Before the lights dimmed for the film, “The Lady from Shanghai” at Vidiots, Aidan Gannon and Jason Fine were busy perusing the aisles of endless DVDs. For these young cinephiles, the Eagle Rock hub isn’t just a theater — it’s a gateway to film history.
In a matter of minutes, the 24-year-olds found themselves in the thick of its “Star Wars” DVD and Blu-ray collection, reminiscing about the special features they enjoyed as kids.
But for them, collecting and watching DVDs isn’t merely a childhood memory. They’ve rediscovered the medium as adults.
“I want something I can put on my shelf,” Gannon said, having recently collected 200 discs. “I can go shopping in my closet and grab something and pop it in, instead of spending an hour scrolling through Netflix to find something and then just turning on the same TV show.”
Vesta McDade, 13, browses DVDs at Videotheque in Highland Park. (Karla Gachet/For The Times)
And Gannon isn’t the only one. Local video rental stores like Vidiots, the Highland Park-based Vidéothèque and the Westside’s Cinefile video store on Sawtelle are reporting higher rentals, purchases and foot traffic. Even Barnes & Noble, one of the last major retailers selling movie discs, sees sales growth in that area.
Before streaming platforms dominated at-home entertainment, consumers relied on places like Blockbuster, the now nearly erased movie rental chain and RedBox, the defunct movie vending machines, to watch newly released films. So, when Netflix and others launched streaming services, physical distribution eventually waned.
Similar to vinyl records that saw a resurgence among millennial customers, DVDs are enjoying a comeback with some Gen Z buyers, even though the discs no longer drive significant studio profits.
DVD sales have been falling for years, dropping more than 20% in 2023 and 2024 alone. However, the falloff slowed substantially last year when sales of DVDs, Blu-rays and 4K Ultra HD declined just 9%, according to the trade association Digital Entertainment Group.
In turn, boutique Blu-ray companies, like the Criterion Collection, are similarly on the rise. As one of the leading independent home-video sellers specializing in classic and contemporary films, Criterion confirmed to The Times the company’s sales are seeing “significant year-over-year increases.”
Peter Becker, president of Criterion, credits this continued annual growth to young customers’ enthusiasm for physical formats.
“In the dawn of streaming, it seemed like maybe this was not going to happen, but it has definitely happened,” said Becker. “We’re seeing a lot of evidence, including at the Criterion Mobile Closet, that more young people are thinking about physical media in a different way. In an age where so much is available to us on demand, it becomes increasingly important to us.”
Amy Jo Smith, president of the Digital Entertainment Group, said sales of physical media tend to peak around the release of highly sought-after titles like “Wicked” and other franchise collections.
“This is most clear in 4K UHD Blu-ray, which delivers a premium in-home viewing experience,” Smith said, adding that “U.S. viewers spent 12 percent more buying titles on 4K UHD in 2025 than they did in 2024.”
In January 2026, Vidiots said it had its biggest month ever — renting an average of 170 movies daily and renting 500 titles in just one day. Each disc rents for $3, including their most popular titles like David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” and Elaine May’s “The Heartbreak Kid.”
When it opened in 2023, Vidiots loaned out around 22,000 discs. A year later, it doubled to around 50,000. The shop’s rental numbers have continued to rise, hitting a little over 1,000 movies a week in 2025.
Nat Roberts retrieves DVDs from shelves behind the counter at Vidiots. Roberts has worked at the store for two years. (Karla Gachet/For The Times)
Robbie McCluskey, the director of the video store, said the most recent numbers aren’t “even close to back in the mid-2010s,” adding that this moment feels like a “golden age” for physical media.
Over the weekend, Bianca Garcia and her friends Lauren and Emily VanDerwerken were on a mission to find “Raising Helen” and “Drop Dead Gorgeous” in the Vidiots collection, as they couldn’t find the titles on streaming. For them, owning and renting physical media is all about reassurance.
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“If something gets deleted off an online platform, I will still be able to watch it because I have a physical copy,” said Lauren, 31. “It feels really precious to be able to own things physically and not be at the mercy of studios’ financial decisions.”
Garcia, 27, who first started to dive into cinema during the pandemic, sees physical media ownership as an act of “rebellion.”
Jay Spencer restocks DVDs at Vidiots (Karla Gachet/For The Times)
“At this point, I’m forced to have six different subscriptions, which is insane, and I still can’t find what I want to watch,” Garcia said. “Why am I paying this much for them to give me a movie for a year and take it away?”
“Vidiots is full of people who actually love movies and don’t just want my subscription money every month,” she said.
Cinefile, a video shop founded in 1999, boasts a similar upward trend in business. Post-COVID, there were roughly 300 paying members. Today, that number hovers around 500.
Luis Samra, an employee at Cinefile, has noticed both a flood of younger followers on the store’s Instagram page and an influx of college students coming into the shop. He says, every Friday night (when they are open until midnight), he sees Gen Z friend groups pour into the store, in search of the movies from David Lynch, David Cronenberg and anything from A24, the production company best known for movies like “Hereditary,” “Midsommar” and “Marty Supreme.”
“It’s like an after-dinner hangout activity,” said Samra. “They like to browse amongst each other and say ‘Have you seen this movie?’ or ‘Have you seen this director?’ And maybe one in three of those people usually come up and make a membership.”
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Before this surge in memberships, the video store relied on providing more niche films. But with the renewed interest, Cinefile is able to spend more money to keep up withcurrent releases, like buying all of this year’s Oscar-nominated films for customersto rent. They’ve also been able to bulk up their for-sale section.
Barnes & Noble is one of the few remaining chain retailers that still dedicates in-store space to physical media items. According to Bill Castle, the director of B&N’s music and video section, sales of DVDs and Blu-rays have increased by “mid-double digits” in the last year.
Victor Gonzales, left, browses inside Videotheque on Feb. 14. Gonzales said he has been coming to the store since it was located in South Pasadena more than 10 years ago and now lives nearby. (Karla Gachet/For The Times)
“We see across all of our platforms, books, vinyl, everything, is way up for us. People want to own things and build libraries,” said Castle, who added that Barnes & Noble’s media section demographics continue to skew toward younger shoppers. “It’s convenient. They can listen or watch them at any time. They don’t have to worry about what streaming service has it up.”
Castle said he is frustrated when major studios like Disney seem to prioritize streaming over physical releases.
“When Disney moved from their own distribution to Sony, we saw a drop in their title count, and we often carried all the Disney titles. We see it shrinking from some studios,” said Castle. “We need products to sell interesting things for our shoppers to browse through. So without more content, it’s a disadvantage.”
Recently, producer and chair of USC Peter Stark Producing Program Ed Saxon was “shocked” when he received one of his old movies, “Married to the Mob” (1988), as a new release from Blu-ray boutique vendor Vinegar Syndrome.
Phoenix Topete and Dayana Gallardo visit Videotheque for a Valentine’s Day date on Feb. 14. Gallardo said she first began coming to the store in fall 2023 and that she and her boyfriend enjoy browsing for movies together. Maddie Bumb, seen in the background, has worked at the store for two and a half years and was previously a customer when it was located in South Pasadena. (Karla Gachet/For The Times)
“It’s well thought of to this day, but it wasn’t a big hit. It’s directed by a notable director, but that would not have happened before this bump,” said Saxon, referring to the film’s reemergence. “In an era where we’re all so online, it was reassuring and felt nurturing. It’s good evidence of how much film culture means to people.”
He suggested a precursor to this rise in popularity began in the 2010s, when audio streaming platforms were introduced and vinyl records started to regain popularity among millennials. He explained that to younger people like his students, collecting and renting DVDs is a way “to be able to slow down and get off this hedonic treadmill of ‘where’s my next stimulus coming from.’”
“Infinite choice is exhausting. People are just tired of all of it. Putting a claim down on a piece of culture is in some ways subversive and fights back against platform control,” said Saxon. “Physical media isn’t competing with streaming. It’s instead correcting for the context and commitment.”
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Saxon, who produced “The Silence of the Lambs,” is also well aware that physical media can be a “nice piece of business for the studios.”
He added, “‘The Silence of the Lambs’ is a perennial now. I understand how it’s been everywhere, but that movie means enough to people that they will go buy it.”
“As a kind of mass market for older films that don’t have new sources of revenue, beyond new streaming platforms, [physical media] is a nice bonus, and when you add it up across a whole library of films from the studios, it adds up to real money.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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