Why Is Netflix Secretly Cropping Movies?

Hmm.

Why Is Netflix Secretly Cropping Movies?

That's annoying. We don't really pay them to do that, why not show it in the right format like you do when you get a DVD?

Another reason to despise Netflix. There are several.

For some older movies, there may not be a "right" format.

Take the film Back to the Future. It was originally released in 4:3 format. When it was re-released a few years later, it was touted as "Now in Wide Screen". In reality, the film was cropped on the theater's projector; it had the same horizontal image as the original release, but the top and bottom of the picture were masked off.

Some films were actually shot in 4:3 format so that the TV image would be proper. The films were distributed to theaters in cropped format to provide a wide aspect ratio, but the 4:3 image was used for the tapes and Laser Discs. Two examples of this are Backdraft and The Abyss.

The biggest problem I see with NetFlix (and other services) is that many (maybe most) people in  the country can't use it because the internet connections are so shitty.