Netflix has become a kind of second-chance theater for movies that once slipped through the cracks, and Chris Rock’s Top Five is now getting that treatment. The comedian revealed that audiences are finally “discovering” the 2014 film on Netflix after he personally “begged Ted [Sarandos]” to acquire it. His story is a particularly sharp example of how streaming can reopen the door for a movie long after its original release window has closed.

That resurrection effect has become part of Netflix’s peculiar cultural power. A movie can have a theatrical run, disappear into the maze of digital catalogs, and then suddenly become a recommendation, a meme, or a late-night discovery once it lands in the right streaming library. 

Top Five is now benefiting from the Netflix trademarked streaming afterlife, according to Chris Rock. In a sit-down with Variety for a Know Your Lines episode, Rock explained how he intervened after making his Netflix special to get the movie from EPIX. 

“And when I did my last Netflix special, I begged Ted and Robbie, "Can you get my movie from EPIX?" And they got it,” he said. 

Variety’s video makes clear that the situation came down to the film being caught in an awkward distribution lane. Top Five was distributed by Paramount Pictures, while EPIX, the premium network and streaming service associated with Paramount at the time, became its streaming home. For Rock, that meant a movie he had written, directed and starred in effectively vanished from the wider conversation. 

There is something almost perfectly Hollywood about the irony. A film can survive the brutal machinery of production, earn critical acclaim, and still become difficult for ordinary viewers to locate.

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Top Five was not some forgotten critical disaster either. Rotten Tomatoes currently lists it at 85%, with the consensus praising it as a career highlight for Rock and one of 2014’s standout comedies, making it all the more valid to dive into what it is about. 

Released in 2014, Top Five follows Andre Allen, played by Chris Rock, a hugely successful comedian and movie star who has become famous for a trilogy of absurd talking-bear action comedies. He is preparing to marry reality-TV star Erica, played by Gabrielle Union, while trying to promote a much more serious passion project about the Haitian Revolution. 

The film takes place largely over one chaotic day in New York, as Andre spends time with Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson), a New York Times writer who is profiling him. What begins as a publicity assignment gradually turns into a wandering conversation about fame, artistic ambition, addiction, relationships and the strange compromises that come with becoming a celebrity. Kevin Hart, Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, J.B. Smoove and Leslie Jones are also part of the ensemble. 

That is what makes Rock’s Netflix story particularly fitting. Top Five is essentially a movie about an entertainer trying to escape the version of himself that audiences already know. More than a decade later, Netflix is giving that same film another opportunity to find an audience.

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What do you think about Netflix giving overlooked movies a second life? Share your thoughts in the comments.