I'm missing movies and TV shows on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV

Question

I've purchased a significant number of movies and TV shows over the last few years. When available in HD, I always purchase titles in HD, whether they're TV shows or movies. I have iCloud enabled on all of my devices, and am also an iTunes Match subscriber. I very much enjoy having all of my content available, whether I'm at home or on the road. As long as I have an internet connection, my content is available.
Unfortunately, it would seem I'm missing random items from iCloud -- movies and TV shows. For example, I purchased both Cars and Cars 2 (Disney/Pixar) in HD, but only Cars shows up on our iPads, my iPhone and our Apple TV. Cars 2 is missing. Likewise with several episodes of the Big Bang Theory--none of my Season 1 episodes show up on the iPads, iPhone or Apple TV, but purchases from Seasons 4, 5 and 6 do.
The items are all downloaded on my MacBook, so they all appear there. If I go to the iMac, Cars 2 and the Season 1 Big Bang Theory episodes don't show up as available iCloud downloads. However, if I go into the iTunes Store and select these items to purchase again, iTunes tells me I already purchased the item and downloads it to me for free. So if iTunes knows I purchased it, why doesn't it show up in iCloud?
If this were an issue of studio rules/copyright, I would expect this problem to be specific to movies/shows from certain studios. In the case of Cars and Cars 2, these are both Disney/Pixar films, so why would Cars be in iCloud but not Cars 2?
Another movie that DOES show up in my iCloud is Gran Torino, one that I redeemed as a Digital Copy.
There are other TV shows and movies that have this same problem--they don't appear in iCloud but if I search for them in the iTunes Store, I can re-download them at no charge if I already purchased them.
Does anyone know how I can get the "missing" items to appear in iCloud if I legitimately purchased them or redeemed them via a promo code?

Answer 1

I did a little bit more research, and if I go into iTunes and choose to display TV Shows and Movies as a List, I get a nice, sortable list of movies and shows to which I can add columns. A column that you can add is called "iCloud Status."
This column shows either Purchased or Ineligible for all of the titles. And this is where things get really confusing.
Sure enough, the items that are "missing" from the iPads, iPhone, Apple TV, etc. are the Ineligible items, but that's not the confusing part. What IS confusing is which items are Ineligible.
A good example is my Deadliest Catch collection -- I own the entire season 3 and 4 of DC; season 3 is Purchased and Season 4 is Ineligible. Back to the Big Bang Theory, I have five episodes from Season 4 -- 3 are Ineligible and 2 are Purchased.
It makes absolutely no sense that episodes from the same season of the same show would be a mix of Purchased and Ineligible!