Movies not available on DVD – Quentin Tarantino edition

Director Quentin Tarantino is recommending fans watch 10 influential films ahead of the release of his next movie, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
But there’s a catch – they’re only all available on the Sony Movie Channel, which, like most folks, I don’t get. In my area, the Sony Movie Channel is only offered on satellite TV services DirecTV and Dish and streaming service PlayStation Vue.
The 10 movies Tarantino selected were made during the same era in Hollywood in which his new film is set. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” takes place in 1969 in the Los Angeles area.
Of the 10 movies Tarantino picked, only four are now available for rental from Netflix’s subscription DVD-by-mail service.
Thanks to the first-sale doctrine, if a movie is out on DVD (or high-definition Blu-ray Disc) Netflix can buy it and make it available to its members. But DVDs wear out and can get damaged. And if a movie goes out of print, then those flicks become unavailable.
After reading about Tarantino’s recommendations on IndieWire, I looked to add a few titles to my Netflix DVD queue. Only four were available: “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” (1969), “Easy Rider” (1969), “Model Shop” (1969) and “Getting Straight” (1970). And none were on Netflix’s streaming service.
The movies not available on DVD from Netflix included “Cactus Flower” (1969), “Arizona Raiders” (1965), “The Wrecking Crew” (1969), “Hammerhead” (1968), “Gunman’s Walk” (1958) and “Battle of the Coral Sea” (1959).
Of those, only “Cactus Flower” shows up in the search results on Netflix. It must be out of print however, because it’s been in the “Saved” portion of my rental queue for a long time.
I wanted to check out Dean Martin’s four Matt Helm spy spoof movies but Netflix has none of them. They are “The Silencers” (1966), “Murderers’ Row” (1966), “The Ambushers” (1967) and Tarantino’s pick “The Wrecking Crew.”
Film fans that want to watch these flicks will need to search streaming, digital rental and download services. It’s best to use an aggregator like JustWatch to check availability.
For instance, “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” is available from two streaming services: The Criterion Collection and ad-supported Sony Crackle. You can also buy it or rent it in digital format from Amazon.com, Apple, Google Play and YouTube.
Among the videos not available for streaming, digital rental or purchase are “The Model Shop,” “Hammerhead,” “Battle of the Coral Sea” and “The Wrecking Crew.”
I see “Cactus Flower” is on Amazon Prime so I’ll probably check it out there.
DVD used to be the great equalizer. You could expect to find practically any movie on disc. With the advent of streaming video, that’s changed. Now video availability has splintered across numerous services.

Related reading:

Missing Movies: Why can’t you find so many movies online? (John August; Aug. 15, 2018)

In Search of the Last Great Video Store (The Black List Blog; June 6, 2018)