Movies you definitely rented from Blockbuster when you were a kid

Rest in peace, Blockbuster. Gone, but never forgotten. How many times do you think you found yourself in the video store as a kid, begging your parents to let you rent maybe two movies this time? And nothing matched the joy of being the kid in the family with the honor to picking out the movie for the night. NOTHING.

But like so many other things in life, Blockbuster changed over time. It was no longer a rare treat to head to the video store and pick up a new release when we had Netflix streaming at home. Besides, driving to the video store to grab a movie, and then having to drive back to return it became such a chore (and you always had to go back, to avoid late fees. Late fees! Do kids today even know the horror of a late fee?? Or being kind and rewinding??).

We kinda miss those Blockbuster days, though. Thinking about Blockbuster brings up so many memories and so many movies we watched as kids. Here are a few you probably rented.

Titanic

Titanic came with not one but TWO VHS tapes! Remember how suddenly the movie would end, and then you had to switch over to the other one? This was also great, because if you only wanted to watch parts of the movie, it was easy to find it over the three hours. This was way before actually choosing scenes on a DVD, so two VHS tapes was actually kind of great.

The Princess Bride

Your parents, older sibling, cousin, next door neighbor just HAD to show you this movie, because in the early ’90s, it was the go-to best movie of all time. It still is.

The Mighty Ducks

Because you were on a sports team as a kid, and wondered why you and all your teammates didn’t have a cool chant like “QUACK QUACK QUACK.”

Richie Rich

After a while, maybe you got sick of watching Home Alone so many times. Or perhaps you experienced the dreaded fear of going to Blockbuster and they were all out of Home Alone. What to do? Pick up another Macaulay Culkin movie, like the one where he’s a child billionaire.

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movies

There are three: Joe Versus the Volcano, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail. Maybe you marathon all three of them at the same time, way before movie marathons were a thing. Maybe you saw You’ve Got Mail in theaters and then needed to go back and see the other two. You definitely picked all three of them up on VHS at some point.

The Chipmunk Adventure

It wasn’t Disney, but it had talking and singing animals. The Chipmunks (and Chipettes) were technically kids, but traveled around in a hot air balloon and then got involved in an international plot to smuggle diamonds. Still one of the greatest movies of all time, IMO.

Assorted Power Rangers episodes

Know how you can binge an entire television season in one sitting with Netflix? That wasn’t always the case. Once upon a time, if you wanted to watch every single episode of a show, you had to rent each individual episode. ONE AT A TIME.

Jungle 2 Jungle

It’s like reverse Tarzan, but Tim Allen is Tarzan’s dad! Also, you thought it was HUH-larious.

Follow that Bird

 Sesame Street once made a full-length movie and this was kind of a BIG DEAL. You saw it once in the theaters, and then rented it a million more times since for a babysitter it was always a safe bet.

An animated knock off Disney movie

If felt like this situation always happened at a sleepover. You’d send one of the parents out to go rent a movie, and they’d come back with the same title, but it was not a Disney animated classic. The Genie is not yellow; he is blue. It was usually not great. And it was usually very weird.

Mrs. Doubtfire

Did you know that Mrs. Doubtfire is actually rated PG-13?? Chances are, you parents probably wouldn’t let you see it in the theaters back in 1993. But a few years later in the comforts of your own home, most definitely.

(Images via Amazon)