The five Netflix movies that had the longest theatrical releases

With the release of the American trailer for the Spain-originating feature La Bola Negra, a new era of Netflix movies begins. La Bola Negra, you see, will be the first Netflix motion picture to get a normal theatrical release before its streaming debut. Not just one week of showings and then vanishing like Glass Onion. Not screenings two months after its Netflix debut like KPop Demon Hunters. La Bola Negra will hit theaters October 16, gradually expand in the weeks afterward, and then hit Netflix in early December.

The trailer itself emphasizes the “in theaters October 16” detail in the top right hand corner of its first 15-ish seconds. The closing text, meanwhile, only emphasizes its theatrical release date while eschewing the “tum-dum” Netflix theme music closing out most other Netflix movie/TV show trailers. Even the trailers YouTube thumbnail suggests a fresh epoch is among us. Unlike every other Netflix trailer on the channel, the La Bola Negra thumbnail doesn’t the Netflix N stamped in a corner.

The intent is clear: this streamer wants you to think of La Bola Negra as a standalone movie, not as a Netflix tile.

This is no one-off either. In 2027, Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory will both get normal wide theatrical releases before their respective Netflix debuts. Netflix is by no means becoming a massive supplier of theatrical entertainment, but even this Silicon Valley entity can’t ignore the reality that the big screen helps movies. 

Ever since Netflix began its original narrative film push with October 2015’s Beasts of No Nation, Netflix has done the bare minimum when it comes to theatrical releases. Netflix gives its award season titles (Roma, The Power of the Dog, Maestro, etc) extremely limited theatrical runs (largely concentrated in just New York and Los Angeles) two weeks before their streaming bows just so they can qualify for the Academy Awards.

All the while, Netflix executives have taunted and diminished the theatrical movie experience and reveled in the idea of putting independent movie theaters out of business. This despite movie theaters housing 2020s hits like Oppenheimer, Barbie, Sinners, and Obsession, while costly Netflix movies like The Electric State and The Gray Man have fizzled into oblivion. Now, with summer 2026 poised to become the second biggest summer ever at the domestic box office, not even Netflix can ignore reality anymore. “Thar’s gold in them hills,” as they say, and “them hills” happen to be your local movie theater. 

Before we start living in a new Netflix future, though, let's take a brief look at the past. What Netflix movies, up to this point, have had the longest theatrical runs in North America? Typically, Netflix only does 14-ish days between an obligatory theatrical debut and a streaming premiere. However, there have been instances of Netflix stretching that release out just a tad longer, especially if there's major award season buzz hovering around a title. Ahead are the five Netflix original movies that got the lengthiest pre-October 2026 theatrical runs from the company.

Note: Glass Onion techncially had a 30 day gap between its North American theatrical debut and Netflix premiere. However, Netflix pulled it from theaters after seven days, so it is not counted on this list.

5. Maestro (28 days)

We may never know "who abandoned Snoopy in the Vestibule" (much like we'll never know what Scarlett Johansson whispered into Bill Murray's ear in Lost in Translation). What is clear, though, is that Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro did get one of Netflix's longer theatrical releases. The feature began playing in select theaters (roughly eight over its opening weekend) on Wednesday, November 22, 2023. It would then drop on Netflix just in time for Christmas on December 20, 28 days after its premiere. As we'll soon see, 2022 was the year Netflix flirted extensively with longer theatrical runs. The following year, major Netflix award season players like May December only got two weeks in theaters before an unceremonious Netflix drop.

Maestro, being the most high-profile of Netflix's 2023 award season fare, got the theatrical run closest to those lengthier 2022 big screen stints with 28 days in theaters. Now, audiences could ponder who left Snoopy behind on a massive screen.

4. Marriage Story (30 days)

Large portions of 2019 were dedicated to speculation over whether or not Netflix would cooperate with major theater chains and give Martin Scorsese's The Irishman a normal theatrical release. In the end, negotiations between the parties broke down. The Irishman only got 26 days in theaters before it was relegated behind a Netflix paywall. Ironically, that same year, Netflix gave another title a slightly longer theatrical release. Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story began its theatrical release on November 6, 2019. It had 30 days in theaters before its December 5, 2019 Netflix bow. Allegedly, despite never playing in more than 130 North American theaters, it did clear $2 million domestically at the box office.  That puts Marriage Story ahead of other 2019 movies that played in more theaters, like Western Stars and Waves. 

3. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (30 days)

As referenced earlier, 2022 was the year Netflix scooted a little bit closer to maybe doing longer theatrical releases (the Glass Onion "experiment" occurred during this time). A primary example of this was Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which launched in theaters on November 9, 2022 and hit Netflix 30 days later on December 9. No reported box office data for these screenings ever came out, and an exact list of how many theaters it played in is hard to come by (though one pre-Netflix showing was a 35mm screening at the Museum of Modern Art). Interestingly, an Orlando Sentinel piece reveals that it played for at least one week at multiple local Regal Cinemas locations. Given that Regal Cinemas is one of the big three theater chains (alongside AMC and Cinemark) and has expressed hostility towards Netflix in the past, getting Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio into these locations was a breakthrough for streamer/multiplex relations.

2. White Noise (35 days)

Here's the title that's bound to puzzle the most people out of any movie on this list. Yes, Noah Baumbach's ill-fated 2022 adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel White Noise got a surprisingly lengthy theatrical run from Netflix. I guess the streamer believed that Baumbach's Marriage Story becoming an Oscar juggernaut meant that any subsequent films of his were major events. That wasn't a totally illogical assessment, but White Noise ended up scoring mixed reviews, barely made much of a dent in the 2022-2023 award season race (beyond leading man Adam Driver scoring a Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Golden Globe nod), and never made any waves in Netflix viewership. All the while, White Noise hit theaters on November 25, 2022 and ended up on Netflix 35 days later on December 30, just before a new year began. While there was some pre-release logic to giving it such a lengthy stint in theaters (this was, after all, 2022, when Netflix was a tad cozier with theaters), hindsight makes it baffling that White Noise technically had more time as a theatrical exclusive release than Encanto (among other titles).

1. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (42 days)

Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu's 2022 movie Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths isn't quite a topic of constant discussion in 2026 pop culture. However, it does have a major historical feat under its belt: the longest pre-2026 theatrical run ever for a Netflix movie in North America. Bardo began its theatrical journey on November 4, 2022, and landed on Netflix's platform on December 16 of that year. Why did a Spanish-language indie with lots of surrealist imagery get such a cushy theatrical run? Iñárritu's previous two movies (Birdman and The Revenant) had proved massive award season juggernauts, with both taking home the Best Director Oscar and the former film also securing a Best Picture trophy. I imagine Netflix thought a longer-than-usual theatrical run could help make Academy voters see Bardo as more akin to The Revenant than The Unforgivable.

Bardo going out into Mexico theaters on October 27 may have also inspired Netflix to give it a similarly early launch in another North American territory. Then there's the biggest reason of all for Bardo's longer theatrical presence: a mid-movie scene sees the title's lead character on a train that passes by a billboard for 2020's Sonic the Hedgehog. Netflix executives knew this collision of the worlds of Storm the Albatross and the Babel director was a monumental occasion that required a grander theatrical run. That's the most logical reason why Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths holds the record for longest Netflix theatrical in a pre-La Bola Negra world.