![]() ![]() And I don’t know whether that’s because of the film or because it’s unobtainable. I’m not sure whether I saw it on TV or VHS, but I’ve never been able to find it since, so my semi-obsession with it has grown. I’ve only seen this film once, when I was a teenager, and it had a real impact on me. ![]() Left to right: Richard Thomas, Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison and Catherine Burns in Last Summer (1969). It’s the perfect encapsulation of indie movie-making – I think any young film-maker would learn a lot from it. I watched it again a couple of nights ago and it really stands up. But of all the films I saw back then and haven’t been able to find, that’s the one that stuck in my mind the most. I’ve got a VHS of it, and it’s on YouTube in a horrible faded version. It’s been really hard to find it in the years since. So that added a strange, sad quality to it, too. Sadly Kanner never made another film, and died pretty young, aged 61. It also stars Margaret Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s mother – for that reason alone, we should be able to see it. But it’s really well written: funny, with a big, quirky performance from McGoohan. It’s got a medieval score throughout, which is unusual for a film set in the late 70s. It’s quite an avant garde Canadian movie – you don’t see many of those. So it’s a thriller set-up that discusses the politics of the time, but then unfolds in twisty-turny ways. It’s about a terrorist group who hijack a radio talk show host to try to get a guy out of prison who’s been sentenced to 15 years for accidentally killing a policeman in a hit and run. I first saw it at the cinema – I was about 14, in 1984 – and I was blown away. The star is Patrick McGoohan, and it’s written and directed by Alexis Kanner, who plays a character in The Prisoner. I’d been a big fan of The Prisoner, the TV show, for years before I saw this film. Photograph: Moviestore Collection Ltd/Alamy Patrick McGoohan and Alexis Kanner in Kings and Desperate Men. We asked 15 film-makers to pick their favourite hard-to-find titles that are currently unavailable to stream in the UK. Clicking play on a laptop is all very well, but there’s a satisfaction to be had in finally tracking down a missing movie that is hard to beat. All in all, it’s a strong argument in favour of collecting films on physical media, such as DVDs, where possible.īut there’s a flip side: for many movie buffs, part of the pleasure of reconnecting with half-remembered, long-cherished films is the thrill of the hunt. All of which are obstacles to the instant gratification of online viewing. This is the result of a combination of factors: expired licences and rights renegotiations and cost-cutting measures – erasing a movie from a library can be a tax write-off and also reduces the residuals owed (fees paid to the creatives when a film is broadcast). Add to that the common problem of a “rights void”: when it is unclear who holds the rights to a film, licensing or restoring it becomes unviable.Įlsewhere, films that were previously available to stream have been disappearing from platforms at an alarming rate. It is an expensive and time-consuming process. Or if they have been digitised in the past, the file doesn’t meet the quality standard that is now required, something that evolves increasingly rapidly as technology advances. Thousands of pictures exist as film prints, stored in canisters in archives and cinematheques, but not in the digital format that would be required for inclusion on a streaming platform. Why is this? In the case of older titles, restoration and digitisation are key factors. Jane Campion’s feature film debut, Sweetie, is currently unavailable to stream so, remarkably, is David Lynch’s debut, Eraserhead. And we’re not just talking about obscure arthouse titles (although my personal holy grail of missing movies, Alexei German Jr’s Paper Soldier, probably fits that description): a surprising number of high-profile pictures seem to have slipped through the streaming cracks. ![]() Despite the wide choice of mainstream modern titles offered by big hitters such as Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video and the sterling work done by bespoke platforms such as Mubi, Curzon, BFI Player and regional specialist Klassiki, numerous films remain unavailable to be streamed by UK audiences (legally at least). ![]() In practice, it’s not quite as simple as all that. One click, and we can be transported to any country, genre or period. The ubiquity of streaming platforms means that films are more accessible than ever before. In theory, there has never been a better time to be a movie fan. ![]()
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