Why isn’t ‘The Ice Road’ on Netflix?

Netflix has launched The Ice Road, but it is only available in the United States. You may have seen reviews promoting a broad release for The Ice Road but sadly, you probably won’t be catching The Ice Road on Netflix anytime soon.

The new Liam Neeson epic hasn’t exactly scored the best reviews from critics but that often doesn’t matter. The big action flick has been scoring plenty of headlines meaning that it’s in high demand.

Unfortunately, streaming the film is only available to residents of the United States.

Netflix is doing some thing to protect those living outside of the US from The Ice Road. The trailer from Netflix for example is geo-restricted but even so, almost all coverage of the movie just mentions that it’s a Netflix Original movie.

So what’s going on here? Well, although it’s a Netflix Original, Netflix didn’t produce the movie. It just obtained the exclusive rights to distribute the film in America.

The original Hollywood Reporter announcement reveals that the film was being sold per country.

Netflix USA was the country that landed the film with Prime Video scoring in France and the United Kingdom. Other countries were sold to distributors locally or left unsold.

We’d recommend using a service like JustWatch.com to see where it eventually lands in your region but know it may not be available right now.

It’s not the first time this has happened. In fact, there’s a laundry list of movies and series where this often happens. Gunpowder milkshake, which will arrive in America next month, will be following a similar schedule.

You can also work the opposite way, and it often does. Earlier this year for example, everywhere except the United States was treated to Tom Hanks’s News of the World which is displayed as a Netflix Original. Universal withheld the film from Netflix in this case. It is currently only available via VOD, but will eventually be made available to HBO Max.

We hope that explains why you’re not able to watch The Ice Road but if you’re unable to find it where you live, it probably doesn’t help much.