Looking for recommendations.
What great films (either great cinema or really good flicks count here) do you know of that are available to “watch instantly” at netflix?
-FrL-
Off the top of my head and in no particular order:
No Country for Old Men
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Vertigo
The Hudsucker Proxy
No longer off the top of my head:
Horse Feathers as well as several other Marx Bros. movies.
**Apocalypto **(I haven’t seen it yet, but it seems high profile enough for this list.)
The Brothers Solomon (Doesn’t fit your criteria. It’s a Dumb and Dumber type comedy. But with more heart. And Will Arnett. And Will Forte.)
I haven’t gotten around to it yet but I know Pan’s Labyrinth is on there.
I watched “Fiddler on the Roof” (for the first time) a few months ago.
Movies I know are available on Watch Instantly that I’d rate very good to great:
Tootsie
Victor Victoria
Casablanca
Young Frankenstein
Glory
1776
Dangerous Liaisons
Emma
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mine
Gentlemen’s Agreement
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Groundhog Day
Kramer vs. Kramer
L.A. Confidential
Little Shop of Horrors (musical version)
Midnight Run
Ratatouille
To Kill a Mockingbird
When Harry Met Sally
Barry Lyndon
Desk Set
Crossing Delancy
A Fish Called Wanda
Ghostbusters
The Music Man
Ordinary People
Remains of the Day
Roxanne
sex, lies and videotape
Silence of the Lambs
Caberet
The Way We Were
Philadelphia
Singin’ in the Rain
A Streetcar Named Desire
Vertigo
A Clockwork Orange
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Empire of the Sun
Absence of Malice
Chariots of Fire
Julia
Network
Avalon
Judgment at Nuremberg
Mississippi Burning
Biloxi Blues
Radio Days
Crimes and Misdemeanors
The Piano
The Caine Mutiny
Inherit the Wind
Meet John Doe
Oliver
84 Charing Cross Road
Gilda
Watch Instantly is awesome. Great TV shows too (Yes Minister, Good Neighbors/Life, 30 Rock, The Office etc.
Checking my netflix queue (in no particular order):
Aguirre: The Wrath of God
March of the Penguins
Bringing up Baby
The Lost Weekend
Tootsie
All Quiet on the Western Front
It Happened One Night
Ma Vie en Rose
Mad Max
The Road Warrior
Escape From New York
Dial M for Murder
His Girl Friday
Harvey
In Cold Blood
Straw Dogs
The Lady From Shanghi
Being There
Evil Dead
The Black Cat
There ya go. Not a clunker in the bunch.
This reminds me, my wife watched Disney’s Enchanted on the Instant thingie the other weekend.
When it was announced that Netflix was going to stream Watch Instantly to the Xbox 360 I was excited… After finishing all the seasons of 30 Rock and getting caught-up to the present and attempting to find something else to watch, I quickly realized 90% of the WI content is utter crap. I really hope they get some better content in there (and more movies released this decade).
How does this watching instantly thing work? Can you watch the movie as many times as you want in a certain amount of time? Do you have to do this while your movies are returned?
In order to directly contradict BrandonR as much as possible:
In addition to what has already been listed you also have
Bullit
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
My Darling Clementne
The Lady Eve
Pickup on South Street
The Barefoot Contessa
The Palm Beach Story
A Man for All Seasons
The Naked Spur
Caramel
Gone Baby Gone
Perfect Blue
Michael Collins
Red Dawn
Crimson Tide
Holiday Inn
Firestarter
Boiler Room
The Brothers McMullen
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
All of which are good movies too, just not as good as the ones on my original list.
Basically, if you have a Netflix subscription (I think any sub – my wife can use it and she’s on the 1 movie at a time plan) then you can choose to watch any films in the Watch Instantly catalog on your computer. No limits to how many films or how many times. You do need to use IE to watch though since their viewer isn’t compatible with Firefox.
When they first announced it was available to subscribers, most of the films were real dogs – skin-romps from the 1970’s, barely popular TV shows and crap like that. Now they’re adding a lot more classic stuff and recent hits (as seen in this thread).
If you like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Orphanage is also available on Watch Instantly.
One question, though. I haven’t tried to watch a foreign language film this way. Is it in its native tongue with English subtitles? (I don’t watch foreign films with translated voice acting; I want the native language and subtitles).
I can only speak for one movie that I watched (“Paris, Je t’aime”) but that had subtitles. It might be a special case, though, as parts of it were in English, as well.
Another great View Instantly title is “The King of Kong”.
Actually, there’s a beta available that lets you use Firefox, and even watch on a Mac.
I’ve been using the Beta for a few weeks. The biggest benefit is not having to use IE/Windows (obviously). The interface is slightly better. For example, when you click on the position bar and drag it, you see a series of static screenshot images that scroll as you move. Very handy for finding the right place.
However, the video quality is not quite as good as it was, in my opinion. I notice more compression artifacts, especially in fast-motion scenes, and the colors aren’t as rich. There may be a way to adjust that, but I don’t know what it is.
It’s a net positive for me because I don’t have to run Windows on my Mac anymore, but it’s not an improvement across the board.
Note that, as far as I can tell, you can’t go back to the old system once you’ve signed up for the beta.
After reading the titles on this thread, I think BrandonR easily wins the title of Dope’s Harshest Critic. Dude, what do you like?
The also have Alien, and The Thing.
I use the Roku Netflix Player, works like a champ. I wished it also supported playing movies from a USB drive or shared network path though. They’re talking of open sourcing parts of the player, perhaps it will get added.
I think this part is the key:
Someone unable to enjoy older films would probably find WI frustrating. Although I’d think several films (like No Country…, Pan’s Labyrinth and Gone Baby Gone) would meet his standards. Personally the lists above have only made me love the service even more. Recently they got a huge influx of content thanks to a partnerhsip with the Starz network, which seems to have added hundreds and hundreds of formerly unavailable movies.
The one downside is that these Starz films have a noticeably lousy quality. When watching Biloxi Blues I was surprised at how out-of-focus the film was. Not sure why this should be, but in any event, I’m not complaining much – they’re free and available on demand. Good stuff either way. Plus there’s all the TV available: L&O: SVU, Coupling, Poirot, Campion, Dr. Who, documentaries, and so on.
For those who don’t like to (or can’t) use IE, I’ll give you the same tip I was given, which made me a very very happy camper: If you use Firefox, go download the extension IE Tab. It lets you emulate IE and, as a result, watch Netflix on your Firefox.
This was a lifesaver to me, 'cause for some reason I can’t watch Netflix movies in my IE – I used to be able to, but about nine months ago the films started freezing up my IE7 browser whenever I tried to launch them. Maybe they updated their player and for some reason it became incompatible with my setup. Anyway, some very kind doper pointed me to IE Tab and I’ve been able to watch on FF ever since. 
For the crushing grip of nature you have to go Aguirre, the Wrath of God that is if you can get over reading subtitles of Germans acting as Spanish Conquistadors.
If you have some time Once Upon a Time in America is worthwhile.
And of course, Cannibal, The Musical (or Alfred Packer: The Musical, as originally titled).
The Netflix insta-watch chops have been greatly improved with their little deal with Starz. It’s like having an extra cable channel for free.