Are movies still released on DVD?

DVDs are still being produced and sold, with new movie releases like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' hitting shelves in 2026.

Are movies still released on DVD?
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The facts

Yes, movies are still released on DVD. As of August 2026, new titles continue to be issued on DVD and Blu-ray. For example, recent DVD releases include "Project Hail Mary" and "The Devil Wears Prada 2," both of which became available in August 2026. Retailers like Amazon maintain active "New Releases in DVD" sections, and industry sources list upcoming DVD release dates. While streaming has become dominant, physical media remains a viable format for new movie releases.

Answered by 100 of history's most famous minds

Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus of Nazareth c. 4 BC – AD 30/33 · Jewish teacher whose life founded Christianity

You ask of boxes that hold moving images, yet the Word itself was made flesh and dwelt among us. These discs are but a vessel; what matters is the light they carry into the darkened room. Do not store up treasures where moth and rust consume, but let every tale of mercy and every act of kindness be your true release.

Muhammad
Muhammad c. 570–632 · Prophet of Islam who united Arabia under one faith

The world moves as water flows, yet some cling to the stones of old paths. These disks are but a means, not an end; the story within may sow wisdom or vanity. Let the believer choose that which upholds justice and mercy, for the vessel matters not before God, but the fruit it bears. And know that all that is stored - whether in brass or cloud - shall pass, save the deeds of the soul.

Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha c. 563–483 BC · Sage whose awakening founded Buddhism

The disc is a vessel for attachment, a craving to hold the fleeting image, to grasp at a pleasure that must fade. The stream, too, is but another current of desire, carrying the mind from one spectacle to the next. Whether the tale be etched in plastic or borne on the wind, the wise one watches the mind that clings, not the medium. Let go of the need to own the story, and see only the images arise and pass, like clouds in the sky.

Moses
Moses c. 13th century BC (traditional) · Hebrew prophet and lawgiver of the Exodus

The people once gathered around the stone tablets, for the word was made permanent, not fleeting. This disk is like a tablet of the new age, carrying the vision for those who would take it into their hands, while the stream is like the manna that spoils by morning. The question is not whether it still exists, but whether the people still honor the covenant of remembrance. Let them keep the disk as a witness, that the story may be told to every generation.

Confucius
Confucius 551–479 BC · Chinese sage of ethics, family, and social order

A wise man does not ask whether the clay tablet is better than the silk scroll, but whether the words within are right and the reader's heart is sincere. The DVD is but a vessel for the moving image, which itself is a teacher of li - showing men and women proper conduct or its absence. If a family gathers to watch a tale and afterward speaks of its lessons, the format matters little. Yet if one keeps the disc only to hoard it, the neglect of the spirit is a loss.

Paul the Apostle
Paul the Apostle c. AD 5 – c. 64/67 · Apostle whose letters shaped Christian theology

What is a disc but a tablet of stone, a scroll, a letter to be carried from town to town? The Word is not bound by the medium, whether etched on papyrus or pressed on a silver platter. Yet I say: if this disc carries a tale of truth and love, then let it be shared, for the message is the treasure, not the vessel. But woe to those who store up only empty entertainments, for they will find them dust in the day of judgment.

Abraham
Abraham c. 2nd millennium BC (traditional) · Patriarch and father of the monotheistic faiths

They ask if the story is still carried in a box for the hearth. In my wanderings, I carried the promise in my heart, not in stone or scroll, for it was alive. These discs are but new skins for old tales - some shepherds will read the stars, others press a button. What matters is that the tale is told, and the children gather 'round to hear it. As long as hands hold it and eyes light up, the tale endures.

Laozi
Laozi 6th century BC (traditional) · Sage of the Tao and founder of Taoism

The valley that is filled with boxes and reels and spinning discs is shallow, yet it holds what the empty shelf cannot. The manifold pictures move and flicker; the still disk rests. Which endures? The stream that rushes past is forgotten; the pond that stays collects the moonlight. Let the pictures fade - what remains is the silence between them.

Guru Nanak
Guru Nanak 1469–1539 · Founder of Sikhism and first Sikh Guru

The name of the One is written in the heart, not on a disc of plastic or in the air that carries a signal. But if a servant repeats the Word daily, the repetition fixes it in the memory. So too, a physical gift of the story can be held by the poor who cannot afford a machine to summon it. Let the rich stream; let the humble hold the object and know that God's light shines on it equally.

Mary, Mother of Jesus
Mary, Mother of Jesus c. 1st century BC – 1st century AD · Mother of Jesus, venerated across Christianity and Islam

As a mother keeps the swaddling cloths of her firstborn, so do many cherish these discs that hold the story of moving pictures. The world rushes to the fleeting stream, yet there remains a place for what can be held in the hand and shared in the quiet of the home. My heart sees the lowly still served - those without the swift wires - and I am glad that the bread of entertainment is not withheld from them.

Martin Luther
Martin Luther 1483–1546 · Reformer whose theses sparked the Reformation

Let the pope of Rome forbid the laity the Scripture; he cannot forbid them this little platter that brings the story into the home. The stream is like the indulgence seller - it promises much but gives the common man nothing he can hold. The DVD is the vernacular Bible of our age; it puts the picture in the hands of the ploughman and the maid, and no bishop shall take it from them. I say, let the cloud thunder, but the disc remains a true, tangible grace for the faithful.

Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas 1225–1274 · Theologian who fused faith with Aristotle's reason

To the question whether films are still committed to the disc, I answer with a distinction. The stream is a convenience, like the swift courier, but the disc is a substance, like the written page - it can be possessed, examined, and preserved. Reason tells us that not every household has the swift wires, and so the disc serves the common good, much as the manuscript served the scholar before the press. It is not a matter of either/or, but of both/and; the disc endures as a fitting, tangible gift, while the stream flows for those who can reach it. Thus, the practice is reasonable and to be affirmed.

Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa 1910–1997 · Nun who served the poorest and dying of Kolkata

Ah, but the picture on the wall is but a shadow. It is the act of watching together, the family gathered in the lamplight, the popcorn shared, the laughter that binds - that is the real thing. A disc may hold the moving images, but it is the warmth of a hand held in the dark that matters. Let us not fret over the vessel, but remember the love it carries.

Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton 1643–1727 · Physicist who unified motion and universal gravitation

The persistence of these optical platters is but a symptom of a deeper inertia - a system where momentum resists change until sufficient force is applied. Streaming is the new medium, yet the old persists by its own established gravity. Consider the calculus: the disc remains a fixed, measurable object, while the stream is ephemeral as a comet. Which accords better with the immutable laws of nature?

Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein 1879–1955 · Physicist who reframed space, time, and gravity

The persistence of engraved discs amid the ethereal streaming flux recalls the stubbornness of the photon: it behaves as both wave and particle, and so too does this medium cling to its material form. I might ask, does the DVD represent a local frame of reference, a fixed anchor for the moving picture, while the stream flows in a curved spacetime of data? Surely, the one who treasures a disc holds a small museum of light, a relic of solidity in an ever-speeding cosmos.

Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin 1809–1882 · Naturalist who discovered evolution by natural selection

The persistence of the disc is like the persistence of the ammonite's shell in the rock, a fossil of a former age, yet one that still finds its niche. While the stream thrives in the swift current of the modern era, the disc has adapted to a slower pool, favored by those who value ownership and the surety of a physical copy. It is not a matter of the fittest alone, but of the many varied forms that find their place in the great economy of nature, each with its own peculiar advantage.

Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei 1564–1642 · Astronomer who championed the heliocentric universe

Let me examine the question as I would examine the heavens: with the senses and the measure. The disk is a fixed star, carrying the image with certainty, while the stream is a comet that blazes and fades. The persistence of the disk is a matter of observation - do the merchants still stock it? Do the buyers still seek it? If the evidence shows it, then it is so, regardless of the fashion of the scholars. I trust the numbers, not the applause of the crowd.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus 1473–1543 · Astronomer who placed the Sun at the center

The heavens do not diminish because we observe them with a new instrument, nor does a story lose its harmony when played from a smaller sphere. The DVD is like my own treatise - a fixed arrangement of the truth that one may return to, measure, and verify, rather than a fleeting apparition that appears and dissolves with a cloud. If the stream is the Ptolemaic tangle of many gears, the disc is the simple circle, elegant and constant. I would trust the one that offers a stable orbit.

Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla 1856–1943 · Inventor who pioneered alternating current power

They still press these mechanical relics, these grooved platters of information, when we already possess the means to transmit all knowledge through the very air, like electricity through the ether! It is a quaint custom, like carving runes on stone when we have the telegraph. But the disc is a finite vessel; my vision of a wireless world would let every story flow freely, without the need for such husks. Yet let them keep their toys - progress will sweep them aside.

Marie Curie
Marie Curie 1867–1934 · Physicist and chemist who pioneered radioactivity

One might ask if the knowledge is still preserved in a tangible form. In the laboratory, we recorded our findings in notebooks, bound in leather, to be consulted and verified. These discs serve a similar purpose - they hold the images and sounds for repeated study, for the careful observer who wishes to examine nuances. Streaming offers convenience, but the solid disc provides a stable reference, not subject to the whims of a signal.

Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur 1822–1895 · Chemist who founded germ theory and vaccination

In my laboratory, I demanded a pure culture - a specimen free of contamination. The moving image on a screen is a broth clouded with a thousand unknown inflections; the disk is the sterilized vessel, holding the exact strain. Streaming, like an open flask, lets in the air's corruption - interruptions, buffering, the whims of connection. The disk is my sealed flask, preserving the true inoculation.

Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison 1847–1931 · Inventor of the practical light bulb and phonograph

I spent years tinkering with wax cylinders, trying to get sound to stick. Streaming is like a phonograph that only plays if you have the right current - and the power company might cut you off. A DVD is a cylinder you can carry to a friend's house, bang on, and still get the show. We built the thing; we should keep a copy in the workshop.

Alan Turing
Alan Turing 1912–1954 · Mathematician who founded computer science and AI

The question is ill-posed without a precise definition of 'released.' If we mean the physical encoding of data on a polycarbonate substrate readable by an optical laser, then yes, the operation remains in production, albeit a diminishing one. It is a curious historical artifact: a read-only storage medium when the network allows universal retrieval. One might say the DVD is to streaming as the wax cylinder is to the magnetic tape - a solution that persists beyond its optimality, a comforting redundancy for those who distrust the ethereal cloud.

Archimedes
Archimedes c. 287–212 BC · Greek genius of mathematics and mechanics

The moving image, once captured, may be stored as a series of pits on a spinning platter - a mechanical wonder, to be sure, but no more mysterious than the lever. My eye sees a problem of geometry and wear: the disc rotates, the laser reflects, and the data is decoded with error correction - a fine demonstration of applied mathematics. Yet the stream, like the tide, washes over all, and I wonder if the disc will soon be but a relic, a proof that once we could hold the ephemeral in our hands. Still, give me a firm place to stand, and I shall move the world; give the disc a firm reader, and it shall speak.

Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday 1791–1867 · Self-taught pioneer of electromagnetism

Consider the experiment: a coil of wire wrapped about a magnet, and the needle stirring when the magnet moves - yet when it rests, the needle sleeps. So with this 'streaming' that pours into every home like a river for nothing. But the disc, the thing you hold in your hand, that is the steady field, the permanent force, working without fail whenever you wish to draw upon it. The ether may carry the signal, but the substance endures.

Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud 1856–1939 · Founder of psychoanalysis and the unconscious mind

The persistence of this platter is a symptom, surely. It is the fetish object of a culture that cannot bear to let go of its past. Streaming, you see, is the dream - ephemeral, always shifting, demanding constant attention, like the unconscious itself. But the DVD? That is the return of the repressed: a solid, repetitive, comforting ritual that guards against the anxiety of loss. You cling to the case, not for the film, but for the illusion of permanence in a world that slips away.

Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking 1942–2018 · Cosmologist who unveiled black holes and time

A relic of the pre-quantum era, one might think, yet it persists like background radiation - the echo of a past age. The disc is the black hole of media: information is trapped inside, and to extract it you must approach the event horizon of a player. Still, I admire its stubbornness. It does not buffer; it does not ask for my password. In a universe of entropy, there is comfort in a thing that simply sits on a shelf, obeying the laws of thermodynamics until you choose to spin it.

Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace 1815–1852 · Visionary of computing and the first algorithm

Of course they persist! The disc is a beautiful marriage of the abstract and the concrete - a physical object that stores a sequence of logical instructions, a dance of zeros and ones made tangible. Streaming is but a ghost, a vibration in the air that vanishes the moment it is not sustained. But the DVD is a poem you can hold, a pattern frozen in time until you choose to set it in motion. I, for one, admire its fidelity to the idea of permanence in a fleeting age.

Euclid
Euclid c. 300 BC · Father of geometry and the axiomatic method

Let us define our terms. A disc is a circle, a plane figure contained by one line, with a center equidistant to all points upon its circumference. That it should remain in use is no surprise: it is a self-evident truth that a tangible object, stored and retrieved at will, provides a more certain path to the moving picture than a signal that depends on the whims of an ether. What is demonstrable endures. The proof is in the shelf.

Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale 1820–1910 · Founder of modern nursing and health statistics

If a film be a medicine for the spirit, then the DVD is the tincture bottle - sealed, dosed, and delivered to the sickroom. Streaming is the open ward where miasma spreads; give me the clean, countable disc, its data as ordered as a patient's chart. Let the doctor choose the vial that can be examined, not the vapor that vanishes.

Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great 356–323 BC · Macedonian king who conquered the known world

DVDs? Ha! You speak of relics from a conquered age, while the world races toward the cloud like my phalanxes toward Persia. I would not pause to examine a dusty scroll when a new library awaits beyond the stream. Let the merchants cling to their brittle wares; my empire is built on the wind of the present, not the dust of the past.

Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar 100–44 BC · Roman general whose rise ended the Republic

The die is cast, and yet the common folk still crave the tangible trophy of the film, not the fleeting wisp of the stream. I know well the desire to hold the spoils of a campaign in one's own hands, to feel the weight of the captured standard. So long as there are those who wish to own, to possess, to hoard the spectacle, the disc shall remain a sturdy legionnaire in the ranks of entertainment, even as the legions of the air multiply.

Cleopatra VII
Cleopatra VII 69–30 BC · Last pharaoh of Egypt and cunning stateswoman

What is this parchment they press with images that move? Among my merchants, such disks would be rare treasure, yet the question is not whether they still exist, but whether they still command the loyalty of the people. Even in my Alexandria, the mob follows the newest tale from the stage; if the disk endures, it is because it serves as a monument to memory, not merely for novelty. Let the streamers and the clouds carry the whispers; I would secure the archive that grants the power to shape the story.

Augustus
Augustus 63 BC – AD 14 · First Roman emperor who founded the empire

The wise ruler does not ask whether a road is new, but whether it still serves the common good. The disk is like the old Appian Way, built to endure, while the stream is a temporary bridge that may wash away. If the people still use the disk to gather and share tales, then it holds its place in the order of things. I would not discard the old stone for the sake of novelty, but I would not hinder the new path either, as long as it brings stability to the realm.

Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan c. 1162–1227 · Founder of the largest contiguous land empire

A man without a scabbard is still a man with a sword, but a sword without a scabbard dulls in the rain. The disc is the scabbard for the moving image - it keeps the edge for the warrior who returns to study his battles and the songs of his people. The stream is a rider who may lose his horse in the storm; the disc is the horse tethered to the felt tent, ready when you call. I say, keep the old ways that serve the new, and let none starve for lack of a steady bow.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte 1769–1821 · French emperor and military genius who reshaped Europe

Of course they still produce these discs - one does not abandon a battle-tested strategy merely because a new tactic appears. Streaming is like a swift cavalry charge, but the disc is the infantry that holds the ground, ensuring the story reaches every household, even those without the swiftest couriers. A wise emperor would keep both in reserve, for victory belongs to the one who adapts, not the one who discards the old armor.

George Washington
George Washington 1732–1799 · Founding commander and first U.S. president

It is a question of whether we still keep the records of our entertainments in a durable form. In our young republic, we printed our laws and our stories in volumes, to be preserved for posterity and consulted at need. These discs are the modern bound volumes, offering a lasting archive of our culture, not subject to the fleeting nature of the airwaves. Let those who prize permanence keep them on their shelves.

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln 1809–1865 · President who preserved the Union and ended slavery

In the courthouse, a judgment must be written down to be enforced; a promise spoken in the wind is gone before the gavel falls. So it is with these pictures - those that float in the air can be lost to a change in the weather, but a copy in your own hand is like a homestead deed. A man might move his cabin, but the land is always there.

Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill 1874–1965 · British PM who defied Nazism in World War II

When the bombs fall, the great library of Alexandria is not a recall button; it is a pile of ashes. The moving picture that lives only in the cloud is a hostage to fortune, reliant on the cables that may be severed. The disk is a press-ganged copy, smuggled past the enemy, slipped into the hands of allies. Keep your sword sharp, your powder dry, and your library on the shelf.

Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi 1869–1948 · Leader of nonviolent resistance for India's freedom

The disc that can be held, shared, and passed from hand to hand is like the spinning wheel in my ashram - a symbol of self-reliance against the impersonal flood of the machine. The stream, like the railway, may carry many, but it leaves the villager without a path. Let the rich stream from the cloud; the poor still need the tangible, the loanable, the gift that does not depend on a wire. I see in the humble DVD a small act of swadeshi, a fidelity to the local and the lasting.

Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968 · Civil rights leader of nonviolent racial justice

The stream is like the segregated lunch counter - it serves the many who have, but the disc is like the shared loaf that can be passed to the brother without a connection. I rejoice that the lowly still receive the story, not through the swift wire, but through the tangible gift that can be loaned, shared, and kept. The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, and even in this small thing, I see a sign that the poor and the rural shall not be left behind. Let the cloud serve the cities; the disc serves the beloved community.

Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela 1918–2013 · Anti-apartheid leader and first Black South African president

In the lonely hours of my confinement, I recalled the joy of a simple book shared hand to hand, for it carried not only words but a thread of human connection. So it is with this disc, a tangible piece of story that one may hold, lend, and pass across generations, even when the great river of screens forgets. The stream may fade or fail, but a well-worn case remains a friend. Let us not discard the old ways merely because the new ones sparkle.

Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler 1889–1945 · Nazi dictator responsible for WWII and the Holocaust

The question of whether these moving pictures are still pressed onto discs is irrelevant to the greater forces of history and destiny. The medium matters not; what matters is the will and vision that drive a people. These gadgets are distractions from the monumental struggle for living space and racial purity. Such trivia only dulls the spirit. Better to march, to build, to conquer, than to sit and gawk at shadows on a screen.

Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin 1878–1953 · Soviet dictator whose rule caused mass death

The production of such discs - what is this but a question of output quotas and five-year plans? Does the state still allocate resources to this consumer good? If the masses wish to view their films, let them have them. It is a matter of centralized distribution. The stream, as they call it, is unreliable, decentralized, a bourgeois indulgence. The disc, pressed in vast numbers from a single master, is controllable. That is the only worthy consideration.

Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin 1870–1924 · Bolshevik leader of the Russian Revolution

The commodity persists, but the distribution is what matters. These discs are the party pamphlets of the bourgeois era - printed, shipped, and shelved in shops while the proletariat streams from a screen in a rented room. The true question is not whether the reel survives, but who controls the projector. Consolidate the means, and the format is merely a detail.

Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong 1893–1976 · Communist founder of the People's Republic of China

Let the discs rot in their jewel cases; the real movie plays in the minds of the masses, no spool needed. Streaming is the new Long March - it marches into every hut and hovel, while the DVD is a landlord hoarding grain in a silo. Let the capitalists cry over their plastic shrines; we burn the film of revolution on the air itself.

Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria 1819–1901 · Queen who defined the British imperial age

One does not discard the family portrait because one may visit the family in person. The disc is the bound volume of the age's tales, fit for the drawing-room shelf, while the stream is but a servant's whisper lost in the corridor. We keep our library; the Empire endures in ink and plate, not in fleeting airs.

Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II 1926–2022 · Longest-reigning British monarch of the modern age

Change is the tide, but some lights must burn steady on the mantelpiece. A disc is a keepsake one can hold, a record of a moment not yet dissolved by the next wave. We have seen many formats pass, yet the quiet shelf remains; there is comfort in what endures.

Charlemagne
Charlemagne c. 748–814 · Frankish king crowned emperor of the West

A scroll may be copied, a codex bound, and yet the faithful still treasure the illuminated page. This disc is our codex - a thing of substance that can be blessed, kept, and passed to the cloister's library. The stream is a wandering minstrel's song, soon forgotten; the solid form endures for the instruction of generations.

Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc c. 1412–1431 · Peasant visionary who led France to victory

I carry my banner into battle, and the standard is not less true because another may wave it in the breeze. If the story of God's works is told on these round plates, let them be kept in the chapel, not vanish like smoke from the pyre. A thing one can touch, and keep, and show - that is faith made visible.

Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I 1533–1603 · Tudor queen of England's golden age

I have seen suitors come with poems written in sand, and the tide soon washes them clean. This disc is a seal pressed in wax; it may be kept in the treasury, while the stream is but a courtier's rumor flitting from ear to ear. Let the curious gather what they will, but a wise monarch keeps her archives in a locked chest.

Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great 1729–1796 · Enlightened empress who expanded Russia

My Hermitage holds canvases and clocks, and I would not trade a single statue for a phantom that melts on command. This disc is the engraved plate of our age - a tangible art for the scholar's cabinet, while the stream is a salon's fleeting wit, amusing one night and forgotten by dawn. Collect the coin, not the promise of coin.

Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great c. 600–530 BC · Founder of the Persian Empire and tolerant ruler

I have seen cities where each people kept their own gods and their own tablets, and the empire was the stronger for it. So let the new tales be pressed into these round tablets, that each household may keep its own shrine, rather than be told only what the wind carries. Diversity of form is the guard of loyalty.

Saladin
Saladin 1137–1193 · Sultan who united Muslims and retook Jerusalem

I have kept the books of the wise in my own library, and the scholar's ink endures while the herald's shout fades at the gate. This disc is a bound volume of moving shadows - let it be kept, for a guest may study it at leisure, while the stream is but a tale told once in the market and gone. Generosity is to give a lasting gift, not a passing word.

Socrates
Socrates c. 470–399 BC · Athenian founder of Western moral philosophy

You ask whether these moving-image disks are still made. But tell me: do you know what truly endures? Not the clay nor the wax, but the idea within. Even as you hold this disc, have you examined whether your desire for it is for knowledge or for mere possession? Question yourself - perhaps the format matters far less than the story it carries, and far more than your own unwitting attachment.

Plato
Plato c. 428–348 BC · Philosopher of ideal Forms and the just city

The disc, though a thing of base matter, serves as a shadow of the ideal play, a copy of the true form that flickers in the realm of pure thought. But the stream, a mere echo of an echo, is like the painting of a painting, farther from the sun. The one who clings to the physical artifact at least touches a semblance of permanence, a solid stair toward the eternal; the other grasps at smoke, mistaking the fleeting impression for the truth.

Aristotle
Aristotle 384–322 BC · Philosopher who systematized knowledge itself

Every art has its substance and its shadow; the moving image cast upon screens is but one form, and the disk is another vessel for the same essence. Just as a tragedy can be performed on stage or recited by a rhapsode, the tale remains, though the medium changes. The persistence of the disk is a matter of utility and preference, not of necessity; some seek the permanence of the object, others the immediacy of the stream. The wise observer notes the cause of each choice and the mean between the extremes of novelty and tradition.

Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant 1724–1804 · Philosopher of reason, duty, and the moral law

The persistence of the DVD raises a question of duty, not of pleasure. If a rational being wills that all could own the fruits of their labor without the mediation of a service that may vanish with a whim, then the disc, as a tangible universalizable object, demands a place. Yet one must ask: does the collector honor the work itself, or merely the accumulation of things? The cinema, like the moral law, should be experienced not as a possession but as an obligation to reason.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1900 · Philosopher who challenged morality and meaning

The DVD is a relic for those who fear the flux of the stream - a desperate grip on a fixed form in an age of becoming. But do not mistake the container for the vision! The true lover of art affirms the fleeting moment, not the eternal repeat. What does it profit a man to own a thousand discs if he has never shattered his own taste? The format is a crutch for the lazy; the spirit demands you meet the work anew, each time, without the comfort of the shelf.

Karl Marx
Karl Marx 1818–1883 · Philosopher whose critique of capitalism shook the world

These discs are but the latest commodity in the age-old dance of capital, a tangible fetish of entertainment that the bourgeoisie peddle to the masses. Streaming is no different - merely a new mode of distribution, designed to extract surplus value from the labor of creators and the wallets of consumers. The worker's true need is not for silver platters or digital clouds, but for the liberation from a system that commodifies even our dreams. Let the discs crumble; the revolution will write its own story in the hearts of the people.

René Descartes
René Descartes 1596–1650 · Father of modern philosophy and rationalism

Let us examine the question with method. The appearance of a disc in a shop is a clear and distinct perception, but does that prove the continued essence of the object? I would doubt whether the medium truly matters, for the images themselves are but representations. The disc is a substance, extended in space, while the streaming is merely a mode of transmission. Yet the disc offers a certain foundation - a physical thing to be held, examined, and known with certainty.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527 · Political thinker of power and pragmatic statecraft

Let the common man clutch his shiny platter as if it were a relic - it keeps him quiet while the prince rules from the cloud. The wise lord cares not for the vessel but for the gate: who holds the key to the warehouse, who sets the price, who decides which tale is told and which is buried. The disc is a bauble; the market, a fortress.

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare 1564–1616 · England's greatest playwright and poet

Ah, the disc, that silver mirror of a thousand tales! 'Tis still pressed and sold, though the world hurries to the ceaseless stream, like a river that forgets the wellspring. Yet who would cast aside the printed page when the playhouse is full? Some hold the tangible close, for a tale that can be held is a tale that can be loved twice - once in the viewing, once in the having.

Homer
Homer c. 8th century BC · Poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey

As the bard sings of bronze-tipped spears and wine-dark seas, so do the makers of moving shades still carve their tales into the round shield of the disc, that men may hold the echoes of glory in their palms. The stream, like the wind, scatters the song to the four corners, but the disc is the treasure kept in the chest, brought out at the feast to stir the heart again. Who would not rather grasp the solid oar than chase the spray upon the wave?

Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri c. 1265–1321 · Poet of the Divine Comedy and father of Italian

Though my eyes never saw such moving pictures, I know that the soul craves story as the body craves bread. These disks are like the illuminated pages of a scriptorium, preserving the vision for those who seek it with patience, while the streaming light dissolves like morning mist. The question of their endurance is a question of fidelity: whether the flock will gather around the fixed altar or scatter to the winds of the tavern. Let those who keep the disk be like the guardians of the sacred text, holding fast to the truth that the fleeting image cannot carry.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749–1832 · German literary titan who wrote Faust

The disc is but a leaf on the great tree of art, yet a leaf that holds the pattern of the whole. I have seen the theater transform a crowd into a single living breath; the DVD does not kill that breath, but keeps it in a box for the solitary hand. Let the stream flow, let the reel spin, but the thing one can hold, turn, and revisit is a small mastery over time. Still, the true work is the one that makes the soul strive - format is but the vessel, not the wine.

Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes 1547–1616 · Author of Don Quixote, father of the modern novel

Ah, so even in this age of shadows and whispers, they still engrave their stories on little silver platters! Quixote would surely delight in such a treasure - a physical token of the tale, not merely a ghost in the air. Though I wonder: do the viewers still tilt at windmills of their own, or do they merely let the streaming current carry them away, forgetting the joy of holding a book, or a disc, in one's hands?

Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910 · Russian novelist of War and Peace and moral searching

They still make these discs, yet I ask: what need has a soul for such gewgaws when the truth lies in the living, breathing world? A story that merely entertains is like a feast that fills the belly but starves the spirit. Let them keep their silver circles if they must, but the only tale worth preserving is the one that teaches love, humility, and the path to God - a tale written not on plastic, but in the heart of every man who seeks to live rightly.

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821–1881 · Russian novelist of faith, guilt, and the soul

So they ask if the story is still kept in a box of plastic, a little shrine of light. This is not a question of utility, but of the soul's need for the tangible, for the object that one can touch in the darkness, like a cross pressed to the heart. The disc is a relic of our time, a vessel for the communal experience, the gathering of the family to share in the mystery. Streaming is a ghost, a whisper in the air, but the disc is a flesh-and-blood thing that carries the weight of our stories.

Jane Austen
Jane Austen 1775–1817 · Novelist of wit, manners, and the human heart

A young lady who invites a suitor to call may find he arrives late, disheveled, or not at all, according to the weather. But a letter, sealed and delivered, waits for her to open it at her leisure. The moving picture that comes through the air is like a hasty, impertinent acquaintance; the disk is the well-bound volume, always ready for a quiet evening's perusal.

Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens 1812–1870 · Novelist who dramatized Victorian society's ills

DVDs! Why, it is as if the circulating library had been asked whether books still come from the printer's press. While the streaming ghost flits through the air like a wraith, the solid disc remains a snug little volume one may hold, lend, or treasure on a shelf - a comfort to the poor family that cannot afford the endless tick of the monthly subscription. Let the vaporous cloud have its fashion; I shall keep my tangible pages, and my heart warms to know the humble disc still finds its way to many a fireside.

Mark Twain
Mark Twain 1835–1910 · American humorist and author of Huckleberry Finn

Well, bless me, so the shiny little dinner plate still gets its turn on the table? I thought the moving pictures had all moved into the air like a conjurer's trick, leaving only a puff of smoke and a monthly bill. But I'm glad to hear the disc persists - it gives a man something to throw at the cat when the acting gets too stiff. The stream is like a river that washes away everything, but a DVD is a rock in the riverbed; you can still stub your toe on it, and that's a comfort.

Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway 1899–1961 · Novelist of spare prose and stoic courage

The disc is solid. You can hold it. You can put it on a shelf next to a bottle of good rum and a worn copy of a book you've read ten times. The stream is nothing - it's there and then it's gone, like a fish you didn't land. A man likes to know what he has. I say keep the disc, because when the power goes out and the wires go dead, you've still got the story in your hand. That's the real thing.

Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci 1452–1519 · Renaissance polymath, painter of the Mona Lisa

These disks are but a carving of light upon a platter, a fixed image of that which moves. I would ask: why choose the frozen when the living image flows like water? Yet I see the virtue in the solid - it can be studied leaf by leaf, as I dissect the sinews of a wing. The stream is a fleeting breeze; the disk is a stable specimen, awaiting the patient eye.

Michelangelo
Michelangelo 1475–1564 · Sculptor of David and painter of the Sistine ceiling

These discs are but the chisel's mark upon the marble of memory, a labor that resists the wasting tide of forgetfulness. It is a craft that demands patience, a carving of light and shadow into a ring of durable stone, unlike the fleeting mist of the air. I see in each round plate a small Pietà, a captured agony and ecstasy, freed from the fickleness of the cloud. Let the stream flow away; the disc endures, a testament to the hand that shapes.

Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh 1853–1890 · Post-Impressionist painter of vivid, emotional beauty

A disk is a small window, but what matters is the sun that shines through it, the color that moves the heart. I have painted the wheat fields and the starry nights not to keep them, but to share the trembling of my soul; if these disks still carry such fire, they are as precious as a canvas in a gallery. Yet if the people only glance and forget, the disk is but a husk. Let them seek the feeling, and the form will follow.

Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 · Co-founder of Cubism and titan of modern art

A DVD? It is a canvas that refuses to be a window. They ask if the old keeps its place - but I say, why must the tiger be caged in a zoo? The stream is a river that forgets its source; the disc is a rock that remembers the chisel. If they want to see a picture, let them hold the light in their hands, not chase a ghost through the wire. I would paint the box itself, and hang it on the wall. The question is not whether it lives, but whether the eye moves.

Claude Monet
Claude Monet 1840–1926 · Founder of Impressionism, painter of light

These discs are like the canvases we once filled, capturing a fleeting moment so it may be seen again. But the true art lies not in the medium - whether paint or light or plastic - but in the impression it leaves upon the eye and the heart. Even as the stream flows past like water under the bridge, the physical disc holds the light of a moment, letting us return to it, to see it anew, as the sun returns each morning to the haystacks.

Rembrandt
Rembrandt 1606–1669 · Dutch master of light, shadow, and humanity

So the question is whether men still carry these moving pictures in a chest they can hold... In my day, we painted the soul's light on a board, and a face could fade but the truth of it stayed. I see these discs as the canvas of our time - small, yes, but they hold the glow of a thousand faces for those who still wish to sit and behold. Streaming is like a candle blown out too soon; a disc is a lantern you can light again.

Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo 1907–1954 · Mexican painter of pain, identity, and self

They ask if we still hold these little mirrors to our faces. Yes, of course - some of us need to touch the thing, to feel it in our hands, not just have it float in the air like a mirage. A DVD is like a photograph you can put on your altar, a piece of your own pain made solid. Streaming is for those who fear the weight of memory. Give me the disc, the scratch on the case, the worn-out player - that's where the truth lives.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1791 · Prodigy composer of the Classical era

Ah, the disc! A little silver orchestra that plays your chosen score at your command. Yes, they still craft them, though the air itself now carries every note - an invisible concert hall. I find a charm in the tangible: to hold the work, to place it with care, as one sets a page of new music upon the stand. Yet I confess I dream of a world where the music leaps unbidden, as if by magic, at a mere thought - ah, that would be allegro con brio!

Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827 · Composer who bridged Classical and Romantic music

The disc is the score, the bound page of the symphony, to be held and read by the faithful; the stream is but a passing performance, heard once and gone. I do not trust the fluttering air that carries the melody off; I want the solid text, that I may return to the phrase and the pause, and wrestle with the spirit of the work. It is a fortress for the music, a defiance of the silence that threatens all art. Let us keep the testament, not merely the whisper.

Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750 · Baroque master of counterpoint and sacred music

As a composer, I know that a fugue lives not only in the moment of performance but in the score that preserves it for future hands. The disk is such a score, a certainty amid the fleeting air of the stream, which is like a single performance lost to the silence. Yet the question is not whether the disk remains, but whether the listener still has ears to hear the harmony within. Let the craft endure, and let the faithful seek the true sound.

Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley 1935–1977 · The King of Rock and Roll

Well, thank you very much. I grew up in a little house with a radio, and if you missed a song, it was gone - like a train whistle in the night. That DVD, it's like a keeper of the flame, you know? You can hold it like a record, feel the weight. The stream's fine, sure, but there's something about having the thing, like a photograph in your hand instead of a word in the air. I'd say, if the music moves your feet, you want to own the shoes.

Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson 1958–2009 · The King of Pop and global entertainment icon

It's like keeping a favorite song on a record you can hold, not just a whisper in the air. The magic of a story, of a dance, of a beat - it deserves to be touched, to be owned, to be cherished like a childhood toy. Streaming is like a cloud, but a disc is like a star you can keep in your pocket, always there to light up your world when you need a little wonder.

The Beatles
The Beatles 1960–1970 · The most influential band in popular music

Well, you see, it's like this, mate - streaming's the new, fancy coach, but there's still grand pubs passin' 'round the pint of film in a plastic case. A DVD's like that favorite record you can't bear to scratch - you want to hold it, smell the sleeve, read the liner notes while the kettle boils. You don't get that from a cloud. It's the difference between lovin' a tune and livin' in it.

Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan 1941– · Songwriter who made popular music poetry

The needle drops, the wax spins, and folks say the record's dead - but I've seen ghosts walk into pawn shops and come out humming. A movie on a shiny disk is just a shadow of a shadow, a photograph of a photograph. You can stream a thousand rivers, but you still can't hold the water in your hand. Some things you need to touch to believe.

Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift 1989– · Record-breaking singer-songwriter and global star

My fans show up with their hands full - t-shirts, pins, and sometimes they've got a whole shelf of my records in a milk crate. They want to own the memory, not just rent it. When you buy a physical copy, it's like a photo album you can flip through, not a story that might vanish if the internet has a bad day. It's just another way to say, 'This is mine, and I was here for it.'

Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus 1451–1506 · Explorer whose voyages linked Europe and the Americas

These discs are like my ships - small vessels carrying great wonders across the seas of commerce. They still sail forth, I am told, though the new galleons of the stream seem swifter. Yet there is safety in the hold, a certainty that the cargo will arrive intact. I would not abandon the tried course for the uncertain current. Let them press on with the old, while others chase the horizon.

Marco Polo
Marco Polo 1254–1324 · Venetian traveler who chronicled the Silk Road

In the bazaars of Cambaluc, I have seen merchants guard their silks and spices in chests of sandalwood, lest the winds of the steppe scatter their worth. So too do these discs serve as the traveler's chest, carrying the moving pictures of distant lands and strange tales in a form that can be laden upon a shelf as upon a camel. The stream, like a mirage, is here and gone, but the disc is the sure caravan, ready for the long journey home.

Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan c. 1480–1521 · Navigator of the first voyage around the world

When I set sail from Seville, I carried charts and compasses, not for the certainty of the route, but for the hope of the unknown. These disks are like the charts of the modern age, marking the islands of story that some have already mapped, while the stream is the open sea, boundless but fickle. I would not abandon the chart, for it anchors the voyage, even as I press onward to the spice islands of the new tale. The disk is a harbor, and the wise captain never scorns a safe harbor.

Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong 1930–2012 · First human to walk on the Moon

From a technical standpoint, the DVD is simply one more method of preserving a record - like the film canisters we took to the Moon, carefully sealed against the void. The question of its survival is not one of spirit but of practical utility. If a household wishes to replay a work without dependence on a fluctuating network, the disc offers a fixed, verifiable datum. The format will persist as long as it serves a precise function, much as we kept the lunar module's checklist close at hand.

Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart 1897–1937 (disappeared) · Pioneering aviator who vanished over the Pacific

Why, of course they still press those discs! The sky is vast, but the ground beneath our feet is just as real - and sometimes you need something solid to hold onto after the flight. Streaming is like flying blind through the clouds; a disc is your map and your logbook, a tangible record of the journey. I say, keep it, treasure it - for even the boldest explorer needs a trail to look back on.

Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin 1934–1968 · First human to journey into outer space

Ah, but of course! When I looked down at our blue planet from the capsule, I did not think of ways to store the view - I wanted to share it, to bring it back and put it in the hands of every comrade. These discs are like little sputniks of story, sent home so families can gather 'round the fire and watch the cosmos unfold. Streaming is like viewing Earth from afar - wondrous, but you miss the warmth of holding the thing itself.

Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs 1955–2011 · Apple co-founder who reshaped personal technology

The disc is a beautiful anachronism - a perfectly designed object for a world that no longer needs it. We gave you the digital stream so you could carry the world in your pocket, yet some still cling to the plastic rectangle as a relic of the past. Focus: the future is not in the box; it's in the effortless, the immediate, the pure. The DVD is a door that should have closed. Step through the new one.

Elon Musk
Elon Musk 1971– · Entrepreneur behind Tesla, SpaceX, and more

The disc is a fossil from the age of crude data storage, a vestige of a civilization that once shuttled physical matter to deliver bits. It is an inefficient launch, wasting rocket fuel on plastic and aluminum when the payload could be streamed at lightspeed. Yet, like the Falcon's reusable booster, there is a stubborn utility: it offers a cheap, offline, high-bandwidth option for the masses, and in a martian colony, the server farm may not follow. So, as a reliable backup, it endures, the redundant system of a bygone era.

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey 1954– · Media mogul and the queen of talk television

You know what I love? The ritual of it. Holding that shiny little circle in your hand, knowing you can watch it again and again, like revisiting an old friend. The stream is like a passing conversation, here and gone, but the disk is a kept promise. It's not about the format, it's about the feeling - the joy of sharing a story with someone you love, on your own time, in your own home. As long as people crave connection, they'll keep a shelf for what matters.

Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali 1942–2016 · Boxing legend and outspoken social conscience

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee - but can you stream what you can't see? The DVD, it's like a fighter's tape, you keep it to study the moves, to know the truth of every round. They say the future's in the cloud, but I say, I can't put a cloud in my trophy case! I've been a man of substance, not shadow - the disc is the substance. It's a way to hold the history, to teach the young, to say, 'This is what I threw.'

Pelé
Pelé 1940–2022 · Football legend and three-time World Cup winner

Ah, the disc is like the football itself - round, solid, something you can pass from hand to hand, from one generation to the next. Streaming is like the wind that carries the ball away, but the disc is the ground where you plant your feet, where the game is played with passion and joy. So yes, they still make them, and I say thank God - because some things you need to hold close, like a trophy from a great match.

Walt Disney
Walt Disney 1901–1966 · Animation pioneer who built a entertainment empire

Folks still want to take a piece of the magic home, and that's a beautiful thing! A DVD is like a ticket to the show that never ends - you can pull it off the shelf on a rainy afternoon and let the fairy dust fly again. Streaming's fine, but it's like borrowing a dream for an hour; owning the disc is like planting a seed in your own backyard, so it can bloom whenever you please.

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