What Was the First Movie I Got From Netflix?
An investigation
I can tell you the first thing I got from Blockbuster’s DVD-by-mail service. That would be the first disc of the first season of Breaking Bad. I had gotten some deal wherein I had the Blockbuster one for a month for super cheap, and I burned through the first two seasons of Breaking Bad (season three was currently airing, I had started watching the show, and I needed to catch up). Fortunately, there was a Blockbuster not too far from me, so I could churn through those DVD faster than through Netflix. I basically had a Blockbuster account but with digital reservation capacity. I got through Breaking Bad so swiftly I even was able to get the first disc of Eureka, but that show sucked so I didn’t bother with anymore.
What I have tried to remember for years, though, is what the first movie I got from Netflix is. I couldn’t tell you the last one I got on DVD, and I don’t think I could parse that. I’m almost certain it’s from when I was in LA, and that I no longer had it when I moved back to Detroit. The last movie I got on Netflix before my move to LA was Three Amigos!. I put it in my parents’ mailbox the next morning, got in my car, and drove my ass to a hotel in Iowa.
Good movie!
I believe, though, I could possibly figure out what the first movie I got from Netflix is. After all, I remember the second movie I got in that red sleeve in my mailbox. Stroszek, the Werner Herzog movie. It seemed so strange and interesting and Herzog was such a venerated director of “independent film.” I was still in college at this time, I do believe. However, I thought it pretty much sucked. Stroszek bored me to tears. I have never seen a Herzog movie I like at this point, and I have no intention of watching anymore of his movies.
The third film I got through Netflix was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which helps me locate when this was in time. That movie, a slight but enjoyable sci-fi comedy, came out in April 2005. I got Netflix either as a birthday gift or a Christmas gift, but I believe I was already living in the condo I moved into during college, and that happened in 2006. I was there until I moved to LA, so I could have in theory got Netflix later, but I doubt Hitchhiker’s Guide would have been so high up the queue for me by even 2007, much less 2008.
Trillian was so adorkable!
The question I need to parse is if my first DVD from Netflix was a new release or a classic I had not gotten to yet. To that end, it is possible, possible, that Goodfellas was the first movie I got through Netflix. I know that was an early Netflix-er for me, and I know in 2004 I saw The Aviator in theaters. I also saw The Departed in theaters in 2006. Could I have, with the intent of catching up on Scorsese movies, grabbed Goodfellas first? Especially since at some point in my collegiate studies I saw Mean Streets and Taxi Driver? At one point I DVDed Raging Bull as well. I watched Gangs of New York on, like, Bravo or some shit. Did Bravo at some point in the 2000s show movies unedited? Maybe it was on another channel.
This is where clarity of memory becomes an issue. I can’t saw for certain that Goodfellas was first or fourth or fifth. I know it was early in my Netflixing days. Also, I was not thinking to myself, “I need to remember this for posterity.” I remember Stroszek and Hitchhiker’s Guide out of happenstance. Probably because the former wasn’t any good and the latter I remember getting a phone call during watching.
I was at home, alone, so it wasn’t like this. I’m just glad they have prop old-timey popcorn buckets available for stock photos.
In 2004, I saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in theaters four times. It remains one of my favorites - a Letterboxd top four movie - and could have got me to track down some more. I know I borrowed The Royal Tenenbaums from my friend Dave, mostly because I still have his DVD of that movie. Dave isn’t reading this, but I thank him nonetheless. I “totally forgot” to give it back to him, and he said “Don’t worry about it” in a way that made it clear he knew that was bullshit, but he was copacetic about it. The Darjeeling Limited wouldn’t have been in play, but maybe I grabbed Rushmore? Bottle Rocket was later. Also, I had seen parts of Tenenbaums and Rushmore prior to Life Aquatic flooring me, but I needed to real dive in. That wasn’t an intended pun (Zissou being a deep-sea explorer) and it was so much an unintended pun I legit considered rewriting that sentence.
Trying to pull other pursuant-to-my-interests and totemic movies that could have been the first one is tricky. I studied film in college, so I know several movies I saw through that. Citizen Kane, for example. Casablanca I watched on TCM. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest I saw in a class in either seventh or eighth grade. Yes, really. The Killing Fields, too! That may have been 10th grade, though. As such, my best hope is to look at the movies of 2004 and 2005 and see if anything would have grabbed me as a “DVD that first!”
Here’s the thing, though! I worked at a movie theater in 2004, and I had a friend who worked at a movie theater in 2005. This is how I was able to do chill, normal stuff like seeing Starsky & Hutch and Grandma’s Boy in theaters three times. I also went to shit like Capote and Kill Bill Vol. 2, though. Even then, I had expansive cinematic tastes. Still, let me take a look…
I don’t think so. I also checked 2003 just to be sure. There are a few movies I know I Netflixed, but I don’t think I would have been so animated as to make any of them my first movie. I was probably like, “Gotta see Team America: World Police!” but I was never such a South Park guy as to imagine making that my first Netflix movie. And if it had been a movie that disappointed me like The Squid and the Whale (a real piece of shit) or Lost in Translation (zzzzzzz) I believe I would have remembered it being my first Netflixed movie.
At some point I watched Batman Begins, but I doubt it was first up. If I had been that interested in it, I would have seen it in theaters. It was 2005, after all. I saw the god damn third Star Wars prequel in theaters because a friend wanted to go. Batman Begins would have been in the cards on that front. Additionally, I was, and am, lukewarm on Rushmore. I think that would have been enough for me to be slightly disenchanted with that being my first Netflix movie. Would slight disenchantment lock this fact into my memory? Of course! Human memory is built upon negative emotions!
What if, after all this time, it has been Goodfellas? It’s the one I know I watched early on that I haven’t been able to place. It would have made sense for me to get to it early. Maybe it was the first through the gate. I can’t say I have answered this question, but were it to be asked of my, I could reasonably say, “Probably Goodfellas.” And I would speak in italics, just like that. I can definitely tell you the movie I watched when I had Norovirus and felt like I was going to die, though: Wreck-it Ralph.