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Netflix's 10 Most Popular Rentals of All Time Reveals White, Joyless Thirty-Something Subscriber Base

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Miscellaneous | Comments (33)

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Netflix has just released a list of the ten most rented movies in its history, ironically timed considering that the movie rental business will soon fall under the Quikster label. It’s not a very eclectic list of movies; in fact, it’s basically the top ten movies of all time as ranked by Stuff White People Like, and in the case of the top two, Stuff White People Like Because It Makes Them Feel Racially Conscious. The only reason The Help doesn’t top the list is because The Help hasn’t been released yet.

And yes: I love five through 10, as well. But that’s because I’m a joyless thirty-something white person. However, only one among the top ten fits among our Whitest Films of All Time list. Notable actors included: Leonardo DiCaprio (2), Sandra Bullock (2), Jack Nicholson (2), and Robert Downey, Jr. (2).

10. No Country for Old Men

9. Iron Man

8. Inception

7. Sherlock Holmes

6. The Departed

5. The Hurt Locker

4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

3. The Bucket List

2. Crash

1. The Blind Side










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Comments

So I'm guessing porn didn't count?

Posted by: cinekat at October 3, 2011 8:34 AM

Anne Hathaway needs to find a way onto this list because she's the blandest, whitest thing ever. She's like a Rice Krispies Treat.

And how is Crash on any list that isn't "Horrible Movies That Should Have Been Forgotten Long Ago"?

Anne Hathaway should be in Crash.

Posted by: klingonfree at October 3, 2011 8:40 AM

10. No Country for Old Men

Well made, but as an old man, it made want to kill myself. Not what I call entertainment.

Posted by: Meander at October 3, 2011 9:07 AM

As I scrolled down the list I was all, "Uh-huh, yep, OK, sure, got it, yes, eh..whaaaa?....nope...HUH???"

Posted by: Kolby at October 3, 2011 9:14 AM

4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I'm guessing Netflix also had a large base of insomniacs.

Posted by: Sherri at October 3, 2011 9:31 AM

I recently watched The Blind Side (hey, no judgment - I just had a baby and was dosed on Percocet!). I could not BELIEVE how bad it was.

Posted by: samantha t at October 3, 2011 9:55 AM

Seriously whats wrong with this list? There are great movies on this list. Some great entertainment like Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes and critical darlings like Inception, Departed, and The Hurt Locker. This is an amazingly good list for a most popular list. This is complaining for the sake of complaining.

Posted by: logan at October 3, 2011 10:07 AM

You have 7 best picture nominees, 3 winners on this list. Most of the movies are damn solid, and even the ones that aren't exactly my cup of tea are damn popular. How exactly does it fit into a "Stuff White People Like" category? Because The Blind Side and Crash are ostensibly about "White Man's guilt"? I guess I missed that subtext in Inception, Sherlock Holmes, Iron Man, etc.

Am I the only one that flat out fucking hates that "Stuff White People Like" hipster bullshit? It's not funny, it's not observant, it's racist. And not just to whites because each pithy observation is a fucking backhanded compliment.

You guys are usually better than this.

Posted by: TylerDFC at October 3, 2011 10:21 AM

as far as i know, at least half the movies in this list did well all over the world--it might just be stuff people like.

i never quite get the self-deprecating and demeaning about either being white or what white people like. something like three quarters of the population is white, so without any analysis or snark, i would expect it might very well reflect things white people liked.

the list is also comprised of a variety of genres, themes and moods, so the whole concept of this little post is lazy and banal and baseless. good start to the week guys!

Posted by: idleprimate at October 3, 2011 10:22 AM

@ Logan

Yeah. What's your point?

Posted by: MurderBot at October 3, 2011 10:22 AM

There is clearly too much stuff inside Leo DiCaprio's head. It's huge. Somebody put a valve on that shit because it's about to explode.

Either that or let us see the bottom of that image, because I bet if you scrolled down you'd eventually see the old man from Up standing in a doorway in Leo's torso.

Posted by: zeke the pig at October 3, 2011 10:24 AM

My point is for a most popular list, not best movies of all time, that's a damn good list. It has nothing to do with being white, joyless and thirtysomething.

Posted by: logan at October 3, 2011 10:28 AM

4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

3. The Bucket List

2. Crash

1. The Blind Side

That has EVERYTHING to do with being white, joyless and thirtysomething. Also functionally retarded. I say functionally because you have to use a computer. Mind you my two year old can use a computer well enough to accidentally order some shit and even she wouldn't choose one of those voluntarily.

Posted by: admin at October 3, 2011 10:39 AM

Listen here. Complaining for the sake of complaining is a time-honoured tradition on the internet and I won't have it belittled by anyone who hasn't had their spirit crushed by life yet!

Posted by: MurderBot at October 3, 2011 10:39 AM

Forgive me Murderbot I'm not hateful and soulless. I tried to be bitter like the cool kids but I kept slipping up and smiling. Which only seemed to enrage them further...

Posted by: logan at October 3, 2011 10:50 AM

4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

3. The Bucket List

2. Crash

1. The Blind Side

That has EVERYTHING to do with being white, joyless and thirtysomething.

Not that I like (or have even seen) any of the above movies, but my guess is that if you made a list of the top ten movies blacks have rented from Netflix, it would consist of Media movies and others of that nature.

I'd rather watch the bland white list than the Media movies.

Posted by: Kerminy at October 3, 2011 11:06 AM

Sometimes I feel sorry for whitey, between trying to uphold that sense of superiority and trying to disown Dane Cook, and I’m not even going to mention Rick Perry and his family’s hunting lodge. I don’t where you guys get the strength to get out of bed in the morning. But look on the bright side, Kevin Smith is on the comeback trail, baby!

Posted by: Pookie at October 3, 2011 11:11 AM

Yeesh. Lots of cranky people here this morning.

Posted by: klingonfree at October 3, 2011 11:50 AM

As none of these are available (at not least when I canceled my Netflix subscription a few months ago) living in the Great White North. I guess it can be concluded that Canada is "joyless thirty-something white people" free!

Posted by: reaperslogic at October 3, 2011 12:32 PM

something like three quarters of the population is white

Hmmm. Massive generalization FAIL.

I'm a joyless white thirty-something, and I've only seen five out of these ten, and only one in the top five. Also, Stuff White People Like is funny cuz it's trrrrrue! (Yeah, OK, it's dumb... but it's also true.)

Posted by: MM at October 3, 2011 1:08 PM

You spelled Qwikster (UGH) incorrectly.

Posted by: appwitch at October 3, 2011 1:15 PM

Posted by: idleprimate at October 3, 2011 1:17 PM

@idleprimate: Actually, if you look at the most recent U.S. Census estimates (2009), and you realize that the category called "White" on the U.S. Census also includes all people who identify as "Hispanic or Latino", meaning that someone we might colloquially refer to as "a Mexican" would be included in that "White" number (while your friendly neighborhood racist would definitely not consider said Mexican "white"), you see that the number is actually approximately 65%. Which, granted, is still a sizeable majority.

Table is: here

The numbers you want to look at are at the bottom: Total U.S. population of 307,006,550 vs "White alone" (and you can look at the U.S. Census' explanation of what that means) of 199,851,240.

However, the overwhelming fail of the generalization, in my mind, is that the beginning of your comment says, "People all over the world like these movies." Then you say, "the population [sic] is like 75% white", without identifying *what* population you were referring to. And obviously, the population of the world is more than 75% very not-white.

Posted by: MM at October 3, 2011 1:45 PM

I like number 10. Most of you all have some horrible taste though. No offense.

Posted by: googergieger at October 3, 2011 1:49 PM

I believe the subtext to this post is "NETFLIX PLEASE BUY MORE ADVERTISING ON MY SITE!!"

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at October 3, 2011 1:58 PM

my mistake MM. Depending on how one defines white(which isnt a culture, nationality, ethnicity, or even a well defined skin-tone), 65-80% of Americans are white.

I was unclear about what population I was referring to, my bad again. i was thinking that probably most pajiba readers are american, and netflix subscribers would refer to americans.

i found racially profiling movies a little offensive and uninteresting, even if just for chuckles (??). I get the 'we can all poke fun at ourselves once in a while' arguments. but i feel weary of the 'boy, aren't white people square/boring/bland/racist/evil'. at very best, you could call that low hanging fruit. and i will repeat, lazy.

what's even worse is the humour fails due to the selection of films(commenters had some better notions of whitey movies that fit the 'joke'). comic book movies are white? fantasy films? comedies? critical of war movies? noirs? hamhanded attempts to address racism is white? perhaps everything falls in the category of white movies. I don't know, what are non-white movies then? drug gangs and fat suits? the whole thing is just a bit yuck.

picking movies that have been popular the world over, i.e., just as popular in non-white majority countries as in North America was one dig i was making. The other dig was that it is really boring to talk about how 'white' the most popular rentals were in a country with a majority of white citizens.

maybe I am just cranky this morning, but racial humour, as someone pointed out sometimes does just unconsciously perpetuate divisions and sterotypes not to mention, assimilate. is anime white and nerdy? Is Morgan Freeman not 'urban' enough and he is now part of the joyless white menu?

Again, I guess this post was supposed to be funny. It just isn't. It is petty, juvenile and supportive of racial profiling and negative racial stereotyping

Posted by: idleprimate at October 3, 2011 3:37 PM

I'm with googergieger on this one. The list makes me wonder about people's true intelligence. Judging from it I could sit atop a skyscraper in a lawn chair and rule the world.

Posted by: Obst N. Gemuse at October 3, 2011 4:09 PM

Huh. As a card-carrying, stupid-stuff-liking white person (ha ha, just kidding, they'd never make *us* carry cards), I tend to feel that the more white people can make fun of ourselves, and the more we can see the humor / occasional truth when non-white people make fun of us, the better. After all, we've been making fun of everyone else with abundant pigmentation on the planet for hundreds of years now. We ought to be able to take it.

Plus, I love it when Pookie makes fun of white people. Cuz it's true!!

Posted by: MM at October 3, 2011 6:02 PM

I like two movies(I'm torn on a third one) on this list but I'm black so a partial case has been proven correct as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by: Candy at October 3, 2011 10:51 PM

why the frag is The Blind side on here? it's no wonder that Netflix is a soul-less entity now.

Posted by: Lord-ninja at October 3, 2011 11:20 PM


a really dumb post........ by dustin no less. black guys couldn't
enjoy " no country for old men " or " the departed "?

you patronize minorities in the guise of being super cool ... a
really dumb post...

Posted by: snake at October 4, 2011 1:03 AM

"4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

3. The Bucket List

2. Crash

1. The Blind Side

That has EVERYTHING to do with being white, joyless and thirtysomething. Also functionally retarded. I say functionally because you have to use a computer. Mind you my two year old can use a computer well enough to accidentally order some shit and even she wouldn't choose one of those voluntarily. "

Nooooo.. that has everything to do with adding a few 'unhappy compromise' movies to your list to shut the missus up when she starts moaning about having to watch Iron man again.

Posted by: Conorhal at October 4, 2011 9:15 AM

Hey, it's Logan! He's bitching about this site! What a twist!

Posted by: bbmcrae at October 8, 2011 7:30 PM