The rub and paradox about Netflix is that the company is a streaming business, first and foremost. The company and the move towards streaming at home have made many critical about how streamers have killed or hurt the theatrical experience. While incontestably true, the phenomenon is not specific to Netflix, nor is it the company’s aim to destroy the theatrical experience (or any streamers). Netflix has bought key movie theaters in New York and L.A.— the Paris Theater in New York and Los Angeles’ Egyptian and Bay—and they used those both as repertory theaters and as a way to screen and highlight Netflix titles on the big screen.
Obviously, some will criticize the move as part of their growing monopoly, but the reality is, or perhaps the more complicated answer is that many of the people who work and program at Netflix are movie lovers first and foremost and doing what they can to help celebrate movies, and even (wait for it), do what they can to help contribute to the ongoing efforts of most cinephiles to encourage a curiosity into the history of classic cinema.
Some of you will be cynical about it no matter what, but their latest initiative is pretty cool, and at the very least, it’s hard to argue that the lineup of film features is pretty great.
Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection centers on classic movies released in 1974, turning 50 this year. Starting this month on Netflix in the U.S., you can watch a robust roster of movies released in 1974 and turning the big 5-0 this year. More offerings from 1984 (turning 40), 1994 (turning 30), and 2004 (yes, this is already somehow 20 years ago) will follow in April, July, and October, respectively.
Again, if you’re skeptical, fine, but hey, this list of classic films added to the streamer— stone-cold classics by Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Shigehiro Ozawa, Mel Brooks, Robert Clouse, and more is pretty undeniably great. Whether it moves the needle for cinema education, well, one convert at a time, right? Every one of these movies is worth watching if you’ve never seen them before.
Here’s Netflix‘s line-up for the Milestone Movies: The Anniversary.
ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
A widowed singer and single mother starts over as a diner waitress in Arizona, befriending her coworkers and romancing a ruggedly handsome rancher.
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
WRITER: Robert Getchell
PRODUCERS: Audrey Maas, David Susskind
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Ellen Burstyn, Jodie Foster, Diane Ladd, Alfred Lutter, Harvey Keitel, Kris Kristofferson, Vic Tayback
DISTRIBUTED BY: Warner Bros. Discovery
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: December 9, 1974
At the 47th Academy Awards, Burstyn won Best Actress
BLACK BELT JONES
High-kicking Black Belt Jones is dispatched to take down a group of Mafia goons trying to muscle in on a downtown karate studio.
DIRECTOR: Robert Clouse
WRITER: Oscar Williams
STORY BY: Fred Weintraub, Alexandra Rose
PRODUCERS: Paul Heller, Fred Weintraub
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Scatman Crothers, Gloria Hendry, Jim Kelly
DISTRIBUTED BY: Warner Bros. Discovery
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: January 28, 1974
BLAZING SADDLES
This gleefully satirical take on Hollywood Westerns follows the tortured trail of a freed slave who’s elected as the sheriff of a racist town.
DIRECTOR: Mel Brooks
WRITERS: Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Alan Uger
STORY BY: Andrew Bergman
PRODUCER: Michael Hertzberg
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Cleavon Little, Slim Pickens, Gene Wilder
DISTRIBUTED BY: Warner Bros. Discovery
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: February 7, 1974
CALIFORNIA SPLIT
Two compulsive gamblers with nothing in common except bad luck discover that they make an unbeatable team and take on the reigning world champion.
DIRECTOR: Robert Altman
WRITERS: Joseph Walsh
PRODUCERS: Joseph Walsh, Robert Altman
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): John Considine, Jeff Goldblum, Elliott Gould, Ann Prentiss, George Segal, Gwen Welles
DISTRIBUTED BY: Sony Pictures
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: August 7, 1974
CHINATOWN
With a suspicious femme fatale bankrolling his snooping, private eye J.J. Gittes uncovers intricate dirty dealings in the Los Angeles waterworks.
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
WRITERS: Robert Towne
PRODUCERS: Robert Evans
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman, John Huston, Perry Lopez, Jack Nicholson, Burt Young
DISTRIBUTED BY: Paramount
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: June 20, 1974
At the 47th Academy Awards, it was nominated for 11 Oscars, with Towne winning Best Original Screenplay.
THE CONVERSATION
An audio surveillance expert faces a moral quandary when he suspects that a couple whose conversation he’s been hired to record will be murdered.
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
WRITERS: Francis Ford Coppola
PRODUCERS: Francis Ford Coppola
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Robert Duvall, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr, Gene Hackman, Cindy Williams
DISTRIBUTED BY: Paramount
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: April 7, 1974
The film received three nominations at the 47th Academy Awards; Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound.
DEATH WISH
After an architect’s wife is murdered and daughter is raped, he seeks vigilante justice against not only the culprits but other wrongdoers as well.
DIRECTOR: Michael Winner
WRITER: Wendell Mayes
BASED ON: Death Wish by Brian Garfield
PRODUCERS: Dino De Laurentiis, Hal Landers, Bobby Roberts
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Charles Bronson, Vincent Gardenia, Christopher Guest, Steven Keats, Hope Lange, William Redfield, Kathleen Tolan
DISTRIBUTED BY: Paramount
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: July 24, 1974.
THE GAMBLER
After a bad run at a casino leaves him $44,000 in debt to a mobster, a professor with a gambling addiction tries in vain to win the money back.
DIRECTOR: Karel Reisz
WRITER: James Toback
PRODUCERS: Irwin Winkler, Robert Chartoff
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Morris Carnovsky, James Caan, Lauren Hutton, Paul Sorvino, Burt Young
DISTRIBUTED BY: Paramount
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: October 2, 1974
THE GREAT GATSBY
Mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, who’s married to unfaithful Tom, making for a tragic love triangle.
DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton
WRITER: Francis Ford Coppola
BASED ON: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
PRODUCERS: David Merrick
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Mia Farrow, Robert Redford, Sam Waterston
DISTRIBUTED BY: Paramount
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: March 29, 1974
The film won two Academy Awards for Best Costume Design (Theoni V. Aldredge) and Best Music (Nelson Riddle).
IT’S ALIVE
Frank and Lenore Davis are an ordinary couple who produce an extraordinary baby — a fanged mutant that sets off on a killing spree to survive.
DIRECTOR: Larry CohenWRITER: Larry Cohen
PRODUCER: Larry Cohen
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Andrew Duggan, Sharon Farrell, John P. Ryan
DISTRIBUTED BY: Warner Bros. Discovery
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: April 26, 1974
THE LITTLE PRINCE
A pilot who’s forced down in the Sahara Desert listens to a boy’s magical stories about distant planets and strange people and animals.
DIRECTOR: Stanley Donen
WRITER: Alan Jay Lerner
BASED ON: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
PRODUCER: Stanley Donen
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Bob Fosse, Richard Kiley, Donna McKechnie, Clive Revill, Steven Warner, Gene Wilder
DISTRIBUTED BY: Paramount
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: November 7, 1974
THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH
In 1957 Brooklyn, two teenage members of the Lords of Flatbush gang face the realities of adulthood in this nostalgic coming-of-age drama notable for its cast of rising stars.
DIRECTOR: Martin Davidson, Stephen F. Verona
WRITER: Martin Davidson, Gayle Gleckler, Stephen Verona, Sylvester Stallone (additional dialogue)
PRODUCER: Stephen F. Verona
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Armand Assante, Susan Blakely, Perry King, Paul Mace, Sylvester Stallone,
Henry Winkler
DISTRIBUTED BY: Sony
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: March 27, 1974
THE PARALLAX VIEW
While investigating the assassination of a leading U.S. senator, a journalist uncovers a conspiracy involving a shadowy multinational corporation.
DIRECTOR: Alan J. Pakula
WRITER: David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr.
BASED ON: The Parallax View by Loren Singer
PRODUCER: Stephen F. Verona
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss
DISTRIBUTED BY: Paramount
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: June 14, 1974
THE STREET FIGHTER (Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken)
Martial arts legend Sonny Chiba stars as tough guy Terry Tsurugi, a ruthless street fighter hired by the Japanese Mafia to kidnap the beautiful heiress of a vast oil fortune, all so that they can take over her family’s estate.
DIRECTOR: Shigehiro Ozawa
WRITER: Kōji Takada, Motohiro Torii
KEY CAST (ALPHABETICAL): Shin’ichi Chiba, Yutaka Nakajima, Goichi Yamada
DISTRIBUTED BY: Sony
INITIAL RELEASE DATE: February 2, 1974