Laura Carollo
Research expert covering cinema and film
Physical movies - statistics & facts
Are physical movies going extinct? At a time when consumers increasingly favor video streaming, the presence of physical video seems to shrink by the day. While 2023 witnessed the cancellation of Netflix’s DVD-by-mail business and the withdrawal of Best Buy from physical distribution, 2024 is already on track to confirm the trend. Last February, Disney announced that they would outsource their physical media business to Sony, despite regularly topping DVD charts - only for Sony to end the production of Blu-ray discs several months after that.
While viewers are turning more to streaming video for their daily movie consumption, physical movie ownership is now part of a more niche market. As the share of films available legally via streaming is limited, particularly older productions, physical video is cementing its place as an object of cultural preservation.
Physical movies sales plunge
While consumer spending on video has grown steadily over the past decade, physical video sales are in the doldrums. In 2023, digital video rentals and sales rose to roughly 4.33 billion U.S. dollars, up by around 140 million U.S. dollars from the previous year. On the contrary, disc sales and rentals decreased to 1.56 billion dollars in 2023. As of 2022, spending on physical retail video had decreased to less than 1.14 billion euros in Europe, more than five times less than ten years prior. Physical retail video has taken a heavy toll, with spending falling from more than 660 million euros in 2013 to about 30 million euros in 2022.Prices are skyrocketing
After consumer electronics retailer Best Buy’s decision to stop the sale of DVDs and Blu-rays, the average price of DVDs and Blu-rays has skyrocketed in the United States. It peaked in April 2024 at 44.06 dollars. In the United States, the purchase of DVDs and Blu-rays dropped as of June 2024 for all age brackets, registering between around ten and 13 percent, except for 30 to 44 -year-olds at 23.7 percent. In comparison to June 2023, the share of consumers aged 29 and younger who buy physical video plummeted, going for 30 percent to just less than half that in just 12 months. Increasing prices could partially explain that trend. Gen Z is indeed hit particularly hard by inflation, and their declining purchasing power impacts their media spending, being the generation most likely to cancel a video streaming subscription due to price increases.Collectors’ editions
Despite these current trends, it may be too early to officially announce the end of physical films. Like other physical media, such as vinyls, DVDs and Blu-rays have gone from everyday objects to collectors' items. Many cinephiles are willing to pay extra to acquire special editions of their favorite films, especially if they feature additional content, as evidenced by the success of the Blu-rays released by the Criterion Collection, a distribution company specialized in restoring and distributing classic films. As of 2023, the unit sales of Ultra HD Blu-ray was the only segment that was steadily increasing.While viewers are turning more to streaming video for their daily movie consumption, physical movie ownership is now part of a more niche market. As the share of films available legally via streaming is limited, particularly older productions, physical video is cementing its place as an object of cultural preservation.
