10 Great Movies That Accidentally Made Cinema Worse
2. Napoleon Dynamite Forced Netflix To Improve Their Algorithm
Napoleon Dynamite is one of the most memorable indies of the 2000s - an ultra-quirky, hilarious coming-of-age comedy that grossed an incredible $46.1 million on a mere $400,000 budget.
While it's tough to fathom the possible harm such a delightfully weird and strangely wholesome film could cause, Napoleon Dynamite ended up proving inadvertently instrumental in shaping the infrastructure of modern streaming service algorithms.
In 2008, the term "the Napoleon Dynamite Problem" was coined, referring to the film's strong popularity on Netflix and how the service's content algorithm struggled to decide whether customers would like it or not.
Because Napoleon Dynamite is such an odd, difficult-to-categorise piece of work, it contributed to Netflix seeking to overhaul their algorithm, even offering a $1 million prize to anyone who could improve its effectiveness by 10%.
In the years that followed Netflix's algorithm became increasingly efficient, as did those of its streaming competition, such that today you're unlikely to be recommended anything even remotely outside of your comfort zone.
Despite the massive libraries that streaming services offer, the algorithm will aim to steer you towards movies most likely to guarantee the attention of your eyeballs, in turn de-incentivising the exploration of more adventurous, left-field works of cinema.
And it's all Napoleon Dynamite's fault, for shame.