Best Video Stores and Places to Rent Movies in St. Louis, Missouri

Price and Location Are Determining Factors for Customers

I recently joined Netflix. I don’t rent nearly as many movies as I used to, so I got the monthly special for just $5.99. For that price you get two movies per month that you can keep for as long as you want. I might eventually upgrade
Best Video Stores and Places to Rent Movies in St. Louis, Missouri
 to the $9.99 plan where you can get an unlimited number of movies one at a time. With both plans you create a list and as soon as you return the movie you have, they send you another one from the list. They say you get your movies in about one business day. My experience so far has been about two, but that’s still not bad.

The reason that I started using Netflix is that there seems to be a trend at the video store away from selection and towards stocking more and more new releases. I recently wanted to rent a copy of an older movie to show to some friends who hadn’t seen it yet, but there wasn’t a single movie store in town that still carried it. With over 65,000 titles in stock, Netflix had it and shipped it to me in a couple of days.

I started out renting movies when the VCR’s came out back in the eighties. I lived in a small town outside of St. Louis then and I remember the old Montgomery Ward store in town had a rack of videos in the corner. The video section grew and grew until, after a few months, the Montgomery Ward had been transformed into Rent N Go Video. Pretty soon it seemed that everyone was in on the video craze: the supermarkets and discount stores rented videos. They were at the Seven Eleven. The drugstore had them. The bait shop over on Highway F stocked them near the beer and night crawler cooler. If you knew the owner Andy at all, he’d show you his private stock in the backroom. You know, the ones not to be viewed by children.

When I moved back to St. Louis, a lot of the places that rented videos as a side business had removed them. They just couldn’t compete with the two giants: Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.

Related information
  • Video stores are stocking fewer older movies in favor of new releases.
  • Family Video uses lower prices and specials to bolster sales.
  • Netflix has some 65,000 titles available to rent.
 
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I'm more on your side than you may think. I lived in a small town and watched as two businesses went under when the new Wal Mart came to town. One hardware store had been family owned and operated there for almost 100 years. I had a restaurant there. Seemed like something was always breaking down. I could have saved a lot of money by going to Wal Mart, but I stayed loyal to te hardware store. They had something WalMart didn't: service. I could ask them anything. One time they even came down and helped me make a repair for free. What's the good in saving a few dollars if you still can't get it to work. You make some good points. Maybe an article about the hidden retail gems in St. Louis?

Posted on 09/09/2008 at 3:09:51 PM

I didn't mean to offend you. I am glad that someone at least made any list at all. But I just don't necessarily see a future where you drive down one block and see Mcdonalds, Best Buy, Walmart, and then the next block and see Taco Bell, Radio Shack, Shell Gas, and then after maybe, say, 10 blocks of stores where you recognize every single name as a giant corporation, the 10 blocks simply repeat themselves. I think just because someone can do something MORE EFFICIENTLY, and hell, even CHEAPER, doesn't necessarily mean it's BETTER. I would rather pay more, wait longer, and even take chances for authentic experiences (I hate using the word authentic, because what is not "authentically" itself, whatever it is...) instead of doing somewhere where I know exactly what will happen, the same, every time. We can make the world easier and easier and "better and better", "faster and faster", but then, one day we will realize, that we have simply erased what the world really was in the first place.

Posted on 09/09/2008 at 3:09:31 PM

I didn't mean to offend you. I am glad that someone at least made any list at all. But I just don't necessarily see a future where you drive down one block and see Mcdonalds, Best Buy, Walmart, and then the next block and see Taco Bell, Radio Shack, Shell Gas, and then after maybe, say, 10 blocks of stores where you recognize every single name as a giant corporation, the 10 blocks simply repeat themselves. I think just because someone can do something MORE EFFICIENTLY, and hell, even CHEAPER, doesn't necessarily mean it's BETTER. I would rather pay more, wait longer, and even take chances for authentic experiences (I hate using the word authentic, because what is not "authentically" itself, whatever it is...) instead of doing somewhere where I know exactly what will happen, the same, every time. We can make the world easier and easier and "better and better", "faster and faster", but then, one day we will realize, that we have simply erased what the world really was in the first place.

Posted on 09/09/2008 at 3:09:07 PM

Excuse me. I am familiar with all of the places that you mentioned, and they are fine if you are looking for a hard to find movie, BUT most people rent new releases, that's why places like Blockbuster, Hollywood, and the Red Boxes are so popular. Why should I drive all the way across town and pay extra for a new release I can get at McDonald's for a buck? The small stores survive by catering to the special needs of some people, but unfortunately they will never compete with the big stores. They got big because they did a better job than the other guys. Wake up and smell the popcorn.

Posted on 09/08/2008 at 3:09:22 PM

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Posted on 09/08/2008 at 9:09:49 AM

This guide is awful. I agree with Eric, this is a only a good guide if you want your entirely life to be ruled by stores that look the same as everywhere else you've ever been, which, apparently, most people want. The Record Exchange on Hampton is a staple for my movie purchasing. Vintage Vinyl on Delmar is choice for movies and music. For really weird stuff try Apop Records on cherokee. All of these places have their respective websites, just search. Hopefully they won't start censoring the search engines any worse than they do now.

Posted on 09/08/2008 at 8:09:00 AM

Utterly ignorant of available independent stores (like the Movie Nut, for cheap Criterion Collection DVD rentals), or the Record Exchange, for its vast walls of for-sale used tapes and DVDs.

Posted on 01/14/2007 at 1:01:00 AM

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