Stanley Donen, the legendary director behind Singin’ in the Rain, Funny Face, Charade, and Bedazzled, died Saturday at the age of 94. Here’s where you can’t stream any of his most iconic and influential films right now, or even any of his minor and regrettable ones: Fuckin’ Netflix. The streaming service, which describes itself as “the world’s leading internet entertainment service” offers absolutely no movies directed by Stanley Donen. No other streaming service offers its customers less Stanley Donen for their dollar than Netflix. Not even Hulu! Here’s how streaming services stack up, when it comes to Donen:
Netflix
Nothing. Zero. Zippo. Zilch. Not a single goddamed movie by Stanley Donen. This company is obviously managed by sadists and fools who will gleefully take your $12.99 a month for access to filmed entertainment and then decide to not include any Stanley Donen movies. What the fuck, Netflix? Get it together. This is real life.
Hulu
Hulu’s chief advantage here is that it is not Netflix. On Hulu, you can watch exactly one Stanley Donen movie, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, if you subscribe to the Hulu + Live TV option at additional cost. The service costs $39.99 a month, while a brand new Blu-ray of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers costs $17.23 right now on Amazon, so this may not be the most economical way to spend your Stanley Donen dollar. But by offering a way to spend money to watch anything by Stanley Donen, Hulu at least edges out Netflix.
Netflix
We are all embarrassed for you today, Netflix. You should feel bad too.
Amazon Prime
Hey, finally a company that assumes that someone who pays a monthly fee to watch movies might be interested in watching movies from the guy who made Singin’ in the Rain! Amazon offers a patchy selection, but that’s better than no selection at all. An Amazon Prime subscription currently includes Royal Wedding and Charade, both of which are essential Donen movies. It also includes Movie Movie, Saturn 3, and Blame it on Rio, one of which is an essential Martin Amis movie. And for an additional cost, you can rent Funny Face, Indiscreet, The Grass Is Greener, Two for the Road, and The Little Prince. But no matter how much money you pay Jeff Bezos, he won’t show you a streaming version of Singin’ in the Rain, because Amazon’s “agreements with the content provider don’t allow purchases of this title at this time.” If your agreements don’t allow purchases of Singin’ in the Rain at this time, your agreements are going to have to change.
Netflix
REGARDING YOUR STANLEY DONEN SELECTIONS, YOU ARE BLOWING IT!!
DVD.com, A Netflix Company
Remember when Netflix decided this service was so worthless that they were going to name it Qwikster and sell it off to the highest bidder? What they were really saying, apparently, was that they wanted to cultivate a new customer base that loathed Stanley Donen movies as much as they did, because if you still use physical media, DVD.com currently offers fifteen Stanley Donen options: On the Town, Royal Wedding, Singin’ in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, It’s Always Fair Weather, Funny Face, The Pajama Game, Indiscreet, Damn Yankees, The Grass Is Greener, Charade, Arabesque, Two For the Road, Bedazzled, and Moonlighting Season 3, which includes Donen’s episode. It wouldn’t be a Netflix company if it weren’t infuriating, however, which is why The Little Prince, Saturn 3, and Blame It On Rio are listed in DVD.com’s special “we no longer offer this DVD and will never offer it again, but you can add it if you’d like a painful reminder of the decline of physical media every time you open your queue” status.
Netflix
Get the fuck out of here with this “no Stanley Donen movies” nonsense, Netflix.
iTunes
iTunes offers 17 Stanley Donen projects to rent or purchase and stream instantly, allowing people with deep pockets to watch the biggest collection of Donen movies of any streaming media company. But while it wins in sheer volume, and includes some of Amazon’s unforgivable gaps like Singin’ in the Rain, it’s still a much worse selection than DVD.com. You won’t find The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, Arabesque, or the original Bedazzled here. What you will find is a service that will let you exchange money for the right to watch some of Stanley Donen’s greatest films right this second, instead of whenever the DVDs arrive, which is astonishingly rare.
Netflix
You’ve got money to make new seasons of Full House but you don’t have money to license Singin’ in the Rain. Your names are being erased from the Book of Life even as we speak.
YouTube
YouTube offers a similar selection as iTunes, with one very important exception: it also has this free, embeddable version of Donen’s complete music video for Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling.”
That would be an unbeatable advantage against other streaming services, even if that were the only Donan they offered. But YouTube also offers the complete music video for Starship’s “We Built This City” and hours and hours of neckbeards rambling about Jordan Peterson. Advantage, iTunes.
Netflix
Unforgiveable.
