If you're looking to catch every Oscar movie before the awards on Sunday, Feb. 28, you might have a hard time tracking down Room. As Room was nominated for four Oscars — Best Adapted Screenplay for Emma Donoghue, Best Actress for Brie Larson, Best Director for Lenny Abrahamson and Best Picture — but is a relatively small film, many audiences were left to wonder where, exactly, they could see it. The unflinching adaptation of the novel about a young woman working to escape her kidnapper with her young son was originally released on Oct. 16 in a handful of theaters, but though the film was a critical hit and a safe bet for awards season, it didn't enjoy a long theater run. In fact, it was gone before many people even knew it had arrived. It's only natural then that eager viewers are turning to streaming services, looking for the movie before the Oscars arrive in February. But, if you're wondering when Room will be on Netflix, you should probably start thinking about other ways to see it.
Room doesn't seem to be heading to Netflix anytime soon — at least not on Netflix Instant Watch. Even if you are willing to wait until Room is released on DVD to rent it from Netflix, you won't get it in time to watch the movie before the Oscars. Though currently available for pre-order, Room won't be released on DVD until March 1, after the Academy Awards.
Now, you might think that having Oscar nominations might make A24, the distributors behind the film, eager to put Room out on as many streaming platforms as possible. Making the film more available to audiences only makes Oscar buzz louder, and Netflix is a great platform to make potential Oscar films available to a wider audience. Instead of putting their faith in online streaming, though, A24 has decided to re-release Room in more theaters. At its peak, Room was only playing in 198 theaters, and the film has brought in a total of around $5 million at the box office, making it one of the lowest grossing best picture nominees since the '80s. It makes sense, then, that A24 is planning on a new, wider release starting this Friday, Jan. 22. The company is no doubt hopeful that the Oscar momentum will drive more audiences to the theaters.
The studio behind Room is smart. Scheduling a re-release just a few weeks before the film will be made available to buy on iTunes on Feb. 16 ensures that the movie theater will be the only place for Oscar lovers and intrigued viewers to go see it. With that in mind, it seems unlikely that Room will come to Netflix, or any other streaming site, anytime soon. If it does well in theaters, it's possible the movie will be so successful it won't even need a Netflix release to boost word of mouth.
Of course, that doesn't mean it'll never arrive. For all we know, Room might be on Netflix as early as April or as late as 2017. But for now, if you're looking to check Room off your Oscar movies list, you should probably check your local movie theater come Jan. 22.
Images: A24; henricavyll/tumblr
