The list of 10 Movies That Are Surprisingly Hard to Find (So Keep Your Discs) includes Cocoon, Dawn of the Dead, and more
This article has the subheading,
A surprising amount of prominent, classic movies are unavailable on disc or streaming, including classics like Dawn of the Dead, The Beach and Strange Days.
Unfortunately, the author doesn’t want to shop outside of North America (which really bugs me, especially with his comment on Dawn of the Dead). Anyway, if he did a little more research, he would have found out that:
The Beach (2000) – Available on Spanish Blu-ray (Bootleg?)
Cocoon (1985) – Originally released by 20th Century Fox on Blu-ray in 2010 for the US and Canada. Has been issued in the UK, France and most recently Germany in 2019.
Strange Days (1999) – Issued twice in Germany, the most recent being in 2015, and in the UK in 2017, but that has been censored for sexual violence.
Showtime (2002) – Website is correct, not currently available anywhere in physical HD.
Dawn of the Dead (1978) – The website correctly states that the film is available on 4K internationally on a region free disc (as 99% of 4K discs are) but has a dig that there isn’t a North American release. 🤷
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) – Apart from the stated Laserdisc and VHS, it also got a DVD release, from what I can tell, was Australia. And, as stated, is also available on some streaming services.
Sorry for being pedantic, blame my autism! 😁
EDIT: I was tired yesterday and have realised I stopped short, so let finish it off.
Salute of The Jugger (The Blood of Heroes) (1989) — Released in Japan and Denmark on Blu-ray, but it’s a bit of an oddity. It contains the US and longer European cut, which is on DVD. It’s only 1080i50 and apparently a strange upscale which is also in 4:3.
John Woo’s Hong Kong Films - Best read Emperor’s reply down below. :-)
The Heartbreak Kid (1972) — According to Wikipedia,
Although released on DVD in 1998 and in 2002, the film currently (as of 2022) is out of print. In 2022 it was announced the Brooklyn Academy of Music would offer a rare screening of the film.
There are a few copies on eBay, but because of the scarcity, they’re quite pricey.
I have those John Woo films on DVD, so I’ll be looking after them.
A Better Tomorrow Trilogy boxset was released on Blu-ray by Nova Media and there is a 4k of the first film from Japan (no English sub’s on the disc but they are available). At this point, as I own.them, I am happy to hang on for someone to sort the rights out and do nice 4ks.