Netflix will be celebrating movies turning 20 to 50 years old with their Milestone Movies Collection to debut on the streaming service, the company announced Wednesday. The first spate of 14 films will celebrate features from 1974 that are turning 50, including Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” Jack Nicholson in “Chinatown,” and Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.”
Subsequent refreshes of the curated list will add movies from 1984, 1994 and 2004 to celebrate their respective milestone anniversaries will happen in April, July and October.
In addition to the titles being available on the service, Netflix will hold special in-person screenings of select films at the Paris Theatre in New York and the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, both of which the film company owns, starting in March.
This is a unique move for Netflix, which is often criticized on social media for its lack of Old Hollywood content. As previously reported by TheWrap, it’s an issue that goes back back to 2017 when the streamer had only 43 pre-1970s movies on its entire service, as Newsweek pointed out. As it stood in November of 2023, when the Egyptian first opened, the Netflix “Classic Film” section promoted only one pre-1970s feature: 1954’s “White Christmas.”
Netflix Film Chairman Scott Stuber told TheWrap during the opening of the Egyptian that the hope was that audiences would want to see the classic films that inspire their favorite contemporary directors. “When you do a screening here and I can get David Fincher to show a ’70s movie and talk about what interested him it gives it a new vibe,” Stuber said. “So it doesn’t feel like a black and white 1938 movie, but it understands why that piece of storytelling influences today’s storytellers.”
The first run of Milestone Movies celebrating 1974 will be available on Netflix starting today.
