Netflix Local Favorites Feature

The Netflix Local Favorites feature is another way to discover interesting movies to watch. You can select a state and city or search by zip code to see the top 25 movies for that region. Netflix describes the results as: "Members in and around Anchorage, Alaska are currently renting these titles much more than other Netflix members."

When you first visit the Netflix Local Favorites page it should display the results for your city or town.

The number one movie for Anchorage is Noi the Albino (a Scandinavian movie I had never heard of). I did a quick tour of the country and was surprised by the results as I went from place to place.

Here are the top 10 movies for Anchorage, Alaska:

Are you surprised by the results for where you live?

Comments

Of the top 15 in Madison WI, 13 are TV series (area code 53715). How boring. :) All I find surprising about the results is that almost none of them hold any appeal to me whatsoever, and I've rated about 1000 titles!

[SykoBoy]

Veggie Tales at #3? I guess there's not much to do in Alaska besides popping out kids. I'm assuming that Alaska doesn't have a throttling problem considering its geographic isolation. Throttlefix would just love for every city to be as remote Anchorage. Anyone know if there are DCs in Alaska or Hawaii?

There is definitely one in Hawaii, moron.

[Mike K]

SykoBoy,

Rotten Tomatoes says that "Jonah: The Veggie Tales Movie" made $25 million at the box office and peaked at #6. It's a bit religous, but the animation is good and my kids like it.

Netflix operates a shipping center in Honolulu, but I think Alaska is served from Washington State. They now have 37 shipping centers and I'll have to find out where the two new ones are located.

- Mike

[Fred Thompson]

"There is definitely one in Hawaii, moron."

This would be a nicer place if the handfull of hateful people, like this unk poster, would find somewhere else to get their "jollies".

[T-Dog]

It's not the most popular movies in any one particular region. Unless you live in somewhere totally atypical with special interests or religious implications, I suspect most areas are renting the same basic new releases.

This is a list of the movies that your local residents are renting "more" than the folks in other cities. What exactly "more" means is a little vague. I suspect that if you live in a remote area without many other Netflix subscribers, your list will look a lot like your recent personal rentals.

Personally, I bet this is another attempt by Netflix to get you to rent movies other than the new releases, by trying to convince you that everyone in your neighborhood is renting Jumanji (actual #1 on my list of Cornwall, NY).

[Ian]

I think New York City is usually pretty interesting. It's usually a documentary about New York, and whatever Criterion's released lately. Right now 5 of the movies are by the same director, Wong Kar Wai. Other than a couple of cities, it seems pretty random. Cat People is number one in my Midwestern college town.

Why don't any of the Netflix Top 100 appear on any list (maybe not any, but for anything I've typed in...ATL, LA, NYC...etc)

Hey Fred,

I can't even tell you how many times I've seen the Hawaii DC mentioned here and elsewhere. That tells me SykoBoy hasn't been paying attention. Yet just prior to his question he made a statement that sounds like it came from someone who feels he knows more about Netflix than most("Throttlefix would just love for every city to be as remote Anchorage.") That's crap.

- unk poster

[kevin]

Definitely check out Noi Albinoi. It's a very beautiful, quirky and stark film. Plus, it's set in the coldest part of Iceland, which is where the Alaska correlation comes in, I suppose.

[Fred Thompson]

@ unk poster,

You're right. I missed his "popping out kids" remark. However, I still feel the "moron" was a little harse. It (in general) just seems to lead to flaming. (Which this blog seems to have an abundence of).

BTW, I (on the East coast) received a dvd from Hawaii's DC awhile back. I "assume" NF had nowhere else closer?!

[Writebrother]

I think it's a bogus feature.

[madscientist]

"Much more than other members" means that rentals in the region are a couple of standard-deviations above the norm.

Sparse regions are broadened until enough members are included to make meaningful statements of frequency. So no-one's list will look like their "recent personal rentals" except by chance.

[Nicholas Barnard]

Crash and Sin City have appeared to be a bit more common on the spot checks i've done.

T-Dog, what is wrong with Netflix trying to push people away from renting only new releases? I've found stuff I never would've watched by using Netflix, but I really enjoyed. Amazon does the same thing, they capitalize on the long tail.

Maybe it should be called trying to get our members to rent all of our movies, whats wrong with that? If you want new releases go to your nearest physical chain movie store, they're bound to have leaps and mounds of them, and very little else, at least thats what I think when I visit them.

[Yenta]

I am loving this! The Minneapolis one couldn't describe our fair city better: a bunch of gay stoners who love quality cable programs. We already saw all the good movies, now we're just catching up on the TV shows and other random stuff.

I blogged about it but not sure if I've got the trackback doohicky down right.

[Bob G.]

The best use for Local Favorites is to find the most popular movies in places with people who are likely to be choosing movies of interest to you. Here are some of the zip codes I use to find interesting films:

Studio City 91604
Beverly Hills 90210

NYC: Upper East Side 10021
NYC: Upper West Side 10023

Kirkland, Wa 98033 (suburb of Seattle)

Bethesda, MD 20810
McLean, VA 22101