Gen Z is bringing back DVDs, and yes, it’s kind of iconic
Feb 24, 2026, 7:00 AM
Streaming was supposed to be the end-all, be-all. Pay one monthly fee, watch everything ever made, live happily ever after. Instead, we got 12 different apps, three price hikes a year and the same five shows getting shoved in our face until we give up and rewatch “The Office.”
Now Gen Z is doing something that feels both retro and extremely logical: buying and renting physical media again.
The Los Angeles Times reports that an increasing number of Gen Zers are embracing DVDs and Blu-rays, and independent video rental stores are seeing record months and membership numbers. In other words, the kids are all right — and they want special features.
Why Gen Z is choosing discs over endless scrolling
The top reasons are pretty straightforward: subscription fatigue and frustration with content being scattered across too many platforms. It’s not that people hate streaming. It’s that streaming keeps making itself unbearable.
One minute your favorite movie is on Netflix. The next minute it’s on a service you’ve never heard of that costs $11.99 a month and has exactly two other titles you’d watch. Physical media doesn’t pull that stunt.
Aidan Gannon, 24, summed up the appeal perfectly.
“I want something I can put on my shelf,” he said. “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.”
Honestly, that’s not even a Gen Z problem. That’s a modern-life problem.
The new “vinyl era,” but for movies
If this sounds familiar, it should. Gen Z’s interest in DVDs and Blu-rays mirrors the way millennials fell back in love with vinyl records — part nostalgia, part collecting, part “I actually own this.”
There’s also something satisfying about having a real library you can see. Not a watchlist you’ll never finish. Not a “My Stuff” tab that disappears when the licensing deal ends. A shelf.
And sure, maybe it’s a little ironic that the most online generation is getting into the least online way to watch a movie. But it also makes sense: physical media is simple, reliable and doesn’t require an internet connection strong enough to power a small nation.
So yes, DVDs are back. Not because Gen Z is behind the times — but because they’re tired of paying monthly fees to rent the same convenience that keeps getting worse.
