June 04, 2026
Provided image/Dylan Wise/Little Movie Store
Little Movie Store already has over 20,000 DVDs, Blu-rays and VHS tapes in its rental library. Some of the titles are pictured above.
It's been over a decade since anyone in Philadelphia had occasion to use a Blockbuster card, or raid the racks of TLA Video. But movie lovers may soon have a new place to rent DVDs, Blu-rays and even VHS tapes.
Passyunk Square resident Dylan Wise is currently searching for a home for a new video rental shop. Little Movie Store promises the mostly bygone experience of picking a film off an actual shelf, paying a small fee to take it home and returning it to the same spot — where thousands more options await.
Wise, who plans to run the shop with his wife Keri, says they are in final negotiations on a storefront. The initial hope was to open by July 4, but the couple is now aiming for a late summer debut. They have already assembled a formidable library, built over the past year from estate sales, thrift shops, garage sales, Facebook Marketplace and eBay. Wise and his friend Nick Orsini also donated a good chunk of their personal collections to the cause. All together, it totals over 20,000 titles, an inventory that Wise hopes will "serve every type of movie fan."
"We don't want it to feel like it's too much of a cliquey club and you have to know this movie to like this movie," he said. "We're gonna carry the Criterion Collection and we're also gonna carry 'Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance.' We're gonna carry it all."
Little Movie Store will use a membership model, allowing patrons to check out three movies at a time. They'll also get 10% off candy, popcorn, film-themed merchandise and select titles available for sale, plus a free movie on their birthdays.
Wise plans to host a "secret movie club" exclusively for his members. The club will gather to watch mystery films from the Little Movie Store collection, receiving only a vague hint like "thriller from the 2000s" before showtime. The screenings would focus on obscure or forgotten films from Hollywood history.
"Something that we're hoping for is to let some of these movies that aren't 'Back to the Future' and aren't 'Star Wars' be given the time of day," Wise said.
Little Movie Store has been teasing its arrival on TikTok and Instagram, where Wise posts recommendations, trailers and VHS ASMR. Through these channels, he recently began soliciting followers for tape and disc donations to the rental library. Those who do will receive a free membership and get to recommend a title for display. Rather than staff picks, the shop will curate a shelf of community picks.
Opening a video store in 2026, when streaming is king, might seem counterintuitive. The last Blockbuster in Philly, located at 6801 Frankford Ave., closed in 2013. But there's a growing appetite for physical media. While DVD sales are continuing to decline — albeit not as dramatically as they once did — premium home video labels like the Criterion Collection are seeing growth. Barnes & Noble also reported "mid-double digit" spikes in movie sales earlier this year. Little Movie Store isn't even the first Philly shop to capitalize on this trend; Pop Culture Vulture, a collectibles shop that also rents out DVDs for $1.50 a pop, opened on South Street in 2024.
Wise attributes the shift to a growing disaffection with streaming services, where titles routinely disappear or jump to a competing platform. He remembers the overwhelming nostalgia he felt when he and Orsini visited the last remaining Blockbuster in the U.S. about a year ago — a pilgrimage to Bend, Oregon, that he credits with putting him on the Little Movie Store path. People want to hold or even be "surrounded by" the films they love, he said.
"Ten, 15 years ago, when vinyl started exploding again, my dad was like, what are you talking about?" Wise recalled. "You want to get the White Stripes on vinyl? That's insane. You could stream it on your phone. And I sort of feel the same way now about VHS, DVD, Blu-rays. I think people want to be able to own it."
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