that idea, and the large chains boycotted the film. Nevertheless, it’s a searing portrait of the human cost of war, one that deserved a better thought-out release. Netflix Good horror scares us; great horror stays with us, reminding us that the most frightening stuff lives outside the panels of the TV or movie screen.
works both as an effective chill.
