Videoheaven

2025

Documentary / History

1
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 83% · 35 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 83%
IMDb Rating 6.9/10 10 325 325

video store archive footage essay film

Plot summary

Since the 1980s, the video shop has been a desperately necessary space for film culture. In Videoheaven, Alex Ross Perry tells the story of the neighbourhood video shop to consider wider, changing social histories, using appropriated footage from the high and lowbrow.

Director

Alex Ross Perry Photo
Alex Ross Perry

Top cast

720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
1.55 GB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 52 min
Seeds ...
2.87 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 52 min
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Henry D 2 / 10

It looked interesting, but not interesting enough to

It looked interesting, but not interesting enough to stay with it for almost 3-hours. We quit after 20-minutes.
Reviewed by Stephen C 10 / 10

Real footage in 3 hours flat

Real footage in 3 hours flat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reviewed by Robin C 7 / 10

“Videoheaven” In 1976, JVC introduced the Video Home

“Videoheaven” In 1976, JVC introduced the Video Home System (VHS) to the world and, by the 1980s, it dominated the movie viewing market. Documentarian Alex Ross Perry, with Maya Hawke narrating, assembles a mass of archival footage of the rise and fall of the video store in “Videoheaven.” The film begins with Ethan Hawke, quoting Shakespeare, walking through a video store. Things shift to his daughter’s narrative of the history of the VHS format from its introduction to the first video rentals a year later and on to its dominance in the home entertainment field. That field was owned, primarily, by the big brick and mortar chains, like Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video. But, also remember the little mom and pop video stores that popped up everywhere over those years. A sizable portion of “Videoheaven” is showing how video stores appeared in many movies of the time, showing the social impact VHS and video stores had on the world through the movies they also appeared in as subjects. At 2 hours and 53 minutes, Alex Ross Perry’s latest work is, in a word, long. As the film approached the two hour mark, I noticed it started repeating itself. It makes the point that VHS, and the video stores it spawned, was a decades-lasting cultural icon that quickly fell by the wayside when newer and better format prevailed and VHS died. It is repeated a number of times in different ways. We still have hundreds and hundreds of VHS tapes with recorded movies stacked in our basement. We will never watch them again since DVD, Blu-ray and 4K are all much better – and, you do not have to rewind. B
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