List IW Movies that are in the wrong Aspect Ratio

[Alex Ricciardi]

I wanted to start a thread listing which movies up on IW are in the incorrect Aspect Ratio. I've updated this post with a list of all the movies people throughout the discussion have found:

Dirty Harry (1971)
Dead Ringers (1988)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Pale Rider (1985)
An Evening With Kevin Smith II (2006)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)
Ben-Hur (1959)
The Searchers (1956)
Electra Glide in Blue
Legend of the Chupacabra (2000)
Alien: Collector's Edition (1979)
The Avengers (1998)
Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Empire Records: Remix! Special Fan Edition (1995)
Enter the Dragon: Special Edition (1973)
The Eye (2002)
Godspell (1973)
Great Expectations (1974)
Hellraiser (1987)
Home Fries (1998)
Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
The Karate Kid (1984) (parts 2 and 3 are correct widescreen ratio)
Little Shepherd (2002)
The Marsh (2006)
The Mean Season (1985)
The Mechanic (1972)
My Giant (1998)
The NeverEnding Story 2: The Next Chapter (1989)
The Next Karate Kid (1989)
Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992)
Point of No Return (1993)
Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow (1994)
Red Dawn (1984)
Risky Business (1983)
Sphere (1998)
Stephen King's Cat's Eye (1985)
Strange Brew (1983)
Superman: The Movie (1978)
Superman III (1983)
Superman Doomsday (2007)
U.S. Marshals (1998)
The Marsh (2006)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
Ladyhawke (1985)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Mad City (1997)
Logan's Run (1976)
Soylent Green (1973)
Above the Law (1988)
Out for Justice (1991)
Executive Decision (1996)
Jacob's Ladder: Vol. 2: Naomi, Ruth and Boaz [2nd part] (2005)
Curly Sue (1991)
The Mission: Special Edition (1986)
Hell in the Pacific (1968)
Man of the West (1958)
Falling Down (1993)
Southland Tales (2008)
The Terminator


I'll keep adding any titles as I find them, and I'd suggest you do the same. I don't know about you, but the difference between correct and incorrect aspect ratios is the difference between watching and not watching for me. Hopefully we can get this info to Netflix somehow.

[Knaldskalle]

Pale Rider (1985). 2.35:1 shown as fullscreen.

[Knaldskalle]

An Evening with Kevin Smith II: Evening Harder (2006). 1.78:1 shown as fullscreen

Somehow ironic... A movie director modified to fit our screens...

[DLW]

I doubt Kevin Smith did the modifying.

[Alex Ricciardi]

Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972). 1.66:1 shown as full screen.

[Alex Ricciardi]

Ben-Hur: Collector's Edition (1959). 2.76:1 shown as fullscreen.

The Searchers (1956). 1.77:1 shown as fullscreen.

[Knaldskalle]

"The Searchers" even has the opening title sequence in widescreen but the movie itself is fullscreen. That's bizarre!

[jeldobar]

there are so damn many i've already watched and probably hundreds and hundreds more

[Pihk]

Electra Glide in Blue

2.35:1 shown as full screen

BOO!

[MachZero]

I watched a handful of movies that were in 4:3 and as we all know all movies except for some made for TV movies are filmed in some form of widescreen format right around 16:9 or even greater like 2.35:1. However these titles do not list an aspect ratio in the title info page like others do. So does this mean that these titles are not presented in their proper aspect ratio since 99.9% certainty that they were filmed in a widescreen format but presented in instant watch as 4:3 with the uncertainty on if the DVD selection is or isn't in a widescreen format? To me anything not available in a widescreen format is silly. I don't understand why people are willing to put up with watching a movie that has been chopped to only include close to 1/2 of what was filmed. It is like reading a book and cutting off almost 1/2 the page so that words are missing. Anyways what is the deal with all of these titles not being widescreen? Especially if it is on a disc. I mean really every player is capable of converting a widescreen movie and to 4:3 so it is pointless to make the movie in that format. The particular titles I seen expire on kan 1st so it is too late for them to do anything with them now unless they renew them. But it really ticks me off. One of the reasons I joined netflix was to get away from the crap of rental stores not stocking widescreen format movies for almost all of their movie collection and I'm more and more seeing this happen here now too.

[Alex Ricciardi]

Well, movies have only been in widescreen since the fifties, so you've got several decades of film that are always going to be in the right aspect ratio on here. I've also noticed that recent films (within the past decade or so) seem to be mostly fine. It appears that films from the 50s to the 80s are the ones most affected. Unfortunately, those are also some of the best decades in film history...

When I called Netflix tech support, the person told me that the aspect ratio of an instant watch stream should correspond to the aspect ratio listed on that movie's DVD page. Clearly, this is not the case. I wonder what it would take for Netflix to at least add the aspect ratio of the stream to the instant watch page.

[Knaldskalle]

The proper aspect ratio is not listed on the IW page for the movie, but only on the "regular" (DVD) page. For instance, here's the IW page for The Searchers and the regular page. The regular page has the aspect ratio information.

This thread is to document how many movies are in the wrong format - for precisely the reasons you mention.

[DLW]

I haven't encountered this issue yet, but then my IW history is about three weeks long. However, the 4:3 issue will result in watching fewer movies via IW. I gave up Pan & Scan many years ago.