
It used to be considered a poor reflection on the quality of a film when it skipped a cinematic release and went ‘straight to video’.
How times have changed. The modern version of this phenomenon is going ‘straight to streaming’, yet heading directly to a subscription service isn’t seen as a negative comment on a film’s worth. Rather, it often speaks to negative market forces and changing audience behaviour.
Indeed, there’s a prevailing sentiment among movie fans, critics and directors that many straight-to-streaming films have been underserved. That respected film makers are being forced to play to a fickle home viewing audience rather than having their work rewarded with the elevated status of a proper run in theatres.
On that last point, we should concede many of these films have technically been given a cinematic run of sorts. However, they’re typically extremely limited showings, both in terms of timing and in the sheer number of theatres.
In many cases, such cinematic runs exist solely and cynically to qualify them for awards consideration, or else to satisfy the demands of the filmmakers, who invariably wish their work to be experienced on the big screen.
All of which should tell you the following is no mere round-up of modern B-movies, but rather a collection of brilliant films that happened to get their financing from the new power brokers in Hollywood: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, and Apple TV Plus.
20 straight to streaming movies that you need to see
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Jon Mundy is a freelance writer with more than a dozen years of experience writing for leading tech websites such as TechRadar and Trusted Reviews.