New data shows Netflix's number of movies has gone down by thousands of titles since 2010 - but its TV catalog size has soared

Netflix

• Netflix has focused significantly more on television than movies in recent years.
• New data from third-party Netflix search engine Flixable shows that the amount of TV on Netflix has nearly tripled since 2010.
• The number of movies, meanwhile, has gone down by thousands of titles.

If you thought Netflix's movie selection had been lacking lately, you're right. The streaming service's amount of movies has dipped by over 2,000 titles since 2010, while its number of TV shows has nearly tripled.

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Third-party Netflix search engine Flixable compiled data that shows a dramatic shift in Netflix's priorities in recent years.

In 2010, Netflix had 530 TV shows compared to 6,755 movies. Now, in 2018, the amount of TV shows has nearly tripled to 1,569, and the amount of movies offered has decreased to 4,010.

Below is a chart from Flixable detailing the changes:

Flixable

This chart from Flixable shows how Netflix's amount of TV shows has increased since 2010, compared to its movies.

It's no secret that Netflix has focused more on TV shows and less on movies in recent years, but now we have a visual representation of just how significant that focus has become.

In 2016, Netflix's chief content officer Ted Sarandos said that "no matter [how good the movie catalog was], we end up with a third of our watching being movies." He explained that if viewers were passionate about a movie, they would have already seen it in theaters by the time it ended up on Netflix. It was hard to create an event.

To counter this, Netflix has begun to release is own "original" movies, and will release 80 in 2018. But that's an expensive proposition, and will naturally lead to a smaller catalog size.

But it could work to make Netflix more valuable for its users.

Sarandos called the Will Smith movie "Bright" a big test for Netflix. Could Netflix have its own blockbuster? It seems so. Even though it got shredded by critics, when the film was finally available to stream in December, 11 million people viewed it in its first three days.