I’ve rented DVDs from Netflix for half my life – streaming is a poor substitute | Zach Schonfeld

The slow extinction of physical media is bad news for movie fans. We're told that everything's streaming now", but it's simply not true

• Zach Schonfeld is a New York-based journalist and critic

Red Rock West, a twisty thriller from 1993 starring an uncommonly subdued Nicolas Cage, is one of the best neo-noirs of the 90s. But you won't see it mentioned much on social media or included in what-to-stream lists, because Red Rock West is unavailable on streaming platforms - a fate that now renders it all but nonexistent. Even many Cage fans haven't seen it.

In 2021, when I needed to watch Red Rock West for a book I was writing about Cage, I accessed it the same way I would have a decade before: I rented the DVD from Netflix. Not only did I get to see it without crawling around sketchy torrent sites, I also got an insightful director's commentary.