Only so many movies can fit into a movie rental store. And because of the space limitations, most of the movies that make it into rental stores are the "blockbuster movies," which aren't necessarily the best movies. But Netflix does not have those limitations, and here is where the rental service shines.
According to the article Leveling the field, a rental at a time, this aspect of Netflix is leveling the movie playing field. Movies that don't do well in theaters don't get taken out of the Netflix system, as they might be in a movie rental store.
But, as we all know, just because a movie doesn't do well in the box office, doesn't mean it isn't a good movie. Several movies, like Oscar-nominee Hotel Rwanda and Oscar-winner Crash, which did not do well in the box office, are available through Netflix and are renting very well. Also, documentaries and foreign films, which may be very hard to get access to without the Netflix service, are rented quite frequently. Some reasons why relatively unknown movies do very well on Netflix may be due to members' ability to queue movies they have heard good buzz about as well as the ability to suggest movies to friends on the service.
