At this stage, it is safe to say streaming services have well integrated themselves into the TV landscape, thanks to huge hits like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. When it comes to film, however, the story has been a little different.

October has seen two very significant events when it comes to streaming services and new films. The most high profile was the release of Beasts of No Nation on Netflix, having skipped a traditional theatrical release (barring festival screenings and a very limited release in some countries). Netflix had dabbled in the area before with a number of documentaries. Occasionally independent films had ended up on there too without much in the way of a cinema or Blu-Ray/DVD release.

Beasts of No Nation, however, is the sort of 'prestige' feature that you'd usually see receiving a big theatrical push around awards season, boasting an up-and-coming, well regarded director (Cary Joji Fukunaga, hot off his work on season one of True Detective), a notable performance from a well-respected actor in Idris Elba, and the sort of production values and thematic scope we associate more with the big screen than the small one.

Of a lower profile but no less noteworthy was the premiere of Paul Thomas Anderson's Junun on Mubi. Mubi is a streaming service offering subscribers unlimited access to its catalogue of films.

There's a constantly cycling selection of films - one is added every day, while another is removed, with 30 titles available at any given time. The films themselves are a diverse selection of arthouse films, classics, obscurities, world cinema, cult classics etc. It describes itself as a "curated online cinema", aiming for quality over quantity.

Junun is quite the coup for a service that is still reasonably niche, given Paul Thomas Anderson - of Boogie Nights and There Will be Blood fame - is one of the key American auteurs of his generation.

It's a documentary coming in at just under an hour long, focusing on the recording sessions between Anderson's frequent collaborator Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, Israeli musician Shye Ben Tzur, and a large group of Indian musicians.

Few viewers will be mistaking this as a 'major' work, but it is endearingly 'minor' - a lively, experimental celebration of the collaborative process that resists traditional documentary form.

Both films mark significant milestones in the relationship between cinema and the internet. But is that a positive or negative development?

On one hand, for viewers there are definite benefits to films bypassing a traditional release plan. Both films debuted online soon after their festival screenings - in the case of Junun, mere hours after.

Given film fans often face interminable waits for films to receive wide releases, this is a welcome development. Lucky critics can often be heard going on about how fantastic a film is - such as Carol at the moment - for months before a general release. When it comes to arthouse fare, there are regularly waits of a year after a film's premiere at a festival like Cannes.

While regular cinema-goers will still want to see most films in the cinema if they can, even a small number of releases on streaming services closer to their festival debuts would be a nice treat - especially for viewers not living near an arthouse cinema.

Maybe in a best case scenario streaming services could also help actually fund low to medium budget films, opening up new opportunities for directors to make films that don’t comfortably fit more traditional modes of funding and distribution.

Streaming releases could also help films that would otherwise struggle to find an appreciative audience. Junun is a perfect example: perhaps too small to justify a full cinema release, but ideally suited for home viewing.

With many acclaimed independent and international features receiving little to no distribution, there's a great opportunity for streaming services to get those films out there.

Small features suit home viewing particularly well, but so too do very long ones. Mubi has already exclusively screened the 340-minute-long From What is Before, and has secured the rights to stream Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’ three-part Arabian Nights (380 minutes all-in-all) after its theatrical debut.

While many viewers may balk at the mere concept of films that waltz past the five-hour mark, watching at home allows those who are sufficiently interested to tackle these epics at their own pace.

Of course there are also clear drawbacks to streaming releases, and one doesn't have to look much further than Beasts of No Nation to spot a major one. Netflix purchased the rights - for a cool $12 million, Variety reported - after the film was shot, and there's no getting around the fact that it's not a film tailor-made for home viewing.

With lush widescreen cinematography and intense sound design, its impact would surely be greater on a really big screen than it is on a TV (or heaven forbid a laptop or mobile device). The more intimate Junun, in contrast, seems if not designed for than certainly a perfect fit for televisions.

It would be remiss to highlight that significant numbers of film fans have set up high quality home theatres. It's also clear that many other viewers are unlikely to watch most films until they're available online or on TV anyway. Still, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that some films could mostly skip a theatrical release if they're bought up by a streaming service, even if they've evidently been made with a cinema in mind.

As a minor consolation, current Academy Awards rules mean that "Oscar contenders" do need some sort of theatrical release to be eligible for consideration, so the likes of Netflix won’t be able to completely ignore that.

Still, it would be a real shame if streaming debuts mean particularly striking works will not have the chance to really sing on a big screen. To take an extreme example: would you really want to watch The Force Awakens for the first time on your TV? Netflix in Canada hopes you will, but many independent and foreign films deserve just as wide a canvas as blockbusters.

How all this plays out is something we can only speculate about at the moment. The opening shots have been fired, and there's more to come. Netflix is producing, at reportedly great cost, the Brad Pitt-starring War Machine, and - rather less enticingly - has signed a multiple-movie deal with Adam Sandler.

Amazon is also making moves into film with an upcoming Spike Lee 'joint', and Mubi has secured a number of further acquisitions. Cinema-owners, understandably opposed an end to traditional theatrical exclusivity, probably don't need to worry just yet, but it will be fascinating to see how both streaming services and the films themselves adapt (or don't) to accommodate each other.