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The BBC says last year was a pretty good year, actually, for blu-ray and DVD sales. And it’s not just those of us who grew up with them being the only things around — a lot of growth happened in the younger, 25-39 age bracket.
I am hearing from my friends that it’s difficult sometimes to find movies in hard copy. That’s true, and there are lots of disappointing reasons for that, but I’ll leave that for another blog post.
Here I thought I’d share some of the shops I use. Most of these are in the United States; none of these are affiliate links.
Mainstream / Hollywood
For that big new Hollywood release, Target is usually my best bet. They still have a reasonable in-store collection, so sometimes you can order online and then go pick it up.
Deep Discount has been around for a while. Their discounts aren’t necessarily deep and the UI needs some work, but they have a whole bunch. It’s sometimes a good choice for older Hollywood films, but they often have stuff from niche publishers as well.
Movies Unlimited is similar. They are also the place where a lot of the Warner Archive movies are available. Warner Archive is Warner’s label for older movies that have a cult or nostalgic following, although the older the movie is, the more likely it was huge on release. The Thin Man movies are all Warner Archive releases.
Barnes and Noble is sometimes a good choice. They occasionally have a 50% off sale on movies released by the Criterion Collection, and that’s where and when I stock up.
Cult / Niche
You might not think that movie you’re looking for is cult or niche, but if you can’t find it at Wal-Mart or Target that might be because it comes from a smaller publisher. These sites sell movies that come from those smaller outfits.
Diabolik has been my go-to for a few years. They ship fast. They ship fast, but be careful with the pre-orders; if you add a pre-order disk to an order, Diabolik will hold the entire order until the pre-order can be fulfilled. This can sometimes set you back months. I almost always buy Shout Factory / Scream Factory discs from here because Shout’s web site is so terrible.
Rifftrax did a movie called “Plankton” but released only a standard-definition video. To get an unriffed HD version, I had to order a German release through RareWaves.
As of January 5, Grindhouse Video is offline, apparently recovering from the Christmas season hangover. I haven’t ordered from them yet, but I expect I will do so pretty soon. I have a friend or two who like this store a lot.
RareWaves is my source for imported movies. They are UK-based, so unless you have a region-free player you might want to steer clear. 4K films are rarely region-locked, though. I got Dawn of the Dead from them about a year before it got a US release from Shout Factory.
Direct from the publisher
If you are into the same kinds of things I am — obscure little films, genre films, and the like — you can often order direct. Diabolik carries movies from all these folks, but there can be advantages to ordering direct.
Shout Factory probably has the most mainstream collection. Lots of great classics here. I hate ordering from them, though. The check-out process is a mess and I’ve occasionally had them lose orders and had to prod them to get the disks. Unless you want their direct-only collector sets, check Diabolik.
Kino Lorber has a huge catalog, often consisting of classics or almost-forgotten also-rans. They frequently have sales with deep discounts, and I’ve never had a problem getting my orders from them.
Arrow makes fancy sets for genre classics. They are an excellent contender for the “Criterion of Genre” label. Lots of my giallo collection comes from Arrow, but they have also released Barbarella (my review) and a big Conan set is coming out as well. Sometimes it’s best to wait for a sale from these guys because it’s certainly collector prices… but collector quality. Great packaging, lots of extras.
Vinegar Syndrome publishes a lot of niche content. They started out restoring and preserving old pornographic films, but now they do a lot of horror / giallo releases and have started to branch out into other areas. Recent prestige releases from them have been Showgirls and Roadhouse, but some of my favorite weird films have come from VS. The only time I’ve had difficulty with VS orders is when I used PayPal — sometimes I have to prod them.
Severin seems to compete with VS on who can release the most niche stuff. Several old MST3K films have been released restored by Severin, like Extra-Terrestrial Visitors (AKA “Pod People”). They often have fun collector sets. I have a stuffed “Trumpy” alien and an “I’m a Virgin” t-shirt that came with my Extra-Terrestrial Visitors video.
Complete the look!
Severin has big sales, but the customer service department has a distinct Soup Nazi vibe and sale announcements tend to be coupled with rules that include phrases like “no exceptions” and “don’t ask,” so I tend to buy Severin from Diabolik instead.
Where do you shop?
If you have a favorite shop that I haven’t listed here, I want to know about it! You can reach me on Mastodon or Bluesky. I hope this helps!
This post is part of the 100 Days to Offload challenge.