DVDs represented just a drop in the bucket of Netflix Inc.’s $11.7 billion in revenue last year, but they play a starring role in the company’s history.
Though it may seem as if we’ve been streaming our shows and movies forever, NetflixNFLX, +1.46% has only offered a streaming option for about as long as it didn’t. The company, of course, got its start renting DVDs by mail, and that part of the business turns 20 this year. Netflix typically doesn’t provide much information to investors and viewers about what its most popular programming is, but it’s making a brief exception in honor of the 20th anniversary of its DVD segment, now called DVD Netflix.
Below is the list of the most frequently rented DVD in each year of Netflix’s history. Four took home best-picture honors at the Oscars.
1998: The Big Lebowski
1999: Office Space
2000: Gladiator
2001: Memento
2002: The Bourne Identity
2003: Mystic River
2004: The Notebook
2005: Crash
2006: The Departed
2007: The Bucket List
2008: The Hurt Locker
2009: The Blindside
2010: Inception
2011: The Lincoln Lawyer
2012: The Hunger Games
2013: Captain Phillips
2014: The Monuments Men
2015: The Martian
2016: Sully
2017: Wonder Woman
Netflix racked up $450 million in revenue from its domestic DVD business last year, down from $542 million a year earlier. In December 2006, before Netflix announced a streaming option, the company had nearly $1 billion in revenue.
Predictably, subscriptions to the DVD business have dwindled as streaming has picked up. Netflix shed about 700,000 domestic DVD subscribers in 2017, bringing its year-end total to 3.4 million.
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