Free Republic

Netflix has announced it is ending its DVD rental service after 25 years. DVD rentals formed the basis of Netflix’s original business model when the company launched in 1998. It initially had 925 titles available, and the first it ever sent out was a copy of Tim Burton’s 1988 horror comedy Beetlejuice. Netflix’s rise helped cause the downfall of stores like Blockbuster, before it began transitioning into streaming in the mid-2000s. DVD rentals accounted for $126m (£101m) of Netflix’s $31.6bn (£25.4bn) revenue last year – equivalent to just 0.4 per cent. The company announced $8.18bn in revenue for the first...

The All-TIME 100 Movies feature—compiled by Richard Schickel and me, and handsomely packaged by Josh Macht, Mark Coatney and all the smart folks at TIME.com—attracted a record-busting 7.8 million page views in its first week, including 3.5 million on May 23rd, its opening day. Thousands of readers have written in to cheer or challenge our selections, and thousands more have voted for their own favorites. The response simply underscores Richard's and my long-held belief that everybody has two jobs: his own and movie critic. The idea was to assemble 100 estimable films since TIME began, with the March 3, 1923...