It's obvious he's doing this as a hobby. Legal? I'm sure it's on the threshold. This is where an inflexible legal system shows it's age.

He isn't hurting anybody, he's obviously having a great time. Netflix is making money/building loyalty from him. (They are building loyalty with all of us when we read this story.) The movie companies aren't suffering. It's a triple win.

But in a court of law, it's likely that he would be slapped.

I don't see why. He's not distributing them, he's not getting any money, and he's not showing them in public.

It is illegal in the US, both because it "circumvents" the copy protection, and because he's making a copy of a movie he doesn't own. So it's copyright infringement, but not piracy.