Best Movies to Rent
The best movies to rent are films that you want to see once for pure entertainment value. These aren't necessarily the same movies that are the best movies to watch or the best movies to buy. Another subcategory of "the best movies to rent" are movies that you MIGHT want to buy someday, but you want to watch them first before deciding whether or not to take up the space on your storage shelves.
I'm not surprised at all that people would search for the best movie rental options. With over 95,000 movies on DVD available to rent, the choices are literally staggering. One of the goals that a movie renter should have is to "know thyself." In other words, it's easier to decide which films are the best ones to rent if you know what kinds of movies you enjoy ahead of time and why.
Best Screenplays
If you're a writer and/or reader, then you're probably interested in the quality of a film's writing. The best movies to rent in your case are probably films from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. In those days, screenplays were written by good writers. No one of the literary caliber of William Faulkner is writing screenplays today. But Faulkner wrote screenplays for films like The Big Sleep (1946), To Have and Have Not(1942), and Drums Along the Mohawk (1939).
Another way to find movies with great screenplays to rent is to look at the winners of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Adapted Screenplay. If you hate old movies, some recent movie with great screenplays include Milk, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, and Crash. Also worth checking out are Slumdog Millonaire, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, and Brokeback Mountain.
Best Special Effects
On the other hand, if special effects are your thing, more modern movies will probably be your cup of tea. The best movies to rent in your case will be modern blockbuster films like The Matrix, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight. One possible way of selecting the best films to rent in your case would be to look at the winners of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Past winners of this award that would be worth renting include The Golden Compass, King Kong, Spider-man 2, and The Lord of the Rings.
Best Action Movies to Rent
Are you a fan of action movies? If so, getting "best movie" rental ideas should be pretty easy. Just think of the various subgenres of the action film. Some of these include martial arts movies, spy movies, and disaster movies. Action movies don't begin and end with Die Hard and Speed. Be sure to rent some foreign action films and see what other countries do with the genre. John Woo, in particular, has filmed some amazing action sequences. Movies like The Legend of Drunken Master andDog Soldiers are good examples of great movie rentals in the foreign action movie category. You can find a list of some of the best action movies here, too.
Best Comedy Movies to Rent
My wife is a fan of comedy movies, so a lot of times, the best movie for me to rent is a comedy. She's particularly fond of this new breed of R-rated "guy romantic comedy" like The 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad. But she also loves Adam Sandler movies, Ben Stiller movies, and Jack Black movies. I tend to prefer older comedies, classics like Some Like It Hot and His Girl Friday. There are plenty of comedy movies to choose from though.
Best Western Movies to Rent
Americans have a tendency to love Westerns, and the best Westerns to rent are the ones you haven't already seen. For most Western fans, this means new Western movies. Recent great Westerns include Appaloosa and Broken Trail. The recent remake of 3:10 to Yuma is also a great film to rent. I haven't seenThe Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford yet, but it's high on my personal list of Westerns to rent. And if you like classic Westerns, plenty of them are available to rent on DVD. Some of the lesser-known great Western movies to rent include The Big Country, starring Gregory Peck, andThe Tin Star starring Henry Fonda and Anthony Perkins.
Best Science Fiction Movies to Rent
Science fiction movie fans have a lot of good movies to choose from when deciding what to rent. Recent science fiction movies worth renting include 2012, District 9, Gamer, Knowing, and The Road. But the best science fiction movie of 2009 to rent is without a doubt Moon, starring Sam Rockwell. It's nothing short of brilliant, and once you've seen it, you'll probably want to buy a copy. If you prefer classic science fiction movies, then consider renting some older scifi films that you haven't already seen: The Day of the Triffids, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, andSolaris are all potentially good scifi movie rentals.
Best War Movies to Rent
I don't personally like war movies, but war movie fans will find plenty to choose from at any video store or movie rental service. One entertaining way of choosing war films is to select which war you're going to watch movies about first, and then choose 4 movies to watch. (Two movies for Friday night and two movies for Saturday night.) For example, you might have a Vietnam war movie weekend, where you watch Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and Good Morning Vietnam. Or you could have World War 2 weekend, where you rent Saving Private Ryan, Inglourious Basterds, Schindler's List, and Hart's War. (In fact, there are so many World War 2 movies, you could make that a Friday night theme for an entire year and never run out of movies to rent.) Civil War buffs have plenty of movies to choose from too: Glory, Gettysburg, Gods and Generals, and The Red Badge of Courage are all good Civil War movie choices.
No matter what kind of movies you love, choosing the best movies to rent is a matter of thinking a little bit about what you would really enjoy first, and then planning movie night around a theme. This article has only scratched the surface of the kinds movies people like to watch. I didn't write about horror movies, but knowing the best horror movies to rent is as simple as doing a little research on the Internet. Other genres include musicals, epics, crime, and adventure movies.
If you want to buy movies online, be sure to check Amazon. They seem to have the best prices.
