ABSTRACT
Over the course of the 2010s, Netflix has grown from being a DVD delivery service to the world’s leading SVOD (subscription video on demand) service with an unprecedented global footprint. This growth has coincided with the company’s entry into original production and exclusive distribution of films and series. Given its need to satisfy audiences in a wide range of national contexts, Netflix’s corpus of original production has invariably adopted industrial and representational strategies that follow many established patterns associated with cinematic transnationalism, including the depiction of transnational mobility. Surveying the vast corpus of Netflix original films, the chapter examines two specific tendencies when it comes to representing mobility in its feature films. One of these is a repeated representation of mobility as an act born out of economic and/or political precarity. The other major tendency the chapter will seek to highlight is mobility as an act of socioeconomic privilege undertaken by tourists, wealthy elites, or other forms of aspirational travellers such as students and young people establishing careers. In comparing and contrasting these two tendencies, the chapter reflects on how new streaming platforms are both influencing and utilizing cinematic images of global mobility.
