The end of credits: why doesn't Netflix want us to watch them?

The second that final spoonful goes in your mouth the waiter runs over, noisily clears the plates away and shoves a new menu under your nose, while insisting that you order the set menu immediately. That’s the experience we all have when watching films and TV on streaming platforms.

The end credit sequence is an unsexy but still important part of the film-going experience. It can be a key moment of contemplation, to assess, absorb and reflect on everything you have just experienced. It can be a moment of musical resolve. It can be a place to see the countless hundreds of people who worked to create something from nothing (not just the famous ones). Or it can just be an excuse to look for crew members with funny names. But the current trend with virtually all the streaming services is to treat end credits as having the same artistic merit as a DFS Summer Sofa Sale ad. Our entertainment goes from being a work of art that could resonate for years afterwards to “content” that is to be guzzled as fast as possible from an endless bargain bucket.

I understand why the feature was introduced, especially in the age of the multi-episodic binge watch. And I have no problem with a lot of people wanting to skip credits – it was ever thus with home viewing. But I do have a problem with having to “opt-in” to watch something that is often an integral piece of a complete artistic vision.

I’m pretty sure it was the time I watched Schindler’s List on Netflix that pushed me over the edge. If ever there was a movie where the credits were an integral part of the experience this was it. However, the second after Steven Spielberg’s name came up, the screen was shrunk to the size of a postage stamp and a massive advert appeared telling you to watch something else. Worse still, if you didn’t click the correct button within 10 seconds, you could wave bye bye to contemplating the emotional complexity of the past three hours (and John William’s magnificent, Oscar-winning musical conclusion) and say hello to whichever trailer Netflix’s algorithm had decided you would want to gorge on.

The lights were off in my flat – and I had foolishly logged in through my PlayStation and its fiendishly unorthodox series of buttons. I stumbled around desperately trying to find the controller before the ticking clock of doom would hit zero. I got there with a second to spare – success – and then managed to press the wrong button – disaster – resulting in immediate expulsion from the cinematic world I had been so fully immersed in.

Some services have added options to turn these features off but they are usually hidden away and rarely fully implemented. And the problem isn’t unique to any one provider; they are all as bad as each other. BBC iPlayer destroyed the excellently curated unique end music on every episode of Devs by cutting to the next episode after 10 seconds.

But that isn’t my only reason for despising this trend. I write music for movies and TV, and I know, that from a compositional point of view, the soundtrack for the end credits can be an incredibly important part of the musical arc you and the director may have tried to create over a whole film. I’ve just scored a new movie, Enola Holmes, that will air on Netflix this year. That end credit music is the culmination of Enola’s theme; I have spent the previous two hours working towards it. Not that most viewers will experience that resolution.

I don’t mind that most people aren’t interested – trust me, you would never become a film composer if you were – but I do mind that at the one point where you should really be contemplating and reflecting on the journey you have just been through, you are instead forced into finding the remote or face being pushed somewhere totally different within seconds.

Companies such as Netflix, Amazon and even the BBC may publicly laud their commitment to the arts but, to film-makers and the creative community, the way they are presenting that work tells a completely different story. I find it insulting as both a consumer and a creator.

There is some hope. The saviour of the end credits sequence may be the most unlikely: Marvel Studios. Through its regular use of post-credit dramatic scenes, it has become their unlikely protector. It is a habit much imitated in blockbuster cinema – but it’s yet to be copied by the streaming giants.

One Seattle-based Netflix customer, Mark Boszko, was so fed up with the situation he organised a petition to pressure the company into allowing people to watch the credits without interruption. He hasn’t had much success yet, but I hope he soon does. Otherwise that potentially powerful moment of emotional contemplation and reflection may soon be lost for ever thanks to a cabal of companies whose only interest is to maximise time in your eyeballs and not in your hearts.