History KeepCirculatingTheTapes / Rescued

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* When Creator/VizMedia took over publishing duties for ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', the website's flash content was converted to [=HTML5=], with any that couldn't make the transition instead rendered as [=YouTube=] showcases. In addition, while the original ''Webcomic/MSPaintAdventures'' website was officially backed up, the original InterfaceScrew urls were lost, and the flash content was rendered unplayable due to the shutdown of UsefulNotes/AdobeFlash on all popular browsers. For those who wanted to to experience ''Homestuck'' as it was, fans made ''[[https://bambosh.github.io/unofficial-homestuck-collection/ The Unofficial Homestuck Collection]]'', a software package preserving the original site's format and playability by including Adobe Flash Player, as well as keeping an archive of many of Andrew Hussie's related comics, stories, forums, and blog posts for needed context.
[[/folder]]

[[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/WesternAnimationRescued Examples of rescued Western Animation shows]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/ComicBooksRescued comic books]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/VideoGamesRescued video games]] and [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/LiveActionTVRescued live-action TV shows]] are on their own pages, as are rescued ''Franchise/StarWars''-related works (see [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/StarWars here]] for those).

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Three anime that feature work by Creator/YoshitoshiAbe (''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain, Anime/HaibaneRenmei'', and ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}'') fell into this trope for U.S. fans after Geneon stopped distributing the titles they'd licensed. All three series have been relicensed by Creator/FUNimation and are now available on DVD, Blu-ray and digital services.
* After Manga Entertainment's license expired in the late 2000s, the ''Manga/AstroBoy'' 1980 series was unavailable on home media and streaming in the United States. It was eventually rescued by Discotek Media, who released a Blu-ray set containing the original Japanese version (with English subtitles) and the American version in May 2022.
* The ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' anime went into limbo for a few years after Creator/ADVFilms went under. Time went on and the old ADV sets started increasing in price. However, Creator/SentaiFilmworks eventually got the license and gave it a DVD release in 2016. The manga, which was also under license by ADV, was eventually rescued by Yen Press and given an omnibus release with a new translation.
* Creator/BandaiEntertainment announced on January 3, 2012, that they would be ceasing DVD production. Fortunately, however...
** Creator/{{Sunrise}}, an animation studio that [[{{Franchise/Gundam}} has]] [[Anime/CowboyBebop produced]] [[Anime/TheBigO many]] [[Manga/OutlawStar of]] [[Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne the]] [[Anime/RoninWarriors titles]] [[Anime/{{Scryed}} licensed]] [[Anime/CodeGeass by]] Bandai, has announced that they are currently discussing with other distributors to give their properties "new homes". The first show to get a new distributor is ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'', which is being released by Creator/NozomiEntertainment.
** As of Otakon 2013, Sunrise announced that several more titles have been rescued by Creator/FUNimation[[note]]''Anime/CowboyBebop'', ''Manga/OutlawStar'', ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'', ''Anime/MyHime'', ''Anime/MyOtome'', ''Anime/CodeGeass'', ''Anime/AngelLinks'', Literature/CrestOfTheStars, VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss, ''Anime/WitchHunterRobin'', ''Banner of the Stars'', and ''Passage of the Stars''[[/note]] and Creator/SentaiFilmworks[[note]]''Anime/TheBigO'', ''Anime/ArgentoSoma'', ''Anime/{{Betterman}}'', ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'', ''Z-Mind'', ''Anime/{{Zegapain}}'', ''Anime/TheGirlWhoLeaptThroughSpace'', ''Anime/InfiniteRyvius'', ''[[Manga/BlackGod Kurokami: The Animation]]'', ''Anime/BrainPowered'', and ''Anime/OvermanKingGainer''[[/note]].
** We can now [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-08-09/funimation-licenses-haruhi-suzumiya-lucky-star-anime-strike-witches-steins-gate-films/.77477 add]] ''Manga/LuckyStar'' and ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'' to Funimation's list of former-Bandai shows.
*** ''Gundam Unicorn'' is now no longer the only title to be rescued. Sunrise has [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-10-11/sunrise-partners-with-right-stuf-to-release-gundam-franchise-stateside/.79830 made a deal]] with Right Stuf to distribute almost all other ''Gundam'' titles, including the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam''. This deal also includes unreleased titles, meaning that ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' will finally be getting a long-awaited U.S. release.
*** ''Yoroiden Samurai Troopers'', better known as the Toonami-classic ''Anime/RoninWarriors'', was [[https://www.facebook.com/147168055312297/photos/a.196378827057886.55668.147168055312297/919854214710340/?type=1 picked up]] by Discotek Media, [[https://www.facebook.com/147168055312297/photos/a.196378827057886.55668.147168055312297/919853091377119/?type=1 along with]] the [=OVAs=]. Unfortunately, they currently only have plans for the japanese dub of the anime due to issues that need to be cleared first (though the OVA will have its own english dub included).
** ''Anime/BlueSubmarineNo6'', one of the non-Sunrise titles licensed by Bandai, has been rescued by Creator/DiscotekMedia and will receive a future rerelease.
** During San Diego Comic Con 2013, Creator/FUNimation, who previously released Anime/DotHackQuantum, [[http://www.funimation.com/lee/blog/funimation-acquires-hack/7789658 announced]] that they acquired the rights to several .hack series[[note]]Anime/DotHackSign, .hack//ROOTS, Manga/DotHackLegendOfTheTwilight, and [[VideoGame/DotHackGU .hack//G.U. Trilogy]][[/note]].
** Funimation also managed to license Anime/EurekaSeven, another one of Bandai Entertainment's non-Sunrise shows (this one in particular was made by Creator/StudioBones). Not surprising, considering that Funimation has previously released [[Anime/EurekaSevenAO its sequel series]].
** ''Anime/IGPXImmortalGrandPrix'', an original series co-produced by Creator/ProductionIG and Creator/{{Toonami}}, initially had its DVD release handled by Bandai Entertainment and, like many other Bandai shows listed here, went under when Bandai halted production. To add insult to injury, Cartoon Network wrote the show off as a financial failure, which prevented it from ever airing on the channel again. It was ''sort of'' rescued when Toonami was able to take advantage of the complex structure of its production deal and "un-write off" the show, allowing them to air reruns on the revived Toonami on Creator/AdultSwim. The show was then definitively rescued when Discotek Media announced that they managed to license it for a 2015 DVD rerelease.
** Funimation announced the rescues of ''Manga/{{Nichijou}}'' and ''Anime/WolfsRain'' in consecutive weeks in November 2016, the former not even having a chance to be released before Bandai went down.
* The anime version of ''Manga/BoboboboBobobo'' experienced this when it had a one-run on Creator/{{Toonami}} in 2005, and only two DVD sets were released in the states. The company that was distributing them went under rather quickly and without notice. But in 2012, S'more Entertainment officially released the anime in two box sets (divided into 38 episodes each) in the states. However with a catch,the japanese episodes of the series did not actually come with a subtitled track. Even though the box set says they are included, they most certainly are not. Years later, their license lapsed, and Creator/DiscotekMedia swooped in to rescue it, this time adding subtitles to the Japanese track and giving it the treatment it deserved from the beginning.
* For the longest time the only way to watch the 2001 ''Manga/Cyborg009'' series was via bootlegs, torrent and internet uploads and the only complete versions were the original Japanese version, if you wanted to watch the entire series in ''any'' of the languages it was dubbed in that weren't Japanese, you were out of luck because even then they didn't even have all of the episodes, on top of this, only the first eight episodes of the entire 2001 anime were released on DVD in the US (the UK and Australia were a bit more fortunate and got the entire first half) and it was ScrewedByTheNetwork in the US, other countries that aired the series were fortunate enough to actually '''get''' the entire damn thing. However on 13 August 2017, Creator/DiscotekMedia announced that [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.cc/news/2017-08-13/discotek-licenses-cyborg-009-the-cyborg-soldier-tomorrow-joe-project-arms-niea_7-lupin-iii-the-legend-of-the-gold-of-babylon/.120065 they've rescue licensed the series]] and that they'll be releasing all 52 episodes on DVD and SD Blu-ray marking the first time the entire series has ever been legally available in English.
* ''Danchi Tomoo'' has only 39 out of 78 episodes available on DVD in Japan, while the special ''Natsuyasumi no Shukudai wa Owatta no ka yo? Tomoo'' doesn't have a DVD release at all. However, in 2017 Bandai Channel began streaming the entire series and the special in Japan.
* In Australia, Creator/MadmanEntertainment successfully licensed the ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' dub and put out a pair of box sets constituting the series' complete run. No word on whether they'll follow up on any of the other ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' series currently lacking full dub releases, nor on any such thing for the rest of the world.
** They're YTV's copies, featuring a logo on the openings. 'Sly', an executive at Madman, said this was the best quality one available to them. They don't seem to be missing any scenes, but what happened to the clean originals?
** In late 2012, [[http://www.amazon.com/The-Official-Digimon-Adventure-Set/dp/B008L5FFMO/ref=pd_ybh_1 a remastered box set of all 54 episodes]] was released in Region 1 countries. ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'', ''Anime/DigimonTamers'', and ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'' followed throughout 2013, with ''Anime/DigimonDataSquad'' coming the following year. Still no word on any of the movies, but we'll see...
** And to solidify ''Adventure'''s rescue, both ''Adventure'' and ''Adventure 02'' are on Netflix, in both English and Japanese.
** As of May 2014, ''Tamers'' has been added as well.
* Two Shin-Ei Animation series, ''Dororonpa!'' and ''Gatapishi'', are available for streaming on Yahoo! [=GyaO=] and Amazon Video Japan. However, episodes 113-115 of ''Dororonpa!'' aren't available on both streaming services for some reason.
* Four Creator/FujikoFujio anime series, ''Anime/{{Perman}}'' (1967 anime), ''Kaibutsu-kun'' (1968 anime), ''Umeboshi Denka'', and ''Jungle Kurobe'', were extremely rare after their initial airing for years due to a lack of reruns and home media releases. However, it wasn't until the 2010s when all four series were released on DVD box sets in Japan, finally making them available again. King Record released ''Kaibutsu-kun'' in October 2010 and ''Perman'' in November 2014, while Toei Video released ''Jungle Kurobe'' in December 2015 and ''Umeboshi Denka'' in January 2016. However, it's worth noting that the ''Perman'' and ''Umeboshi Denka'' DVD box sets aren't exactly complete due to [[MissingEpisode a few episode's video track, audio track, or both elements being missing.]]
* ''Anime/GrimmsFairyTaleClassics'' only had a few long-out of print VHS releases during its Nick Jr. run in North America and a few [=DVDs=] from Fox Kids Europe in the early to mid 2000s. The English and Japanese dubs were unavailable for years after Disney's rights lapsed, until Discotek Media announced a bilingual release in 2021.
* Fans of ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'' were often frustrated by the fact that all of the Japanese episodes have taken a long time to be fansubbed. Those fond of making/watching [[FanVid fan videos]] were often frustrated by the fact that if an episode had been fansubbed, it was nearly impossible to find it ''without'' subtitles. Some of the episodes were clearly ripped from damaged VHS tapes[[labelnote:*]]these include episodes 54 ("One Crazy Knight"), 60 ("Crusade for the Blade") and 66 ("The Chill Factor"), among others[[/labelnote]], and the fansub would apologize for this from time to time. Fortunately, as of December 2022, the complete series [[https://operationhoshinokaabii.tumblr.com/post/703989238588489728 has now been fansubbed]]. The series was released in its entirety on a special Blu-ray collecton in spring 2023, coinciding with the ''Kirby'' franchise's 30th anniversary.
* In 2020, [[https://twitter.com/discotekmedia/status/1338651746055249922 Discotek announced]] that they rescued ''Manga/{{Kodocha}}'' after being out of print for a decade [[note]] as well as the infamous licensing issues [[/note]] and to further sweeten the deal, this time, we're getting all 102 episodes of the anime and all the music rights have been cleared [[note]] This is likely due to a change over in management at Johnny's & Associates as the agency is now managed by Johnny Kitagawa's niece, Julie Keiko Fujishima after Johnny himself passed away in 2019. [[/note]], thus finally freeing this show from the rights issues that plagued Creator/{{Funimation}}'s release back in the mid-2000's. [[note]] When Funimation released ''Kodocha'', Johnny's management at the time wouldn't even let them reference TOKIO or use their song "7 O'Clock News" (the first opening), so they had to censor ''any'' references to TOKIO in the subs and mute pieces of the Japanese audio track, which is likely why this show didn't exactly sell well for Funimation and more or less why they dropped the license in 2012. [[/note]]
* The first five volumes of the ''Manga/LuckyStar'' anime are pretty easy to find on the cheap, usually no more than 15 USD each. The sixth and final one? Good luck. Thankfully, the entire series was included with Funimation's initial Bandai rescue bundle, and the unreleased OVA was included as well (though sub-only). And the manga was reissued by Creator/VizMedia a few years back.
* For years, ''Manga/MadBull34'' never saw a DVD release in North America, since Manga Entertainment had lost the rights to it before [=DVD=]s came into the picture. Creator/DiscotekMedia now has Mad Bull and released it in 2013 with bilingual audio, even promoting it as "quite possibly the best bad anime ever made."
** Same goes for ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' almost word-for-word.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Medabots}}'' anime has had a spotty history. Back during its initial run, ADV Films did release the first two seasons in several volumes, which are now hard to find. Creator/ShoutFactory re-licensed the series years later and put out the first 26 episodes, but sales were so bad any further plans were canceled. However, Discotek Media acquired the license and put out the first two seasons on Blu-Ray. However, season three looked to be off the table because the dubbed masters had been lost... so they asked the fans for help. In December 2020, they announced masters had been found, and promised a release date in 2021.
* For quite a while, ''Anime/MonColleKnights'' was nigh-impossible to find due to its obscurity, although there are scarce amounts of episodes on video sharing sites in both English ''and'' Japanese. Discotek had since rescued the series, albeit the initial release (both when it was made available via Website/{{Crunchyroll}} as well as the initial Blu-ray release) was [[NoDubForYou sub-only]]. It wouldn't be until December 2021 that they found suitable dub masters, and May 2022 that the dubbed version would finally be released to Blu-ray.
* ''Anime/MonsterRancher'' suffered from this. Season 3 was dubbed but never aired in the US, and for years all we got were VHS releases of Season 1, and one DVD with 8 episodes. Creator/DiscotekMedia later rescued the series and released the entire English-dubbed series in 3 boxsets (including Season 3), and another box set containing the entire Japanese series with English subtitles.
* The English-language version of ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold'' was believed to have been lost after the dubbing studio went bankrupt. However, DVD editions of the entire collection were finally released in 2008, and the whole show is currently streamed on Netflix instant.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and its two films Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, despite comprising one of the most influential anime franchises of all time, was this for all intents and purposes. The last time in the US that the series was released on DVD was in 2004 by ADV Films, and went out of print because of the company's closure. Because of this, box sets have been noted to go for up to $300 on sites like eBay. However, there was a moment of return that made waves for the anime community. Studio Khara waited until they finished the Rebuild of Evangelion films to begin re-licensing the original series in the English-language marketplace. In August of 2021, an announcement was made that in the US, Gkids would release the series on Blu-ray in the US in a box set that includes Episodes 21-24 in their director's cut forms and the two movies with both their original ADV dub track (albeit only on the limited collector's editions) and the dub track made for Netflix. The base set was released in November, while the special editions launched in December.
* For sixteen years, the easiest way to watch the first ''Manga/NintamaRantarou'' movie was through VHS copies until it was ''finally'' released on DVD by Creator/PonyCanyon in Japan in November 2012.
* For years, the vast majority of ''Anime/OyakoClub'' was very rare due to a lack of a home media or streaming release. This finally changed when Eiken began streaming select episodes of the series on their official [[https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLugBVcBml6ZO8bAj_DUMvwMOR_AFQpOMq YouTube channel]] on November 1, 2021. Since then, the company has uploaded episodes on a weekly basis.
* After Creator/{{Geneon}} went defunct in 2007, Creator/SatoshiKon's wildly ambitious and original ''Anime/ParanoiaAgent'', went out of print for years, with both the DVD box set and the individual volumes becoming very expensive on the second hand market. This was finally rectified in 2020, when Creator/{{FUNimation}} announced that they had rescued the license and released it on their streaming release, with Creator/{{Toonami}} also airing reruns of the show for the first time in over a decade.
* The first three ''Film/{{Pokemon}}'' movies, all of which were distributed by Creator/WarnerBros in territories outside Japan, have had their DVD and VHS releases long out of print. With the exception of occasional broadcasts on WGN America, Creator/CartoonNetwork and television stations, as well as a brief triple feature DVD release in 2009, a long-standing legal dispute between Creator/{{Nintendo}}, Warner Bros., The Pokemon Company and Creator/{{Toho}} kept any further home media releases off the market. By the time TheNewTens came around, the films became increasingly sought after, with the price for [[Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie the first movie]] on DVD going as high as $116 on Amazon as of December 30, 2015. Fortunately, the dispute was officially settled in December 2015, and a Triple Feature Steelbook Blu-ray set of the movies was promptly announced by Creator/VizMedia and Warner Home Video for release in February 2016, along with DVD reissues. The catch? Only a 2.0 lossy Stereo track of the [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] English dub was made available, and the special features from the DVD releases are unlikely to be brought to the new set (which means no Pikachu shorts), but something is just better than nothing in this case. The Johto seasons of the anime, after being subjected to incomplete volume releases that soon went out of print and became incredibly expensive, became easily available again between [[https://www.amazon.com/Pokemon-Johto-Journeys-Complete-Collection/dp/B012YPV0YS/ref=pd_sim_74_38?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B012YPV0YS&pd_rd_r=K9DYEHHDCWHRV1HKR96P&pd_rd_w=mHRel&pd_rd_wg=H7LLb&psc=1&refRID=K9DYEHHDCWHRV1HKR96P November 2015]] [[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B80LOA0/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_39?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER and]] [[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J8WU9HO/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_29?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER October 2016]].
* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'''s DVD release was slowly going out of print (helps that it was an older DVD series with eight disks a set and initial prices being around $120 each).
** This is no longer the case as Viz is re-releasing the series on DVD and Blu-ray.
** Ditto for the manga, which was only available in old flipped editions for years before Viz finally picked it up again for an omnibus (and un-flipped) re-release.
* The entirety of the ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' anime was rereleased by The Right Stuf International - through their Creator/NozomiEntertainment label - across three DVD sets (using the show's remastered Region 2 DVD release as the video base), as well as the movie.
* ''Anime/RingingBell'': A major factor with this movie being very obscure in the West is because the 1983 English Dub was only sold on VHS tapes (back when affording an actual VHS was expensive). The VHS tapes later went out of print making it difficult for Americans to watch the film. Once Discotek Media picked up the movie in 2013, it was able to get re-released on DVD which includes audio tracks for the English and Japanese versions and subtitles for both languages. The movie is also available to watch on Amazon Prime, Tubi, Pluto TV, and Crunchyroll in America.
* ''Anime/RobotCarnival''. This old classic that was among the first exposures of anime to the West has only received a Region 2 DVD released a ''looooooong'' time ago. It was rights issues, as original US licensee Streamline Pictures went under. Fortunately, Creator/DiscotekMedia has licensed it for a Region 1 DVD release.
* After over 10 years of the first four seasons being out of print and the final season not being licensed at all, Creator/VizMedia announced the rescue of the original ''Anime/SailorMoon'' anime at Anime Central 2014, with plans for a DVD and Blu-Ray re-release featuring an all-new uncut English dub, and a streaming run on Creator/NeonAlley and Creator/{{Hulu}}. Creator/MadmanEntertainment has picked up the Australia and New Zealand rights to this dub. The series was not streaming in Canada for over two years after it started streaming in the US, due to Hulu's nonavailability up north, until it finally showed up on Tubi TV in July of 2016, albeit in subtitled form only.
** The manga also went out-of-print from Tokyopop before Kodansha USA picked up the rights in 2011. This marked the first time the original unedited and un-flipped manga was available in English. Tokyopop's old censored and flipped editions went for high prices for quite a while.
** ''Manga/CodeNameSailorV'' was rare and hard to find in America, even online, for years until Kodansha finally picked it up and gave it a mainstream US release.
* Geneon Entertainment released ''Anime/SakuraWarsTheMovie'' on DVD in September 2003 for North America. However, with Geneon's shut down in 2007, said release went out of print and was hard to find. Fortunately, Creator/{{Funimation}} picked up the distribution rights and released it on Blu-ray and DVD in October 2013.
* For the longest time, only half of ''Anime/SamuraiPizzaCats'' was available on a hard-to-find DVD box set. This box set had a good 26 episodes (most series only run that long), but the second season had some of the funniest episodes of the series. There was also almost no merchandise in the US. Cue frustrated fanbase. Until Discotek announced the license of both the dub and original version in two complete box sets[[note]]52 for the dub, 54 for the sub which includes the two clip episodes[[/note]]. Cue happy fanbase. (Even more so after the below ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' announcement came the same day.)
* ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' was literally this since its license pickup by Media Blasters in 2010, but it was dropped in 2013. Not even releasing a single volume or box set of it even. Until...Nozomi Entertainment has licensed rescued the series for a 2020 Blu-Ray release stateside.
* The uncut Creator/ADVFilms releases of ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' have become out of print, hard to find, and painfully expensive if you do find them. However, at Anime Boston 2013, Creator/SentaiFilmworks (the successor to ADV Films, appropriately) announced that they've acquired ''Gatchaman'' among other shows, with plans for a DVD and Blu-Ray release of both the TV show and the OVA. [[SincerityMode Thank you, Sentai Filmworks.]]
* The English dub of the Japanese puppet series ''Series/StarFleet'' (or ''Series/XBomber'' as it's known in Japanese) for many years was only accessible from fan circulation. The entire Japanese dub had been released to laserdisc in the 90's and DVD in the early 2000's, the English version mostly disappeared after syndication ended in the late 80's/early 90's. The circulation mostly relied on tapes released in the 80's in the UK and US (where the show never even aired). All these tapes were cut up, losing much of its material to be made into hour-long episodes in the US or in the UK's case, the compilation films "The Thalian Space Wars" and "Space Quest for F-01"; which were greatly incoherent, cramming much of the series' story arc into a single hour and a half. The tapes in the US were usually the go to as they suffered less cuts, spanning the entire series, although with the 24 episodes combined into 8 compilation tapes. In 2009, Fantastic Films released the first DVD release of the English series with all the episodes intact from their analog broadcast masters.
* ''Anime/StreetFighterIITheAnimatedMovie'' has been released multiple times with different edits for censorship, with the uncut version being released by Creator/MangaEntertainment and streamed by Netflix. The DVD by the former has since gone out of print, and Netflix no longer streams the movie. Recently, the movie, along with the infamous ''WesternAnimation/StreetFighter'' cartoon, has been licensed by Creator/DiscotekMedia for a re-release on DVD and Blu-Ray.
* ''Anime/{{Symphogear}}'' only had a release on Funimation's website in 2011, until their rights expired a few years later. In July 2019, Discotek Media announced a DVD and [=BluRay=] for the series. It is also currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
* The 1987 anime ''[[Anime/AiNoWakakusaMonogatari Tales of Little Women]]'' was dubbed in 1989 for HBO and [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff gained something of a cult following in the US]]. It never received a home media release outside of an out of print VHS, but was eventually picked up in reruns for Creator/TBN's "Smile of a Child" channel, until 2015 when it was taken off the air. In 2017, Amazon has since put it up on their streaming service, and episodes have been made available on file-sharing sites as well.
** The Tom Sawyer anime was dubbed in 1988 for HBO, and was distributed on long-out of print VHS tapes by Celebrity Home Entertainment. In 2017, Amazon has put it up on their streaming service, and it's also streaming on Tubi TV.
* ''Anime/TicoOfTheSevenSeas'' had a Canadian English dub called ''Tico and Friends'' that was lost for several years until it showed up on Oznoz in 2017.
* ''Anime/TransformersArmada'', the first part of the ''Anime/UnicronTrilogy'', aired on Creator/{{Toonami}} back in the early 2000s and received several DVD releases from Rhino Home Video. Said releases have unfortunately gone out of print, but recently, Amazon has added a [[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GSTHDCU/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER pre-order page]] for a DVD rerelease of the complete series. The distributor, according to a [[http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Transformers-Armada-The-Complete-Series/19200 couple]] [[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/armada-5/transformers-armada-returning-to-dvd-178808/ articles]] commenting on the subject, is Gaiams Americas, who provides most of the distribution for Creator/ShoutFactory, who currently handle most of the recent Transformers DVD releases. The second installment in the Unicron Trilogy, ''Anime/TransformersEnergon'' is also set for a DVD rerelease from Shout! Factory. Much like its predecessor, it too was given a release by Rhino Home Video, which eventually went out of print. Hopefully, this means that the third and final installment, ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'', will get the rerelease treatment as well.
* For almost 20 years, the English Dub for both of Creator/{{Sanrio}}'s feature films adaptations of Creator/OsamuTezuka's Manga/{{Unico}} series (''Anime/TheFantasticAdventuresOfUnico'' and ''Anime/UnicoInTheIslandOfMagic'') was only released on VHS which later went out of print in recent years. Once Main/TheNewTens rolled around, Creator/DiscotekMedia was able to re-release both Unico movies on DVD in the West (complete with an English and Japanese audio track). As a bonus, both Unico movies gained a special Blu-Ray box set called "Unico Double Feature" which contains both movies on two separate discs. Fittingly, both movies were re-released a year after the original manga series gained an official English translation (as a result of a successful kickstarter by a group of Western fans) in 2012. Both movies are also available to watch on Amazon Prime, Pluto TV, Tubi, and Crunchyroll.
* New Video Group, the same company who is currently responsible for rescuing and distributing the ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' series, is now also rereleasing the Anime/YuGiOh Classic series on DVD, in [[http://www.amazon.com/Yu-Gi-Oh-Classic-Season-Vol/dp/B00CYI4L42/ref=sr_1_7?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1373552983&sr=1-7&keywords=yu+gi+oh+season+1 both]] [[http://www.amazon.com/Yu-Gi-Oh-Classic-Season-Vol/dp/B00CYI4KAW/ref=pd_sim_sbs_mov_3 volumes]] and [[http://www.amazon.com/Yu-Gi-Oh-Classic-Season-coming-soon/dp/B00CYLRQ46/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1373552958&sr=1-1&keywords=yu+gi+oh season sets]].
* For the longest time, there was no way, legally, to see ''Anime/SonicX'' in its uncut form. 4Kids attempted to rectify the situation by streaming it on Hulu, [[NoExportForYou but that only limited its availability to the United States]]. To add insult to injury, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the Japanese text was still removed]] ([[MisBlamed something 4Kids had nothing to do with]] [[NotMeThisTime for once]]). Thankfully, [[Creator/DiscotekMedia Discotek Media]] announced their plans to [[https://www.twitter.com/discotekmedia/status/1584740159236415488 finally]] give the uncut version a proper Blu-ray release.
* For the longest time, US fans of the 2001''Manga/ShamanKing'' anime only ever had two uncut bilingual [=DVDs=] (which featured a separate dub with the 4Kids cast and a faithful script) containing episodes 1-6 released by Funimation before they were canceled. Three more volumes (with eps. 7-15) were solicited, but never came out. The edited 4Kids dub, which successfully completed its run on [=FoxBox=], never had a home video released in the US, and no other official release of the uncut/subtitled version had transpired. Thankfully, Discotek has since licensed rescued the 2001 anime series, and will be releasing them in [[https://www.twitter.com/discotekmedia/status/1425913964236398592?lang=en two]] [[https://www.twitter.com/discotekmedia/status/1553559762012254209 separate]] versions: both the 4Kids edited dub and the original Japanese version.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* For a long time [[Creator/TerryPratchett Sir Terry Pratchett's]] first novel, ''Literature/TheCarpetPeople'', was out of print and almost impossible to find secondhand due to a tiny original print run. However, eventually, his publishers got so fed up with having to tell people there was no demand for it that it was reissued. Technically, it was reissued as a new [[DirectorsCut Author's Cut]], since Pratchett wanted to fix a lot about the novel. So you can read the special edition, but good luck finding the original.
* Probably one of the oldest and most obscure examples is the story of Michael Servetus's heretical text ''Christianismi Restitutio'' (Latin for "The Restoration of Christianity"). Since Servetus was more radical than even most Protestants of the time (for example, he rejected both the Trinity and infant baptism), Catholics and Protestants alike denounced and suppressed him and his works. John Calvin led a huge effort to destroy all copies of Servetus's books and eventually [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill had Servetus burned at the stake on a pile of copies of ''Christianismi Restitutio'', with the last known copy of the book bound to his leg.]] Only three first-edition copies still exist; for nearly half a millennium, these copies have passed from person to person throughout Europe. But there are many later copies, and the book is still in print (you can find it on Amazon.com).
* The 1991 book ''Duck in a Raincoat'' by Maura Curley, a damning unauthorized biography of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_School Elan School]] founder and Maine gubernatorial candidate Joseph Ricci, saw a low print run during its initial publication, and by the late 1990s was fairly rare (as recounted in ''Webcomic/JoeVsElanSchool''). That said, an updated second edition was eventually released for the Kindle in 2012, a year after Elan School's closure and eleven years after Ricci's death.
* ''Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute'' has previously not been released in the States because of issues with the publishers. But as of 2012 it is scheduled to be released sometime in 2013.
* The ''Literature/MythOMania'' books went out of print in the mid-2000s, but re-appeared in 2011 with a different publisher, updated covers, and even some new stories.
* While many English versions of Creator/JulesVerne's more obscure books are only available in their original century-old prints, one such book, ''Sans dessus dessous'' (literally "[[ItMakesSenseInContext Topsy-Turvy]]") was retranslated and republished in 2012 as ''The Earth Turned Upside Down''. As an added bonus, the new translation is much better than the original English one, which, as with other English versions of Verne's books from the time, was reviled by scholars and the knowledgeable public for its low quality.
* After several small scale releases that did nothing to alleviate the books incredible rarity, in 2015, there was finally a proper public paperback release of Creator/ThomasLigotti's "Songs of a Dead Dreamer".
* For over a century, James Scarth Gale's account as a missionary in early 20th century Korea, ''The Vanguard: A Tale of Korea'', was only available in its original 1900s printing. But in 2013, a Korean publisher created a modernized and bilingual (Korean and English) edition for sale in Christian bookstores, making this almost forgotten and historically important work available for purchase again.
* ''Literature/VillainsByNecessity'' a 1995 fantasy book by Eve Forward, where a group of left-over villains have to save the world from the forces of Good, was out of print for some time, and still is in hardcover and softcover forms, but it has been released on Kindle and Audible formats. That being said, there is a work with the same name by Sara Woods, which is more of a crime story - make sure to get the right one when ordering.
* ''Westwind'', an early techno thriller by Literature/{{Rebus}} author Ian Rankin, slipped out more-or-less unnoticed in 1991 and was soon out of print -- and due to its combination of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness (Rankin hadn't quite found his style at the time), GenreAdultery and ExecutiveMeddling (it noticeably lacks Rankin's usual dark humour because his editors insisted on him taking all the jokes out), it became an entirely dismissed work for the author. Eventually [[CanonDiscontinuity he dropped it from his official bibliography altogether]]. He finally came round to it after a fan enthused about it on Twitter, and it was reissued with minor revisions in 2019.
* Creator/MichaelRosen owes his status as a YouTubePoop star due to averting this trope. His book ''The Hypnotiser'' contains some of his best-known and well-loved stories (including "Hot Food", "Babysitter", "Horrible", "The Michael Rosen Rap", and many others), but it went out of print, and copies became extremely difficult to find secondhand. Unable to get it reprinted, Michael decided to film himself reading its stories to better preserve them, and the rest is history.
* In 2021, Creator/KAApplegate and Creator/MichaelGrant [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Animorphs/comments/q57mtd/remnants_and_everworld_are_being_reprinted_and_a/ announced that they had regained the rights]] to their out-of-print series ''Literature/{{Remnants}}'' and ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'', and will be making them available for digital and print-on-demand purchase (with all-new illustrations and covers).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* ''Musicdisk'', the 2004 professional album by Purple Motion of the Future Crew {{demoscene}} group, has long since gone out of print, but the album can be found on digital however.
* Fans of hardcore act All Else Failed might be surprised to know that they had an animated music video for their song "In Time" from their 2001 album "Archetype." It aired four times on MTV's 120 Minutes and was seemingly forgotten to time. Music archivist [[https://hate5six.com/ hate5six]] caught wind the existence of a music video and took to social media to see if he could get any leads on the video, and sure enough the mother of Steve from All Else Failed had a VHS recording and sent it to hate5six. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs_sTARlW9s It can be viewed here,]] along with some words from Pat Shannon from All Else Failed about how the music video came to be.
* Music/BobDylan once performed a rather...famous concert at the Royal Albert Hall in the UK. For many years, a near-perfect recording of that concert circulated in one form or another, until it was officially released as part of the "bootleg" series of [=CDs=].
* Cult band The Enid's first two albums ''In the Region of the Summer Stars'' and ''Aerie Faerie Nonsense'' (1976-7) had to be be remixed and partly re-recorded in 1984 when the original record company wouldn't return the 2-track masters to the band. Because of this the original mixes were only available on vinyl until 2010 (and only given an official release because somebody had bootlegged the vinyl versions).
* For years, Music/GarthBrooks' TV concert specials were either hard or impossible to find. "This Is Garth Brooks" (1992) and "Garth Live From Central Park" (1997) were released on VHS in 1992 & 1998 respectively, but both went out-of-print relatively quick, while "This Is Garth Brooks II" (1994) saw its planned VHS release canceled, and "Garth Brooks Ireland & Back" (1998) was long forgotten after its initial Creator/{{NBC}} airing (save for a rare CMT rerun in 2002). All four specials were finally released on DVD in a box set in 2006, albeit with several edits made to all of them (and "Ireland & Back" being retitled "Garth Brooks Live From Dublin")
* Music/{{Negativland}}'s single ''U2'', where both tracks were essentially {{Voice Clip Song}}s featuring Creator/CaseyKasem having obscene temper tantrums between takes of an episode of ''American Top 40'' set to instrumental covers of Music/{{U2}}'s "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". It was quickly pulled from record stores due to a lawsuit by Island Records (both for unlicensed samples and the fact that the cover misleadingly had "U2" in much bigger letters than the band name). It then continued to stay out-of-print due to Kasem himself, who understandably was embarrassed by his ranting. Averted in that the band themselves put both sides of the single up for free download on their website, and later [[RefugeInAudacity started distributing a bootleg album containing 11 different versions of the song]], which is surprisingly still available.
* In December 1987, Music/{{Prince}} asked Creator/WarnerBrosRecords, his label at the time, to scrap the release of ''The Black Album'' a week before its release date. However, by this time over 500k were pressed on vinyl & CD and preview copies had gone out. Most copies were destroyed, with the few remaining being the source for "'''the most bootlegged album of all time'''". In 1991, Warner planned a greatest hits package which would have included the album as a bonus disc. However, it was scrapped when Prince delivered ''Diamonds and Pearls'' to the company. Finally in 1994, during [[TheTropeFormerlyKnownAsX Prince's]] feud with the same label, the album was legitimately released; Prince was paid around $1 million for it. Ironically, it's now out of print.
* For the longest time, a Music/JeffBuckley documentary titled ''Amazing Grace'' was completely unavailable to fans. The documentary had won numerous awards and was one of the most accurate documentaries about Buckley's life. Due to copyrights issues rumors of it being released on a DVD spiked up and then soon fizzled out. Then, in 2009, it was officially released on a special edition of ''Grace Around The World''. However, these special editions are quickly running out and odds are the documentary will fade back into this trope.
* Music/DavidBowie examples:
** His much-bootlegged Oct. 20, 1972 show in Los Angeles, California was given an official release in 2008 as ''Live Santa Monica '72'' after a grey market disc circulated in record shops for over a decade.
** A 1976 concert that was recorded and broadcast on radio's ''The King Biscuit Flower Hour'' was another popular bootleg. Two tracks were officially released on the 1991 Rykodisc reissue of ''Station to Station'', but it wasn't until 2010 that an [=EMI=] special edition of the album included the whole show (''Live Nassau Coliseum '76''), save for a chunk of the lengthy instrumental jam on "Panic in Detroit". However, the complete version of that was made available as a digital download bonus track.
** At the TurnOfTheMillennium, region-free [=DVD=]s editing together material from the two [=VHS=] tapes covering two of the Sydney, Australia shows from 1987's ''Glass Spider'' tour could be found at even legitimate retailers. Virgin/[=EMI=] finally released an official version of this in 2007, and the special edition release even added 2 [=CDs=] of a concert from earlier in the tour. This CD would later be reissued by Creator/ParlophoneRecords as part of the ''Loving the Alien [1983-1988]'' BoxedSet in 2018 and individually in February 2019.
** ''Toy'', which featured re-recorded versions of some very early singles, was initially shelved in late 2001 due to a mix of logistical difficulties with its planned surprise release and hesitance from Creator/VirginRecords, who were in the middle of a financial downturn and saw the album as unprofitable. However, a draft of the album leaked online in 2011, being spread around through file-sharing sites and bootlegs. Ten years later, a completed version of ''Toy'' finally saw release, first as part of the BoxedSet ''Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001)'' before seeing an expanded three-CD release as ''Toy:Box'' at the start of 2022.
* Music/JeanMichelJarre's pre-''Oxygène'' works were once only available as rare first-edition singles and albums from times before he became famous. These have been selling for outrageous prices for decades now. Some of them became part of the ''Rarities'' bootleg LP series, but these are sought-after rarities themselves today. However, the ''Les Granges Brûlées'' soundtrack was remastered and re-released as a whole on CD in 2003, and the 2011 GreatestHitsAlbum ''Essentials & Rarities'' contains one CD with super-rare stuff like "La Cage", "Erosmachine", several ''Deserted Palace'' tracks, and even Jarre's very first recording, "Happiness Is A Sad Song".
* For a while, Music/TheSmashingPumpkins fans were surprised to hear that ''Siamese Dream'' actually had a lyric sheet. The lyrics were hand-written on a series of family photo-style pictures which comprised the insert artwork. The first pressing gave each song/picture its own page in a thick booklet, however this was changed to a small foldout which the pictures were scattered all over, rendering the lyrics almost entirely illegible and forcing the listener to go to this new-fangled Internet thingy to know what they were. It wasn't until 1999 that Virgin finally re-issued the album with its original booklet insert, readable lyrics and all.
* Music/{{Microdisney}}'s B Sides "Harmony Time" and "Money for the Trams" finally appeared on CD in 2013, after 28 years being only available on vinyl and cassette (and rips). The master tapes were said to be lost, hence why they weren't on the 90s CD issues, which were rare and long out of print anyway. For the 2013 reissues, the technology had improved so that they were able to use very clean vinyl rips which they fixed up digitally.
* Music/TheDeadMilkmen albums ''Soul Rotation'' and ''Not Richard, But Dick'' both were out of print for years - these were the only two albums the band themselves didn't own the rights to, and Hollywood Records let them fall out of print, presumably because they weren't among the label's higher selling acts. In 2013, Hollywood Records re-released the two albums as digital downloads on itunes and amazon.com. As far as physical copies go, your options are used copies on cd or cassette, which are pretty reasonably priced, or unopened "new" ones, which are decidedly less so.
* CountryMusic singer T. Graham Brown's debut single "Drowning in Memories" was never put onto an album for many years, and was thus extremely hard to find. However, in 2007, he reacquired the rights to ''all'' of his material for Capitol Records (1985-1991) and put every one of his singles for the label on the album ''Deja Vu All Over Again: The Best of T. Graham Brown'' — including "Drowning in Memories".
* Before they founded Music/BigAndRich, both Big Kenny and John Rich had recorded solo albums in 1999 that were never released: ''Live a Little'' from the former, and ''Underneath the Same Moon'' from the latter. After Big & Rich became popular in the mid-2000s, both solo albums were released from the vaults. [[ZigZaggedTrope However]], John Rich still has another pre-Big & Rich release, the single "Forever Loving You", which does not appear to circulate anywhere.
* A subversion of this occurred with an LP when it was later reissued on CD. System, a Music/{{Yes}} / Music/{{Emerson Lake And Palmer}} soundalike band released ''Realm Time Tales'' as a very limited-issue LP in 1983. In 1988, when it was first pressed on CD, the ''band'' name had been changed to Vail (after the trio's keyboardist/composer Steve Vail) and the title was shortened to ''Time Tales,'' with the original name living on as [[ArtifactTitle System Records.]] The new-name album (CD and download) are available, but the original band name/title LP remains a collector's item.
* After decades of Music/TheBeatles' music videos being out of print, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-h9qvPrTeE Apple Corps. is releasing a compilation of Beatles music videos remastered in HD.]]
* For a long time, the legendary TearJerker of a music video for the Music/DixieChicks' "Top Of the World" was next to impossible to find owing not only to its radio unfriendly length of 6 minutes, but also the controversy surrounding them at the time. However, in December of 2015, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxRiVkdO9VQ it was finally reuploaded to YouTube]].
* The debut album of ChristianRock recording artist [[Series/{{Roundhouse}} Benny Hester]]; 1972's ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Benny]]", saw only a handful of copies survive a fire that broke out shortly before it was scheduled to be released that destroyed the masters; resulting in the few surviving copies selling for quite a few pretty pennies. However, in February 2016; Hester announced that album would be [[http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/bennyhester released in a digitally remastered form taken from Hester's own promotional copy]]
* For years, the vinyl editions of Music/RedHousePainters albums fetched extremely high prices even when in terrible condition. However, Beggars Records, the new owners of the 4AD Records back catalog, re-released all of the RHP albums from ''Down Colorful Hill'' through ''Ocean Beach''. ''Songs for a Blue Guitar'' has been reprinted more times than can be counted on vinyl and it appears that SubPop has even reprinted ''Old Ramon''. To make things even better, the 4AD-era vinyls were lovingly reconstructed with all the original artwork intact and with the same exact paper used for the original pressings. Fans were amazed. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for most of Music/SunKilMoon's discography or Kozelek's solo work.
* Dionne Farris' "I Know" was a massive hit single in 1995 (#4 on Hot 100, #1 on Pop radio), but the song was never released on iTunes or any other digital download/streaming service until the final quarter of 2017 - and by extension, nor was the remainder of its parent album, ''Wild Seed -- Wild Flower'', making the whole tracklist nearly impossible to obtain up until that point. As an added bonus, much of the album's music videos were added to Vevo, including "I Know".
* Music/NeilYoung's first "Ditch Trilogy" album, ''Time Fades Away'', was released on vinyl and was for the longest time his only album that was never reprinted, due to poor mixing and Young's dislike for the album. His second "Ditch" album ''On the Beach'' was also out of print for a while, but that was re-released three decades later. He finally reissued ''Time Fades Away'' in the mid-2010s: First exclusively through his Pono music service, and then a [[http://pitchfork.com/news/67560-neil-young-reissuing-time-fades-away-tonights-the-night-on-the-beach-zuma/ full fledged vinyl reissue.]]
* The Dixie Dregs were an acclaimed Southern Rock and Jazz Fusion outfit from Florida founded by legendary guitarist Steve Morse. They released six studio albums between 1977 and 1982, and then disbanded. While their first three albums have been re-released on CD by Capricorn Records, their other three, done with Arista Records, hadn't seen print for a long time since the 1980s until 2015, when BGO in the UK reissued a 2 CD set of the Arista albums in one set.
* In 1977, Music/PaulMcCartney released the unusual album ''Thrillington'' under the pseudonym Percy "Thrills" Thrillington. It was an orchestral and jazz reworking of his entire 1972 ''Music/{{RAM}}'' album, and it became a collector's item due to its unusualness and the relatively small printing of the LP release. It wasn't legally available in CD form until the 2012 Deluxe Edition Box Set of ''RAM'' album.
** The following year, the Music/{{Wings}} concert film ''Rockshow'', which was considerably harder to find than ''Wings Over America'', the live album for that tour, was officially remastered and re-released (alongside ''Wings Over America'') on DVD and Blu-ray.
* EBM artist/band Interface put together a maxi single of "Mirror Mirror" from ''The Perfect World'', featuring the non-album BSide "Energy", in 2014, but his record label didn't release it for whatever reason. In 2018, the master tapes were rediscovered and it got a release on Bandcamp.
* The 1982 slow Eurodisco song "Starlight" by Dutch group Risqué was expensive to get, especially the extended versions, due to acclaim and demand. The rest of Risqué's songs can be cheap to acquire. In December 2018, "Starlight" was reissued on vinyl by Miss you.
* Music/{{Drake}}'s 2019 compilation "Care Package" is an album full of songs that either never had an official album release or were once too expensive to re-release due to sample rights. These include tracks like "Girls Love Beyonce" (uses a sample from Music/DestinysChild's "Say My Name"), "5 AM in Toronto", "I Get Lonely" (a B-side from an unreleased mixtape) and more. In the interim, unofficial versions floated around Youtube and second-hand sources.
* Music/YuuheiSatellite:
** They tend to make [[CompilationRerelease Compilation Re-releases]] of old singles and albums, and as of 2018, their albums have been released digitally.
** Some of their limited singles have been rescued by a digital release and/or an appearance on an album that was digitally released.
* Music/AkatsukiRecords has rescued some of its event-exclusive [=CDs=] by putting their content on [[CompilationRerelease compilations]]. However, it's a temporary measure -- once ''those'' go out of print, the tracks fall back into Keep Circulating the Tapes status.
* ''VideoGame/OriAndTheBlindForest'' has a ton of music that didn't get released on its first OST, but most of it was eventually made available on the free Additional Soundtrack via BandCamp, including the much sought after "Swallow's Nest", "Thornfelt Swamp Ram Battle", "Misty Woods Cleared", "Lava Fields", and "Mount Horu Puzzle Rooms" tracks.
* Power Glove's [[https://youtu.be/C--5vxvwcqA "Hunters"]], featured in both ''Film/HoboWithAShotgun'' and ''VideoGame/FarCry3BloodDragon'', was not commercially released until October 2019, when it appeared on their ''Throwback'' EP.
* Music/InformationSociety's 1985 debut album ''Creatures of Influence'' was only issued on vinyl, and remained out of print for over two decades. In 2008, their label HAKATAK International remastered and re-released it in digital format, as well as on CD as part of the rarities compilation ''Apocryphon'', which also includes the songs from the ''[=InSoc=] EP''(though its physical CD edition was a one-and-done printing and is now only available second-hand). ''[=InSoc=]'' was also repressed on vinyl by Mannequin Records in 2014, with addition of [[MissingEpisode the previously unreleased track]] "Charientism", but ''Creatures'' still has yet to see a vinyl reissue.
* Music/{{Weezer}} frontman Rivers Cuomo released a trilogy of [=CDs=] called the ''Alone'' series that compiled demos over the course of the band's career while they were signed to Geffen. While the first two albums were widely released by Geffen, the third installment was only included with the very rare and self-published ''Pinkerton Diaries'' book. Thankfully, Rivers would continue the ''Alone'' series on his website and would include demos originally from ''Alone III'' on future installments.
* Disco Inferno released a series of 5 [=EPs=] in the early 90s that are popularly referred to (and bootlegged as) a set, but for years seemed unlikely to see an official re-release due to them being released on different labels. This was finally rectified in 2011 when One Little Indian issued a lovingly-crafted compilation entitled ''The 5 [=EPs=]''.
* Kristine W.'s 1994 debut album ''Perfect Beat'' was out of print until the late 2010's, when it was finally digitally reissued via Bandcamp, Amazon Music, et al.
* The Flowerpot Men (not to be confused with the 60s pop group) were an Main/{{Industrial}} act who recorded a few [=EPs=] and singles in the 80s. Despite one of their songs, "Beat City", being featured in the hit film Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff, their music was never released on CD format, and with their labels long defunct, it was nigh impossible to find anything of theirs online (except the aforementioned "Beat City"). Finally, in April 2023, Demon Music Group released a compilation album, ''1984'', curated by the band.
* The Music/FooFighters celebrated their 25th anniversary with the ''Foo Files'', a series of [=EPs=] that made many B-sides from the band's first five albums available at large, after years only on singles, album special editions, and limited run works.
* The entire catalogue of Blackground Records, most notably Music/{{Aaliyah}}, was out of print until 2021, when the label signed a distribution deal with EMPIRE. Before then, Barry Hankerson, her uncle and head of the record label, refused to release ''any'' music at all on the label after Timbaland's 2009 release of ''Shock Value II'', stranding its artists and producers in DevelopmentHell and forcing them to sue him to release them from their contracts (''especially'' Music/JoJo; it took her 10 years to be able to fully release a new album).
** Prior to the re-releasing, Music/{{JoJo}} re-recorded all her Blackground albums due to the aforementioned label troubles.
* Music/GodspeedYouBlackEmperor's demo tape ''All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling'' is perhaps the holy grail of indie fans. The band hates it, so it will never be reissued. It was limited to 33 copies, so the chances of a copy surfacing are naturally highly unlikely (with even band member Efrim Menuck expressing disbelief that it didn't resurface). And while one song was posted to Website/{{Reddit}} in 2013, the person about to rip and distribute the rest was driven off the site by rude users. The demo seemed destined to remain in limbo, but in February 2022 it was miraculously [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmgDLGpl9ME ripped and redistributed]], courtesy of a [[Website/FourChan /mu/]] user who casually posted it at 3 AM; this was eventually followed by an official re-release through the band's Bandcamp.
* Canadian indie pop artist [=JanaJana=]'s sole album, ''Typical Girl'', was originally self-released through her website, www.janajana.com, which has long since shut down. It was later re-released to mainstream digital platforms.
* Music/PinkFloyd's cancelled non-album single "Scream Thy Last Scream"/"Vegetable Man" went unreleased for decades after being junked. They were among the last songs completed with Music/SydBarrett, who was already [[CreatorBreakdown so far off the deep end]] at that time that the surviving members of the band chose to [[BuryYourArt withhold them from release]] due to the songs being too voyeuristically illustrative of his mental state. The tracks would become popular bootlegs over the years before eventually seeing an official release on the 2016 BoxedSet ''The Early Years 1965--1972''.
* For a while, the streaming release of the SelfTitledAlbum of the Canadian rock band Prism had some of the tracks mislabelled and was missing the final song, "I Ain't Lookin' Anymore". In 2022, the full album was finally released for streaming. (The faulty release is labelled as "remastered"; the complete one isn't.)
* The album ''Dreamin' with Music/DefLeppard'' might be the only "lullaby renditions" album that features people from the original band. The CD is out of print and extremely hard to find, and it was missing from iTunes for a few years. Finally, in 2022, it was re-released for streaming with its title changed to ''Rock the Cradle: A Lullaby Tribute to Def Leppard''.
* After Spotify took their songs down for an unknown reason circa 2016, Critical Zone seemingly went extinct. However, their albums returned to streaming services within the following two years (but they still have no physical release).
* Blue Amazon's long out-of-print 1997 album ''The Javelin'' was digitally rescued in 2020 as both the continuous mix from the CD and the unmixed tracks from the vinyl edition, the latter also including "Trip To Heaven"(originally available only on either the vinyl or the German SpecialEdition double CD) and the previously-unreleased extended version of "Paradise Regime". Most of their classic non-album singles (some formerly vinyl-only) have been digitized as well.
* A particularly extreme example is Music/{{Panchiko}}'s ''D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L'' EP ([[NonIndicativeName which is actually a low-fi indie rock record]]) - it, and the band itself, had no documentation or proof of existence anywhere on the internet, and whan a copy of it was uncovered in 2016, it suffered from severe disc rot that corrupted the audio quality. It took four years for anyone in the band to be tracked down, whereupon they released a clean, remastered version of the album, and added on another unknown EP (''Kicking Cars'') and even the original disc-rot affected songs as bonus tracks. The band even reunited afterwards, doing tours and releasing new material.
* The original Music/{{Sugababes}} lineup, then reformed under the Music/MutyaKeishaSiobhan moniker, released their single "Flatline" in 2013, and then recorded four or five album-worth of material that got shelved for [[ExecutiveMeddling several]] [[ScrewedByTheLawyers reasons]]. Eventually, "Flatline" was also recalled from straming platfoms and [=YouTube=], while the rest of their songs remained officially unreleased but were [[ContentLeak leaked]] in an event the fans called [=MKSmas=]. For years, the leaked files (plus original digital download of "Flatline") were the only way their songs could be listened to by fans (with the exception of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfdYE7BkEsw&pp=ygUObWtzIG5vIHJlZ3JldHM%3D an acoustic version of "No Regrets"]] still on [=YouTube=]). Then, after regaining the rights to the Sugababes name in 2019, in 2022 the girls re-released "Flatline" as a single, preceding the surprise-drop of 13 of these songs in the [[RealitySubtext aptly named]] album, ''The Lost Tapes''.
* ''Forty Licks'', the most comprehensive GreatestHitsAlbum by Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}}, had been out of print since 2008 due to rights issues. Though a more comprehensive one, ''GRRR!'' came out in 2012, and even included one of the four new songs from ''Forty Licks''. In July 2023, [[MilestoneCelebration to mark Mick Jagger's 80th birthday]], ''Forty Licks'' got re-released on vinyl and streaming.
[[/folder]]

[[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/WesternAnimationRescued Examples of rescued Western Animation shows]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/ComicBooksRescued comic books]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/VideoGamesRescued]] and [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/LiveActionTVRescued live-action TV shows]] are on their own pages, as are rescued ''Franchise/StarWars''-related works (see [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/StarWars here]] for those).

[[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/WesternAnimationRescued Examples of rescued Western Animation shows]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/ComicBooksRescued comic books]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/VideoGamesRescued and [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/LiveActionTVRescued live-action TV shows]] are on their own pages, as are rescued ''Franchise/StarWars''-related works (see [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/StarWars here]] for those).

[[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/WesternAnimationRescued Examples of rescued Western Animation shows]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/ComicBooksRescued comic books]] and [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/LiveActionTV live-action TV shows]] are on their own pages, as are rescued ''Franchise/StarWars''-related works (see [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/StarWars here]] for those).

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Before [[ArtifactTitle branching out into indie games and movies]], Website/GOGDotCom originally existed for this purpose, as if the original "Good Old Games" wasn't obvious enough.
* "Greatest Hits"-type releases are made to combat this phenomenon. However; these were actually based on how well the game ''sold'' initially, regardless of critical and/or fan reception. There are exceptions; such as ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' which was re-released due to fan demand.
* UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole (for the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}, UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS, and UsefulNotes/WiiU), UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade, and UsefulNotes/PlayStationNetwork have sections for games from previous systems. Games that sell for ridiculously high prices on eBay and Amazon are available for far less on these services, such as ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', and games that are very hard to find in retail (like ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'') can easily be found here.
** Virtual Console (Consoles): Games for the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]], [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]], and UsefulNotes/{{Nintendo 64}} for both the Wii and Wii U; and additionally games for the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis (Mega Drive), UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 (PC Engine), and even a few arcade games in the case of the Wii. (The Wii U, thanks to native backward compatibility with the Wii, is also able to download and play games on the Wii Virtual Console).
*** Three noteworthy titles available on this service are ''VideoGame/AlienSoldier'', ''VideoGame/GoldenAxe III'', and ''VideoGame/{{Pulseman}}'' for the Sega Genesis. These are particularly valuable for U.S. players, as these games were previously available in America only on the short-lived Sega Channel service.
** Virtual Console (Handhelds): Games from [[UsefulNotes/GameBoy Game]] [[UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor Boy]] [[UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance systems]], the UsefulNotes/GameGear, UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, and NES for the Nintendo 3DS. The New Nintendo 3DS is also able to play SNES games as well.
** Xbox Live Arcade: Games for the original UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} in the case of the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}} and UsefulNotes/XboxOne.
** [=PlayStation=] Network: Games for the original UsefulNotes/PlayStation in the case of the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable PSP]], [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 PS3]], and [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita Vita]], and additionally UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 in the case of the [=PS3=].
** For PC gaming, UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and Website/GOGDotCom offer some old games that were either {{abandonware}} or will have compatibility issues if people try to run from the original.
* ''VideoGame/AliceMadnessReturns'': Although the PC version is available through Origin, it only carries the standard edition of the game and not ''The Complete Collection'' release, which includes the Weapons of Madness and Dresses Pack DLC and a remastered version of ''VideoGame/AmericanMcGeesAlice'', and the game's Steam version was delisted in 2016 to push customers to buy the game through Origin (although the EA-related DRM was removed in an update for the Steam version in 2022 and uses Valve's DRM instead). Around 2019, ''The Complete Collection'' for PC did make a return through Creator/HumbleBundle but as a redeemable serial key for Origin. The game's Xbox 360 release is still available digitally through Xbox Live and has since become backwards compatible on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, and the remastered version of the first ''Alice'' game can be downloaded as free DLC for the sequel.
* ''VideoGame/AlisiaDragoon'' never sold well in any territory, making copies of this CultClassic [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Genesis]] game somewhat rare. It ''finally'' saw a re-release in 2019 after being included on the Sega Genesis Mini.
* The ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' duology were a pair of cult hit [=RPGs=] developed by Creator/MonolithSoft for the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube. They were the only releases of the games until it was announced that they were to be remastered for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch in 2023.
* ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'' received an arcade-to-console port on the Sega Saturn, but only in Japan and prices for it began to spike after it went out of print. Thankfully, ''Battle Garegga Rev.2016'' was released on [=PS4=] and Xbox One to alleviate this, both in Japan ''and'' in the West.
* Remember the old Toys/{{Bionicle}} games on the LEGO website? Remember how cool they were? Now remember how sad you were when they were taken down? Cry no more, Bionicle fans, the ''Bionicle Online Game Archive'' has full working versions of every Bionicle game released online by LEGO, ever. The Bionicle creators and LEGO have turned a blind eye to the website, so no links to it here, but rest assured Google is a very helpful friend.
** LEGO has a reputation for taking games off their web pages, but leaving the SWF files buried in the FTP. As such, once they're removed, they still have a chance of being recovered. In most cases the Wayback Machine will do the trick, but an interesting case was the ''VideoGame/LEGOIsland Comic Adventures''. While they were somewhat functional on the Wayback Machine, they usually froze on some minigames. They were thought to be lost forever, until a fan from [=BZPower=] finally found the sources and put them up for download.
* Before ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}} I'' and ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} I'' and ''II'' were added to [[Website/GOGDotCom GOG]] in March 2019, any Creator/BlizzardEntertainment games older than the original ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' (1998) were largely inaccessible. ''VideoGame/TheLostVikings'', ''VideoGame/{{Blackthorne}}'' and ''VideoGame/RockNRollRacing'' were available for free for a time on Blizzard's official website, but the download links have since been removed and there was no way to legally acquire digital copies until 2021, when all three games were rereleased as the ''Blizzard Arcade Collection''.
* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines'' had to deal with a complete lack of ports and rereleases compared to other console ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games of its time for 25 years, until 2019 when Creator/{{Sega}} announced the [[http://genesismini.sega.com/ Sega Genesis Mini]], with ''Bloodlines'' being one of the first games to be announced for the collection and ''then'' releasing it as part of the ''Castlevania Anniversary Collection'' for those who didn't want to wait for the Genesis Mini to be released.
* ''VideoGame/ChuTeng'', a sequel to the similarly obscure ''Eastern Mind'' from the same creator as ''LSD'', was for a long time considered the most obscure game ever and a lost video game. A massive investigation began in 2013 to find it, but Osamu Sato himself told them he didn't own a copy and the only collector known to have it refused to upload the content. Eventually someone revealed that they had a copy in their attic and uploaded the game.
* The original version of ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay''. Given its Mature rating in a cutesy setting and ''barely'' any promotion (it was released the same year the [=GameCube=] would debut and was generally ignored by Nintendo), it was hard to get then, and it sure as hell is even harder to get now. Rare did indeed fully remake the game for Xbox under the title ''Conker: Live & Reloaded'' but this remake received a massive backlash from fans of the original because it [[{{Bowdlerization}} censored a great deal of content from the original]]. However, at E3 2015 Microsoft announced ''Rare Replay'', a massive CompilationRerelease for Xbox One that includes not only the original, uncensored version of Conker, but 29 other classic Rare games, many of which will also be rescued from limbo. (That said, this also had the side effect of putting the ''Live & Reloaded'' version into limbo -- like the 20th Anniversary Edition of E.T. -- though not many are complaining.)
** As of April 14, 2018, ''Live & Reloaded'' was finally re-released through the Xbox One's Original Xbox backwards compatibility.
* The only re-release of ''VideoGame/{{Crystalis}}'' used to be the 2000 port to the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor. This was one of the few games Creator/{{SNK}} originally created for the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem rather than for arcades, and their Virtual Console support was usually limited to UsefulNotes/NeoGeo games. (SNK's pre-Neo Geo arcade games, however, are well represented on the UsefulNotes/PlayStationNetwork.) This changed with the 2018 release of ''SNK [=40th=] Anniversary Collection'', which includes the NES version of ''Crystalis''.
* The Wii compilation ''Data East Arcade Classics'' was a bit of a surprise, since Creator/DataEast had been defunct for almost a decade by the time of its release. (Most of Data East's assets are handled by a company called G-Mode, who pretty much solely exist to archive their old game library. However, the rights to a few Data East games, including ''VideoGame/{{Karnov}}'', are held by a different company.)
* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' was absent from the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole for years, for [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100210103051/http://www.rareware.com/extras/scribes/18sep09/index.html whatever]] [[https://twitter.com/RareLtd/status/25013528136 reason]]. The most popular theory due to its absence were the inclusions of ''VideoGame/{{Jetpac}}'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' as playable mandatory mini-games within the game (you have to play them if you want to fight the final boss and complete the game, so removing them isn't an option unless they were to heavily alter the game's code)--''Jetpac'' as it's owned by Rare themselves, and ''Donkey Kong'' as the version Rare ported to ''[=DK64=]'' is the original arcade version, to which Nintendo doesn't own the rights. An alternative theory was Rareware's N64 games need a certain code to run on Virtual Console that Rare may have access to, but Nintendo may not--which was evident when people have tried to inject Wii Virtual Console files with [=ROMs=] of Rare's N64 games to no or very little success. Fortunately, the situation was eventually remedied when ''Donkey Kong 64'' was released on the Wii U's Virtual Console in April 2015.
* In a strange -- though brief -- case of circulating the tapes, Rare's original ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' trilogy were mysteriously delisted from the Wii Virtual Console in November 2012, with Nintendo giving no reason as to why. Nintendo owns all the rights to the games (in contrast to the majority of Nintendo games developed by Rare), new ''Donkey Kong (Country)'' games continue to be produced for their platforms, and Rare's Game Boy ''Donkey Kong Land'' trilogy was re-released on the 3DS Virtual Console, so the removal of the games was certainly not because of licensing issues. Thankfully [[NetworkToTheRescue Nintendo re-released the DKC trilogy on the Wii U Virtual Console]] throughout late 2014/early 2015 (it was even re-listed on the Wii Virtual Console as well!), but it's still odd that one of Nintendo's biggest franchises could see their games fall under such a situation (despite the time period of their lack of legal availability being nowhere near as severe as other entries in this list).
* ''VideoGame/Doom64'': An original entry to the classic ''Doom'' series that was unfortunately mistaken as just another port of the original ''Doom'' due to the [[SuperTitle64Advance "64" in the title]], never left the Nintendo 64, and--to make things worse--came out around time when ''Turok'' and ''[=GoldenEye=] 007'' were considered state-of-the-art for their time. Thankfully some copies of the original Nintendo 64 cartridges are floating around for a reasonable price on Amazon and [=eBay=], and numerous fans have made remakes that are compatible with ''Doom'' source ports. However, in September 2019, Nintendo and Bethesda announced that a remastered port of the original game would be coming to the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], courtesy of Creator/NightdiveStudios, and included as a pre-order bonus of ''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' as an apology for the delaying the game from its original Q4 2019 release.
* The arcade version of ''VideoGame/DoubleDragon'' was rereleased on UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade for a while, until Empire Interactive went bankrupt, also erasing hopes of a rerelease of the second game. Luckily, all three arcade games were rescued in the UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and Website/GOGDotCom CompilationRerelease ''Double Dragon Trilogy''.
* Around August 8, 2019, ''VideoGame/DuckTales: Remastered'' was removed from digital distribution via Xbox LIVE, Wii U [=eShop=], [=PlayStation=] Network followed by the game being removed on Steam days later, leaving many to either hunt down a copy of the console versions or get their hands dirty to play on PC. On March 3, 2020, however, Creator/{{Capcom}} was able to [[https://delistedgames.com/ducktales-remastered-is-relisted-on-consoles-and-pc/ get the game back]] to digital storefronts.
* After its unfortunate initial US performance in 1995, ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'' saw no re-release in America for nearly two decades, not even on the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole. Its Masterpiece demo in the Japanese version of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', and its appearance in a WebVideo/NintendoDirect press release regarding the UsefulNotes/WiiU Virtual Console (losing its position to -- of all games -- ''VideoGame/PunchOut Featuring Mr. Dream''), were even explicitly removed from international versions! Rumors abound as to why this was the case, the most common ones involving legal issues over [[{{Sampling}} its music]], but nothing was ever confirmed by Nintendo and plenty of arguments against those theories surfaced too. [[note]]The real reason for it being kept from a Western re-release for so long was actually due to concerns involving its frequent use of flashing and flickering effects, which had to be blurred in the Virtual Console release.[[/note]] At any rate, it became very rare to find someone who actually played the game on a console rather than just emulating it. Being a very famous game, during the years where it was difficult to find, it was selling for anywhere between $80 and ''$200'', making it a true standout. Finally, after plenty of patience and plenty of waiting, Nintendo at last announced its release for the Wii U Virtual Console, later making good on their promise in July 2013. It was also added to the SNES Online service for the Nintendo Switch, making it even more available than before. There is still no word on [[VideoGame/Mother3 its sequel]], but this is certainly a step in the right direction.
** Its prequel, ''MOTHER'', had it even worse in the west. Originally planned for an English release in the very early 1990s, it was cancelled due to the release of the SNES and the high price of the cartridge the game would require, despite the localization and programming being entirely completed before the cancellation. Only ''five'' prototype cartridges of this version are known to exist, making it impossible for anyone but the most dedicated (and wealthy) of collectors to play it on official hardware. ROM dumps and pirated reproduction cartridges were the only way to play the game for many years... until the strong Virtual Console sales of ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' finally convinced Nintendo to officially release the localization under the title ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'' for the Wii U's Virtual Console. It would also be added to the NES Online service for the Nintendo Switch, making it available to even more potential fans for the first time ever.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** Creator/{{Bethesda}} has ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' for free download on their site to combat this. However; you have to download a DOS emulator to actually play them and they [[GuideDangIt assume you know this already]].
** Likewise, the [[GaidenGame spin-off]] games ''[[VideoGame/AnElderScrollsLegendBattlespire Battlespire]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsAdventuresRedguard Redguard]]'' were victims of this trope until August 2015 when [[https://www.gog.com/news/release_the_elder_scrolls they were made available]] on Website/GOGDotCom. As a bonus, versions of ''Arena'' and ''Daggerfall'' that have a DOS emulator included and set up were also made available to anyone that bought another game published by Bethesda on GOG.com. This changed in 2022 as the aforementioned games became freely available on GOG.com and Steam, with the former even adopting the fan-made Daggerfall Unity port project and includes a very large collection of mods.
* A similar situation to ''VideoGame/ChuTeng'' happened to another obscure Japanese game: ''[[VideoGame/GarageBadDreamAdventure Garage: Bad Dream Adventure]]'' by the developer Kinotrope. While the other two games by Kinotrope, ''Alice on the Borderlines'' and ''Sarara's Little Shop'', which are equally as obscure, can at least be found on the internet if you search hard enough (with the latter even receiving a non-translated release in the American PSN), ''Garage'' was thought to be a legitimate piece of lost media... Until a copy of the game was put up on Yahoo Actions Japan, and a user on the ''[[Website/HardcoreGaming101 Hardcore Gaming 101]]'' forums bought it and subsequently ripped it for the world to enjoy, along with various scans and photographs of the manual, box and other included {{feelies}}.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' didn't see a re-release for 25 years after its original release on the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64. The fact that it was a LicensedGame developed for Nintendo by Rare, who were later purchased by Microsoft made its rights into a complicated issue. However, in September 2022, it was announced that the original game would be re-released on the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch Online Service, and that a remastered version would be launching for Xbox consoles.
* The majority of ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games before ''Friends of Mineral Town'' are difficult to find used copies of, especially the ''Game Boy'' and ''Color'' ones. However, the ones on Creator/{{Nintendo}} systems received UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole releases while ''Back to Nature'' for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation received both a UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable port and a [=PlayStation=] Network release of the original version.
** ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon64'' took such a long time to see a rerelease that said rerelease came out on the UsefulNotes/WiiU in 2017, the year that system was discontinued. It is a CultClassic and considered the best Harvest Moon game by many, but it never received a UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} Virtual Console release, an enhanced remake (a la the [=PS1=] games to GBA), or a port release (like the [=PS1=] games). Only the original SNES game ended up having a Virtual Console release on the Wii, and the same game's Wii U Virtual Console release came when the system was still in production. [[http://www.destructoid.com/harvest-moon-64-not-coming-to-the-virtual-console-181459.phtml Interviews with]] [[https://www.siliconera.com/harvest-moon-beyond-whats-next-natsume/ Natsume executives]] reported that technical problems concerning the source code made the notion of any possible remake or port impossible; despite the fact that this game was supposedly one of the first games they planned for a Virtual Console release. But to everyone's surprise, [[http://www.natsume.com/community/showthread.php?p=160863#post160863 it was finally announced for a Wii U Virtual Console release]]--not only for North America, but for Europe as well, even though the game was never originally released there.
** The GBC version of the original ''Harvest Moon GB'' was released on the 3DS Virtual Console in the summer of 2013, which was followed by Virtual Console releases of the second and third 8-bit Game Boy games. The Game Boy Color version of ''VideoGame/LegendOfTheRiverKing'', an obscure fishing-themed game that shares Harvest Moon's developers and publishers, was also re-released on the 3DS VC (on the same day as ''Harvest Moon GB'' no less), with its sequel later getting the same treatment.
* ''VideoGame/{{ICO}}'' and ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'' sold poorly on the [=PS2=], and are some of the rarest games on the console. But then in Fall 2011, Sony released a compilation pack for the [=PS3=] containing both games on one disc, with loads of bonus features, and the UK release of ''ICO'' instead of the American release (which had easier and altered puzzles than the UK/JPN versions). This pleased both those who had played the games before and those who never got to play them due to their rarity. ''Shadow of the Colossus'' would later receive a built-from-the-ground-up (but still faithful to the original) remake for the [=PS4=] in 2018, this time handled by Bluepoint Games with assistance from SIE Japan Studio.
* ''VideoGame/JudgementSilversword'' was one of the most sought after UsefulNotes/WonderSwan games, being developed as a homebrew title during the [=WonderWitch=] contest in 2004 and gained a cult following in the shoot 'em up crowd. Due to its obscurity and limited print run, the game could go for upwards of ''hundreds'' of dollars at auction. Its GaidenGame, ''Cardinal Sins'', was released as freeware for the [=WonderSwan=], but not in a form playable on emulators. These games, however, did see a re-release on the Xbox 360 bundled with their SpiritualSuccessor, ''VideoGame/{{ESCHATOS}}'', albeit as a Japan-only region-free import title, but it was later ported overseas to PC via Steam for a much more wallet-friendly price of $5 USD. It also was bundled with the [=PlayStation=] 4 and Nintendo Switch remasters of ''ESCHATOS''.
* ''VideoGame/JustDance Summer Party'' is a compilation of all the DLC and Best Buy-exclusive tracks that were released for the game at that point; this was a wise move, as at the time the series was still a Wii exclusive, and the aforementioned DLC was rendered inaccessible due to the shutdown of the Wii Shop Channel in 2019. Despite being a "limited edition", it is still pretty easy to find at reasonable prices.
* ''Keen Dreams'' was often referred to as the "lost chapter" in the ''VideoGame/CommanderKeen'' series, and follows Billy having a dream where he has to fight a potato king in a vegetable kingdom. It has a confusing rights history -- developed by Softdisk Publishing and published by id Software, with the rights to the game being owned by Flat Rock Software from 2005-2014. The game was considered freeware for quite some time (although this wasn't the case), and copies passed freely between collectors. In 2013, an Android port was made available, but the original game still hasn't been officially released. Instead, the source code was bought by a crowdfunding campaign, and there is an attempt to get the game ported to Steam through its Greenlight program. It was later released on the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch [=eShop=] in early 2019.
* After a while, ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamLand'' became surprisingly expensive to acquire, with copies running up to $80/£50. However, it eventually was re-released on the Wii U eShop. Not just that, but an enhanced remake for the Nintendo Switch, ''Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe'', was released in February 2023.
* The ''VideoGame/LivingBooks'' series was thought to have gone past its prime, gradually disappearing from store shelves when they weren't agreeing with modern operating systems well. Also, somewhere along the way, a few of the licenses expired during the shelf lives, such as ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' and ''Sheila Rae, the Brave'', and their prices soon shot way up. Enter 2012, when Wanderful Storybooks was formed to rescue all the games to put them on modern tablets and computers, as well as finally breaking NoExportForYou and making all the foreign translations purchasable ''worldwide''. They have also rescued the ''Berenstain Bears'', ''Little Monster'', and ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' games, though there is still yet to be a word on the other expired licenses.
* In TheNewTens, Creator/LucasArts, Creator/DoubleFine, Creator/{{Sony}}, and Website/GOGDotCom embarked on a quest to rescue largely popular games in the former's library that have been stuck in circulation limbo. To wit:
** ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'' goes for notoriously high prices, hardly ever going below $50 in the US. There was a DVD re-release in Europe, but it too has gone out of print, though it's somewhat cheaper ($30 onward). Frustratingly, this almost wasn't the case -- [[https://twitter.com/TimOfLegend/status/385237807230230528 some sources report that an HD remake was 80% done before it was shelved, never to be greenlit.]] Fortunately, a remaster for the [=PS4=], PS Vita, and PC was released by Double Fine in March 2016.
** Up until 2015, ''VideoGame/GrimFandango'' was known for being notoriously hard to obtain, as there had been exactly zero re-releases up until that point, and the game suffered from extremely low sales (it was released during the same time as the more anticipated titles of '98). Thankfully Double Fine released a remastered version of the game in February 2015 for Sony systems ([[UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 PS4]] and [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita PS Vita]]) and personal computers (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
** ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxHitTheRoad''. Outside of its CD-ROM re-release in 1995, the game did not receive another re-release (except in Europe) due to [=LucasArts=] dropping the license for ''Sam and Max'' games. Not even on Steam or Good Old Games (GOG chose to put the Telltale series on their service instead). The only way to play it was to buy a used copy, or to [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil illegally download it]]...until October 2014, when, thanks to a fresh new deal with Creator/{{Disney}} (who owns the entire [=LucasArts=] catalog per their ownership of Lucasfilm), GOG.com made the game available yet again.
** ''VideoGame/ZakMcKrackenAndTheAlienMindbenders'' was, for the longest time, only ever released on floppy - with the exception of a super-rare [[NoExportForYou Japan-only]] FM-TOWNS VGA port. This was until March 2015, when it was finally released on GOG -- and the best part is, it includes not only the DOS version, ''but the FM-TOWNS port as well!''
* For a time, ''VideoGame/MafiaTheCityOfLostHeaven'' was pulled off Steam due to undisclosed reasons, but was eventually re-released in October 2017 on GOG, albeit without the licensed soundtrack due to issues with the songs.
* The original Macintosh releases of the ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' trilogy would have fallen into obscurity since retail copies are hard to come by, however, Bungie has released the source code of the ''Marathon 2'' engine and later the games themselves before being acquired by Microsoft, effectively making them freeware. Fans have since created an open-source continuation of the ''Marathon 2'' engine with Aleph One, porting the game to Windows and Linux with many modern improvements and modding support. ''Marathon 2: Durandal'' also saw a re-release on Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 in 2009 and an ISO of the Windows 95 version with an official serial key generator has been distributed by Bungie themselves.
* Both ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance'' games had DLC on the Xbox Live Marketplace that was delisted due to licensing issues. The first game at least had a gold edition that included the DLC, but it commanded a high price on the used market; there was no such option for the second game, and the regular versions of both were already expensive used anyways. Both games were released digitally in late 2015, and included the DLC in the download.
** ''VideoGame/{{Deadpool}}'' and ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' also went through this process for the same reasons until re-releases of the games in 2016; the former for [[Film/Deadpool2016 the movie releasing around the time]] and the later [[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcomInfinite for the announcement for its sequel]].
* ''VideoGame/MegaManTheWilyWars'' was only released in the U.S. and Canada for a brief time on the Sega Channel and had no physical release in those regions whereas the Japanese and European versions were released physically. After the Sega Channel service ended at the end of the Sega Genesis' lifespan, there was no legal way to obtain the game unless you imported and either put up with playing the game in Japanese if you couldn't read the language or playing the game at 5/6 of the original speed. The game would later get another release as one of the games included in the Sega Genesis Mini in 2019 and later as a limited edition reprint by an official partnership with Retro-Bit in 2021 with a few framerate issues ironed out.
* ''VideoGame/MeltyBlood: Actress Again Current Code'' is an interesting case: the game was never released on its own like its predecessors (the original, ''Re-ACT'', and ''Act Cadenza Ver.B'') but instead was shipped with the third season Blu-ray of ''Carnival Phantasm''. The Blu-ray set however became sought-after item [[JustHereForGodzilla simply for the game alone]] and it eventually ran out of print with the Blu-ray set going for as much as $150 ''used'', almost twice that for a brand-new copy, and it wasn't put through any digital distribution services such as Website/{{DLsite}}. The game was eventually released overseas through Steam by Creator/ArcSystemWorks in 2016 along with a PC port of ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth''.
* For a long time, the only way to experience ''VideoGame/MetalWolfChaos'' -- a Japan-only Xbox game by Creator/FromSoftware about the 47th President of the United States taking on a military coup armed lead by his running man armed with a mini-mecha and red-hot American justice that was deemed "too American to be released in America"[[note]](it was however later explained part of the reason for the game not releasing in the U.S. was the game's use of the Seal of the President of the United States, which is considered illegal when used outside of official government business, so the Seal was redesigned to feature the bald eagle holding a mini-gun and missiles with its talons for the ''XD'' version; the other reason being the the events of 9/11 and the War on Terrorism changed the developer's mind of releasing a game with over-the-top patriotic overtone given the political climate of the time)[[/note]] -- was to import a copy of the game, which became one of the most sought after original Xbox games with prices drastically increasing over time, reaching upwards of hundreds of dollars on auction and online retailers, and buy a Japanese Xbox to play it (or soft-mod a North American one). In 2016, Devolver Digital had expressed interest in localizing the game overseas thanks to popular demand generated from various [[LetsPlay Let's Plays]] of the game (especially from [[WebVideo/TwoBestFriendsPlay Super Best Friends]]), and in 2018, this came to pass as they, along with General Arcade, released a remastered version of the game through physical and digital distribution for Xbox One, [=PlayStation=] 4, and PC via Steam and GOG.com for $24.99.
* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'': When Nintendo and Creator/RetroStudios hawked this compilation of all three ''Prime'' games as a "[[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition Limited Edition release]]", for once, ''they weren't kidding''. It's cheap enough (and easy, due to the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}'s backward compatibility, but... not for those with a UsefulNotes/WiiU, as ''Trilogy'' is the only way to play the first two ''Prime'' games on that system, or play them in [[AspectRatio widescreen]] on either) to get all three games by themselves, but those looking for this triple-pack including all three games on one disk with Wii Remote controls and bonus features were left searching for pre-owned copies that could run up to $100 for ''the disk alone''. Fortunately, in January 2015, Nintendo announced that ''Trilogy'' would become available to download from the Wii U eShop by the end of the month for $20 (initially available for $10 during the first week of its release).
* Until 2018, ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'' and ''VideoGame/EscapeFromMonkeyIsland'' were the only ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' games not to be re-released on modern platforms. ''Escape'' isn't very severe, but ''Curse'' commonly goes for almost $20-$30 for something that should only cost about $10 at the most. In March 2018, ''Curse'' was released on Steam and GOG, and ''Escape'' was released on GOG in June, and later Steam as well.
* The Game Boy Advance title [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napoleon]] was one of the very few RTS games for the system and received a limited release in only France and Japan. Because of this, copies are hard to come by and are expensive for Game Boy Advance titles. However, the game was recently released for the Wii U in 2015.
* For the longest time, late-entering fans of the ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' series had an extremely tough time getting a hold of it. The UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube version went out of print, and the game is so well-loved used copies would almost '''never''' pop up anywhere. They were eventually granted a Wii re-release of the game with enhanced controls in 2009.
** The sequel, ''Pikmin 2'' was hit harder, as those lucky to find that game at a local [=GameStop=] would have to fork out $40, while Amazon had a minimum asking price for $60 used. An enhanced Wii version was also made, and was released shortly after the Wii version's first game in 2009... but only for European and Japanese markets. It took until 2012 for the Wii version to be released in America under the Nintendo Selects label, for a much more reasonable price of $20. In both cases, the fandom rejoiced.
** In 2023, Nintendo released HD remasters of the first 2 ''Pikmin'' games for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.
* Ironically enough, ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'''s debut games ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' used to suffer from this in the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS era due to the Game Boy Advance and DS/DS Lite being discontinued, ruling out the remakes (''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'' on the GBA), and the original games not being released on 3DS UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole (likely because the Virtual Console didn't support link functionality, which would've locked off trading, which is a major, nearly mandatory part of the game). With the Johto and Hoenn gap being closed on remakes playable on the Nintendo 3DS, they were the only Pokémon games not playable on it in either original or remade form. However, they were released on 3DS Virtual Console (with trading and multiplayer battling intact, now done through local wireless connections as opposed to Link Cables) for their [[MilestoneCelebration 20th anniversary]] on February 27, 2016. ''Yellow'' also suffered from this problem even worse, as almost none of its differences were implemented into the remakes, but it too was re-released. The following year, the original forms of ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' were released on the eShop in September 2017, once again being able to trade and battle wirelessly (the former also being possible with ''Red'', ''Blue'', and ''Yellow'' once the Time Capsule is unlocked), as well as retaining the ability to use Mystery Gift via the system's built-in infrared port (a feature the 3DS shares with the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor, as the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance dropped the infrared port). Then, ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Pokémon Crystal]]'' was announced for a Virtual Console release on the 3DS eShop in January 2018.
* ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'':
** The English version of the first arcade ''VideoGame/{{Puyo Puyo|1992}}'', so obscure that it used to be CommonKnowledge that it was an unlicensed bootleg, is included in the 2019 Nintendo Switch "SEGA Ages" version of the first ''Puyo Puyo''. The closest this version has come to being ported elsewhere is the hidden translation in the Game Gear version (that never left Japan) some 25 years prior.
** Despite the rights to ''Puyo Puyo'' and parent series ''VideoGame/MadouMonogatari'' being divorced following Sega's receipt of the ''Puyo'' series, the vast majority of the ''Madou Monogatari'' games have been released on PC throughout TheNewTens thanks to D4 Enterprise (who owns the rights to the ''Madou Monogatari'' games themselves) working with Sega.
* ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'' was notorious for running for at least $150 USD after the game went out of print. It was finally re-released on Xbox Live for the low low price of $10 USD.
* ''VisualNovel/RadicalDreamers'', the prototype to ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', was only released for the Satellaview add-on for the Super Nintendo, and only in Japan, so the only way to keep it in circulation used to be via sharing its ROM. Fortunately, it would eventually see an official worldwide release in 2022, via an HD remaster of ''Chrono Cross'' for Nintendo Switch, [=PlayStation=] 4, Xbox One, and Steam.
* The entire ''VideoGame/RaySeries'', especially ''[=RayCrisis=]'', were lost in time a few past-generation console or limited PC releases, with ''[=RayStorm=] HD'' being only available on Xbox 360 outside of Japan as a downloadable title. However, they've been brought back to [=iOS=] and Android systems based on their arcade counterparts. These games would get another [[ArcadeAccuratePort arcade-accurate]] re-release as part of the ''Ray'z Arcade Chronology'' developed by Creator/{{M2}} for the [=PlayStation=] 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC via UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.
* ''VideoGame/{{Recca}}'' was not only Japan-only, it wasn't even a consumer title--it was only available at special events, hence the full title of '''''Summer Carnival '92''' Recca''. However, it was finally officially released for the consumer market in the form of a Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console title in December 2012 for Japan and September 2013 for North America.
* For decades, ''VideoGame/RedEarth'' was the only game made for the CP System III arcade board to have never received any kind of home console release. To make matters even worse, while the arcade cabinet was fairly easy to come by in Japan, it wasn't widely distributed overseas, making the game virtually impossible for Western players to get their hands on legitimately (thus leading many Westerners to be more aware of the game's cast, Tessa in particular, [[MarthDebutedInSmashBros from the crossovers they appeared in]], not ''Red Earth'' proper). In 2022, Creator/{{Capcom}} announced that the game would receive its first-ever console port in the ''Capcom Fighting Collection'' compilation.
* ''VideoGame/TheRedStar'' had been this way for the longest time, until a recent PSN re-release.
%% Could someone please better define "recent"? Is this more recent than the PSN release in 2010?
* Over six years after its sudden disappearance, Ubisoft [[https://nintendoeverything.com/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world-the-game-complete-edition-official-announcement-and-screenshots-digital-only-price/ announced]] the re-release of ''VideoGame/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorldTheGame'' on September 10th, 2020, albeit on digital-only fronts outside of the ''Limited Run'' physical editions.
* ''VideoGame/Shantae2002'' was a very late release UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor game by Creator/WayForwardTechnologies. It sold less than 100k copies during its release (only about 77k, if numbers are to be believed), [[AcclaimedFlop but word of mouth (and reviews) spread stories of the game's excellent quality]]. Copies routinely go for ''over $100'' on eBay, and people who attempted to play the game through [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil slightly cheaper methods]] were out of luck, as the game proved difficult to emulate, with most emulators of the era either having major inaccuracies or not even running at all. Its rarity was even lampshaded by WFT themselves on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STfLWs6XGkM official Risky's Revenge soundtrack release video]]. Come 2013, when WFT announced that they were working on a port of the game for the Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console, and eventually released said port in July that year. Another enhanced port of the game was later for the Nintendo Switch in 2021.
* Despite being considered one of the greatest and most important video games of all time and becoming a best-seller for the platform, ''VideoGame/{{Shenmue}}'' was only available on the [[UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast Dreamcast]] for nearly 20 years after its first release--arguably due to [[AcclaimedFlop the game failing to recoup its high development costs]], which also added to Sega's financial debt that ultimately led them to bow out of the industry as a console maker. Its equally well-regarded sequel, ''Shenmue II'', underperformed in sales[[note]]despite being made on a significantly cheaper budget, some of the budget for the first game went into the sequel[[/note]]; the only place to obtain the game outside of the Dreamcast release was the subsequent Xbox port. And even those two releases had their own issues of NoExportForYou: only Europe received both versions of the game, with the Dreamcast release skipping America and the Xbox release skipping Japan. Years later, however, series creator Yu Suzuki (who left Sega to create his own studio, Ys Net) got the license from Sega and enough funding [[SavedFromDevelopmentHell to start production on a long-awaited third entry]], re-igniting hope from fans that the first two games could finally see a modern re-release someday. These hopes eventually came to fruition in 2018, when Sega announced a UsefulNotes/HighDefinition CompilationRerelease of the first two ''Shemmue'' games for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and PC.
* The retail copy ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' was fairly expensive to obtain. Its expansion pack, ''Alien Crossfire,'' cost a pretty penny and was rather difficult to find due to the game being by far the least selling of any in the civilization series. However, its release on several digital distributors such as GOG.com has averted this trope.
* Creator/{{Sierra}} released VanillaEdition {{Compilation Rerelease}}s of ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest'', ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'', ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest'', and ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry'' in 2006. The ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' series, on the other hand, wouldn't see daylight until it was [[http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/quest_for_glory finally]] released on GOG. The compilations themselves are lacking, though. Besides lacking the original versions of their first games (using just their remakes):
** ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'': ''[[VideoGame/KingsQuestMaskOfEternity Mask of Eternity]]'' (which did eventually get on GOG) wasn't in the compilation, perhaps owing to the game's [[FanonDiscontinuity dubious standing]] among the series fans, making it a case of CanonDiscontinuity.
** ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry'': Since the collection shipped on just one CD, they had to use the floppy version of ''Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out'' instead of the talkie CD version, and ''Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail'' is missing entirely, so as far as Al Lowe is concerned, the definitive ''Leisure Suit Larry'' compilation is still the Ultimate Pleasure Pack, which includes the talkie version of ''Larry 6'', as well as ''Love for Sail'' and ''Larry's Casino''.
*** GOG.com's version of the collection eventually included talkie version of ''Larry 6'' (after initially claiming that they couldn't make it run well enough on modern computers), and at the same time as that, they released ''Larry 7'' as a separate purchase (after a claim from Creator/{{Codemasters}} that they didn't own the rights to it).
* For years, ''[[VideoGame/SimCity Sim City 3000]]'' was the only game of the series not to have any sort of legitimate digital release after going out of print. This wasn't because of poor reception or sales, but because it couldn't run on UsefulNotes/DOSBox like its predecessors (and couldn't run natively on modern Windows like ''Sim City 4'' can). After many years of remaining a conspicuous gap in the series, EA and Website/GOGDotCom finally teamed up to bring it back in mid-2016, and this time it's compatible up to and including Windows 10.
* Possibly due to copyright issues with the magazine of the same name, as well as the use of the likeness of real-life mercenary John F. Mullins, neither of the classic ''VideoGame/SoldierOfFortune'' games (''[[InNameOnly Payback]]'' [[FanonDiscontinuity doesn't count]]) were reissued on Steam, GOG, or other digital storefronts for quite some time. That changed in October 2018, when both games [[https://www.gog.com/news/release_soldier_of_fortune_series made a surprise appearance on GOG]] as part of the service's 10th anniversary celebration.[[labelnote:*]]...All right, ''Payback'' was rereleased, too.[[/labelnote]]
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' was widely considered to be the worst Sonic game by many. This eventually led to the game being one of the Sonic games known for their poor quality being delisted by Sega in 2010, causing new copies of the game being pulled from stores and the game removed from [=XBLA=]. It was quietly relisted in 2022. Used copies are also pretty easy to come by.
* ''VideoGame/SpaceHarrier'' received a Master System port, and its sequel received a Genesis port, and that was it. As years passed, the series got many references in other video games, such as ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' (which has a whole segment that plays like ''Space Harrier'', complete with a pop remix of the main theme) and ''[[VideoGame/SegaSuperstars Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed]]'' (which has a remix of the main theme in the final race track), but no sign of a port or remake. Because of these references and homages, fans constantly demanded some kind of re-release of the series, and so Creator/{{Sega}} finally listened and released a 3DS port of the first game in late 2013.
* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' is long out of print, and was unlikely to ever see rerelease as the sequel (which did not involve the series creators) proved to be a FranchiseKiller. Fortunately, ''SC''[='s=] creators were nice enough to make the game Open Source in 2002, and a lovingly made fan version called ''The Ur-Quan Masters'' (the title "Star Control" is still under trademark) is freely downloadable.
** And then Atari re-released it on [[http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/star_control_1_2 GOG.com]] along with the original.
* For the longest time, ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'' was one of the rarest games for the [=PS1=] owing to its very limited print and low initial sales, much to the chagrin of fans as it is often cited as one of the greatest [=JRPGs=] ever. Thankfully in late 2014, it was finally uploaded to the PSN, to the joy of fans worldwide.
* For nearly two decades, ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' didn't see any kind of re-release, so the original release was the only way to legally play it. In 2020, it was finally re-released as a part of the time-limited ''[[CompilationRerelease Super Mario 3D All-Stars]]''.
* ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'' was for the longest time almost impossible to find on any modern PC digital distribution method. However, finally the game has seen a full re-release through GOG.com, which along with being configured to work effortlessly on modern machines, includes tons of extra stuff to boot. The first game eventually followed suit in mid 2015 with ''System Shock: Enhanced Edition'' which allows the game to be played natively on modern Windows operating systems with some extra enhancements such as widescreen and mouse-looking.
* ''[[VideoGame/TacticsOgre Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together]]'': The [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]] version of this classic game never made it to the West due to it being released around the same time the UsefulNotes/PlayStation came into existence, and the [=PS1=] re-release (which did get localized) was super-rare even at launch, not to mention being a notoriously shoddy port (and for English-speaking gamers, a notoriously even-worse translation). Sixteen years later, Creator/SquareEnix released an enhanced remake of the game, overjoying fans and enraging speculators the world over.
* ''VideoGame/TooHuman'' is a particularly surprising case -- due to losing a lawsuit with Creator/EpicGames in 2013 over the use of the the latter's UsefulNotes/{{game engine}} Unreal 3, Silicon Knights was order to recall and destroy all unsold copies of games they had created using the engine; those being ''Too Human'' and ''VideoGame/XMenDestiny''. Silicon Knights, being a skeleton crew by this point, didn't have the resources to actually pull this off and thus simply delisted the game from the Xbox storefront. In 2019, however, to everyone's surprise, the game was added to the Xbox One's backwards compatibility list and relisted on the Xbox store - for free, to boot. When Major Nelson was announcing the addition, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDODX8dZa4c&t=5408s he even stated]] that it was "One I bet you never thought would happen." (''VideoGame/XMenDestiny'', which was wrapped up in the same lawsuit, will likely remain MIA due to the ''X-Men'' license.)
* After years of being insanely hard to attain out of Japan, the ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' finally broke through in May of 2015 with Playism's digital release of ''Double Dealing Character'', plus a couple of fangames. Whether other games in the series will follow suit remains to be seen.
** Then, on November 3, 2017, ZUN announced that the two then-most recent entries, ''Hidden Star in Four Seasons'' and ''Antinomy of Common Flowers'' would be released on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. Soon after, the official Steam page for the former was revealed, and ''[=HSiFS=]'' was finally released on November 17, 2017. ''[=AoCF=]'' was also confirmed to be released on Steam worldwide in 2018. By 2019, every game from ''[[VideoGame/DoubleSpoilerTouhouBunkachou Double Spoiler]]'' to ''[[VideoGame/TouhouKikeijuuWilyBeastAndWeakestCreature Wily Beast and Weakest Creature]]'' had been released on Steam. The exceptions are ''[[VideoGame/TouhouShinkirouHopelessMasquerade Hopeless Masquerade]]'' (unknown reason at the time of this writing) and ''[[VideoGame/TouhouShinpirokuUrbanLegendInLimbo Urban Legend in Limbo]]'' (likely due to the existence of the official UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 port).
** In June 2020, ''[[VideoGame/TouhouFuujinrokuMountainOfFaith Mountain of Faith]]'', ''[[VideoGame/TouhouChireidenSubterraneanAnimism Subterranean Animism]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/TouhouSeirensenUndefinedFantasticObject Undefined Fantastic Object]]'', were all released on Steam.
** And then, on June 18, 2021, ''[[VideoGame/TouhouBunkachouShootTheBullet Shoot the Bullet]]'' was released on Steam.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' for the Wii was originally only given a tiny print run in North America, causing it to go out of stock almost immediately thanks to its really good word-of-mouth advertising. Due to its popularity, it eventually received a port to the New Nintendo 3DS and a subsequent Wii U Virtual Console re-release of the Wii original, opening it up to the audience that couldn't get it in time. This was followed by a [[VideoGameRemake remake]] on the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch that overhauled the graphics and added new content.
[[/folder]]

* The entire ''VideoGame/RaySeries'', especially ''[=RayCrisis=]'', were lost in time a few past-generation console or limited PC releases, with ''[=RayStorm=] HD'' being only available on Xbox 360 outside of Japan as a downloadable title. However, they've been brought back to [=iOS=] and Android systems based on their arcade counterparts. These games would get another re-release as part of the ''Ray'z Arcade Chronology'' developed by Creator/{{M2}} for the [=PlayStation=] 4 and Nintendo Switch.

* Fans of ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'' were often frustrated by the fact that all of the Japanese episodes have taken a long time to be fansubbed. Those fond of making/watching [[FanVid fan videos]] were often frustrated by the fact that if an episode had been fansubbed, it was nearly impossible to find it ''without'' subtitles. Some of the episodes were clearly ripped from damaged VHS tapes[[labelnote:*]]these include episodes 54 ("One Crazy Knight"), 60 ("Crusade for the Blade") and 66 ("The Chill Factor"), among others[[/labelnote]], and the fansub would apologize for this from time to time. Fortunately, as of December 2022, the complete series [[https://operationhoshinokaabii.tumblr.com/post/703989238588489728 has now been fansubbed]], and will also be released in its entirety on Blu-ray Disc in spring 2023.

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and its two films Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, despite comprising one of the most influential anime franchises of all time, was this for all intents and purposes. The last time in the US that the series was released on DVD was in 2004 by ADV Films, and went out of print because of the company's closure. Because of this, box sets have been noted to go for up to $300 on sites like eBay. However, there was a moment of return that made waves for the anime community. Studio Khara waited until they finished the Rebuild of Evangelion films to begin re-licensing the original series in the English-language marketplace. In August of 2021, an announcement was made that in the US, Gkids would release the series on Blu-ray in the US in a box set that will include Episodes 21-24 in their director's cut forms and the two movies with both their original ADV dub track (albeit only on the limited collector's editions) and the new dub track on Netflix. The base set was released in November, while the special editions launched in December.

* The first three ''Film/{{Pokemon}}'' movies, all of which were distributed by Creator/WarnerBros in territories outside Japan, have had their DVD and VHS releases long out of print. With the exception of occasional broadcasts on WGN America, Creator/CartoonNetwork and television stations, as well as a brief triple feature DVD release in 2009, a long-standing legal dispute between Creator/{{Nintendo}}, Warner Bros., The Pokemon Company and Creator/{{Toho}} kept any further home media releases off the market. By the time TheNewTens came around, the films became increasingly sought after, with the price for [[Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie the first movie]] on DVD going as high as $116 on Amazon as of December 30, 2015. Fortunately, the dispute was officially settled in December 2015, and a Triple Feature Steelbook Blu-ray set of the movies was promptly announced by Creator/VizMedia and Warner Home Video for release in February 2016, along with DVD reissues. The catch? Only a 2.0 lossy Stereo track of the [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]] English dub will be available, and the special features from the DVD releases are unlikely to be brought to the new set (which means no Pikachu shorts), but something is just better than nothing in this case. The Johto seasons of the anime, after being subjected to incomplete volume releases that soon went out of print and became incredibly expensive, became easily available again between [[https://www.amazon.com/Pokemon-Johto-Journeys-Complete-Collection/dp/B012YPV0YS/ref=pd_sim_74_38?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B012YPV0YS&pd_rd_r=K9DYEHHDCWHRV1HKR96P&pd_rd_w=mHRel&pd_rd_wg=H7LLb&psc=1&refRID=K9DYEHHDCWHRV1HKR96P November 2015]] [[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B80LOA0/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_39?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER and]] [[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J8WU9HO/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_29?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER October 2016]].

* It was announced that the ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' series will be released by The Right Stuf International - through their Creator/NozomiEntertainment label - across three DVD sets (using the show's remastered Region 2 DVD release as the video base), as well as the movie.

* ''Anime/RobotCarnival''. This old classic that was among the first exposures of anime to the West has only received a Region 2 DVD released a ''looooooong'' time ago. It was rights issues, as original US licensee Streamline Pictures went under. Fortunately, Creator/DiscotekMedia has licensed it and will be released on DVD in Region 1.

* A few weeks after announcing they stopped working on ''WebAnimation/{{Confinement}}'', Bung deleting their channel, taking down the videos with it. Unofficial archives have been made to preserve them.

* A few weeks after announcing they stopped working on WebAnimation/Confinement, Bung deleting their channel, taking down the videos with it. Unofficial archives have been made to preserve them.

* After its unfortunate initial performance in 1995, ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' saw no re-release in America for nearly two decades, not even on the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole. Its Masterpiece demo in the Japanese version of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', and its appearance in a WebVideo/NintendoDirect press release regarding the UsefulNotes/WiiU Virtual Console (losing its position to -- of all games -- ''VideoGame/PunchOut Featuring Mr. Dream''), were even explicitly removed from international versions! Rumors abound as to why this was the case, the most common ones involving legal issues over [[{{Sampling}} its music]], but nothing was ever confirmed by Nintendo and plenty of arguments against those theories surfaced too. [[note]]The real reason for it being kept from a Western re-release for so long was actually due to concerns involving its frequent use of flashing and flickering effects, which had to be blurred in the Virtual Console release.[[/note]] At any rate, it became very rare to find someone who actually played the game on a console rather than just emulating it. Being a very famous game, during the years where it was difficult to find, it was selling for anywhere between $80 and ''$200'', making it a true standout. Finally, after plenty of patience and plenty of waiting, Nintendo at last announced its release for the Wii U Virtual Console, later making good on their promise in July 2013. It was also added to the SNES Online service for the Nintendo Switch, making it even more available than before. There is still no word on [[VideoGame/Mother3 its sequel]], but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

* After its unfortunate initial performance in 1995, ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' saw no re-release in America for nearly two decades, not even on the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole. Its Masterpiece demo in the Japanese version of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', and its appearance in a WebVideo/NintendoDirect press release regarding the UsefulNotes/WiiU Virtual Console (losing its position to -- of all games -- ''VideoGame/PunchOut Featuring Mr. Dream''), were even explicitly removed from international versions! Rumors abound as to why this was the case, the most common ones involving legal issues over [[{{Sampling}} its music]], but nothing was ever confirmed by Nintendo and plenty of arguments against those theories surfaced too. [[note]]The real reason for it being kept from a Western re-release for so long was actually due to concerns involving its frequent use of flashing and flickering effects, which had to be blurred in the Virtual Console release.[[/note]] At any rate, it became very rare to find someone who actually played the game on a console rather than just emulating it. Being a very famous game, during the years where it was difficult to find, it was selling for anywhere between $80 and ''$200'', making it a true standout. Finally, after plenty of patience and plenty of waiting, Nintendo at last announced its release for the Wii U Virtual Console, later making good on their promise in July 2013. There is still no word on [[VideoGame/Mother3 its sequel]], but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

* Ironically enough, ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'''s debut games ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' used to suffer from this in the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS era due to the Game Boy Advance and DS/DS Lite being discontinued, ruling out the remakes (''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'' on the GBA), and the original games not being released on 3DS UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole (likely because trading, which is a major, nearly mandatory part of the game, can't be done without a Link Cable, a peripheral exclusive to the Game Boy [Color]). With the Johto and Hoenn gap being closed on remakes playable on the Nintendo 3DS, they were the only Pokémon games not playable on it in either original or remade form. However, they were released on 3DS Virtual Console (with trading and multiplayer battling intact, now done through local wireless connections as opposed to Link Cables) for their [[MilestoneCelebration 20th anniversary]] on February 27, 2016. ''Yellow'' also suffered from this problem even worse, as almost none of its differences were implemented into the remakes, but it too was re-released. The following year, the original forms of ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' were released on the eShop in September 2017, once again being able to trade and battle wirelessly (the former also being possible with ''Red'', ''Blue'', and ''Yellow'' once the Time Capsule is unlocked), as well as retaining the ability to use Mystery Gift via the system's built-in infrared port (a feature the 3DS shares with the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor, as the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance dropped the infrared port). Then, ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Pokémon Crystal]]'' was announced for a Virtual Console release on the 3DS eShop in January 2018.

* ''VideoGame/Shantae2002'' was a very late release UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor game by Creator/WayForwardTechnologies. It sold less than 100k copies during its release (only about 77k, if numbers are to be believed), [[AcclaimedFlop but word of mouth (and reviews) spread stories of the game's excellent quality]]. Copies routinely go for ''over $100'' on eBay, and people who attempted to play the game through [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil slightly cheaper methods]] were out of luck, as the most common Game Boy Color emulator did not even ''run'' it correctly. Its rarity was even lampshaded by WFT themselves on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STfLWs6XGkM official Risky's Revenge soundtrack release video]]. Come 2013, when WFT announced that they were working on a port of the game for the Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console, and eventually released said port in July that year. Another enhanced port of the game was later for the Nintendo Switch in 2021.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' for the Wii originally went out of print in record time thanks to its really good word-of-mouth advertising and hilariously tiny print size, among other reasons. Due to its popularity, it eventually received an exclusive port to the 3DS's hardware revision (New Nintendo 3DS) and a subsequent Wii U Virtual Console re-release, opening it up to the audience that couldn't get it in time. This is followed by a [[VideoGameRemake remake]] on UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch that overhauled the graphics and added new content.

** As of Otakon 2013, Sunrise announced that several more titles have been rescued by Creator/FUNimation[[note]]''Anime/CowboyBebop'', ''Manga/OutlawStar'', ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'', ''Anime/MyHime'', ''Anime/MyOtome'', ''Anime/CodeGeass'', ''Anime/AngelLinks'', LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars, VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss, ''Anime/WitchHunterRobin'', ''Banner of the Stars'', and ''Passage of the Stars''[[/note]] and Creator/SentaiFilmworks[[note]]''Anime/TheBigO'', ''Anime/ArgentoSoma'', ''Anime/{{Betterman}}'', ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'', ''Z-Mind'', ''Anime/{{Zegapain}}'', ''Anime/TheGirlWhoLeaptThroughSpace'', ''Anime/InfiniteRyvius'', ''[[Manga/BlackGod Kurokami: The Animation]]'', ''Anime/BrainPowered'', and ''Anime/OvermanKingGainer''[[/note]].
** We can now [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-08-09/funimation-licenses-haruhi-suzumiya-lucky-star-anime-strike-witches-steins-gate-films/.77477 add]] ''Manga/LuckyStar'' and ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' to Funimation's list of former-Bandai shows.

* Creator/MichaelRosen owes his status as a YouTubePoop star due to averting this trope. His book ''The Hypnotiser'' contains some of his best-known and well-loved stories, but it went out of print, and copies became extremely difficult to kind secondhand. Unable to get it reprinted, Michael decided to film himself reading its stories to better preserve them, and the rest is history.

* Creator/MichaelRosen owes his status as a WebAnimation/YouTubePoop star due to averting this trope. His book ''The Hypnotiser'' contains some of his best-known and well-loved stories, but it went out of print, and copies became extremely difficult to kind secondhand. Unable to get it reprinted, Michael decided to film himself reading its stories to better preserve them, and the rest is history.

* For the longest time, US fans of the 2001''Manga/ShamanKing'' anime only ever had two uncut bilingual [=DVDs=] (which featured a separate dub with the 4Kids cast and a faithful script) containing episodes 1-6 released by Funimation before they were canceled. Three more volumes (with eps. 7-15) were solicited, but never came out. The edited 4Kids dub, which successfully completed its run on [=FoxBox=], never had a home video released in the US, and no other official release of the uncut/subtitled version had transpired. Thankfully, Discotek has since licensed rescued the 2001 anime series, and will be relesing them in [[https://www.twitter.com/discotekmedia/status/1425913964236398592?lang=en two]] [[https://www.twitter.com/discotekmedia/status/1553559762012254209 separate]] versions: both the 4Kids edited dub and the original Japanese version.

** The English dub of ''Great War in the Bizarre World'', a StoryArc in Season 1, went down with the site that hosted it, [=DramaFever=], and for a while the episodes became very hard to find. However, the official English [=YouTube=] channel started uploading episodes of it in 2022.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Several studios, such as Creator/{{MGM}}, Creator/{{Universal}} and Creator/WarnerBros, have established "Archive Series" or "Vault Series" to release burn-on-demand DVD-Rs of older movies and television shows that aren't cost-effective to put out as regular releases but for which there is demand among old-film aficionados and fans of various actors, actresses and directors involved with said shows. Two examples: the 1979 Peter Sellers version of ''Film/ThePrisonerOfZenda'' and the 1977 Marty Feldman/Ann-Margret spoof ''The Last Remake of Beau Geste'' are available through Universal's "Vault Series". (These releases most often are on DVD-Rs which some drives may have problems with, but nowadays unless you have a cheaper brand dvd player you shouldn't have a problem.)
* ''Film/FourteenNinetyTwoConquestOfParadise'': Despite being helmed by Creator/RidleyScott, scored by [[Film/BladeRunner Vangelis]] and starring a very well-rounded cast (including Creator/GerardDepardieu, Sigourney Weaver and Frank Langella), it's still unclear why this 1992 film was out-of-print in the U.S. for years, while official DVD versions were readily available in France (along with scores of unofficial bootlegs that come from Asia). Rumors suggest that there was a planned "Special Edition" release back in 2004, but those plans were apparently scuttled at the last minute. There have been several reasons bandied about for the delay: that Scott has potentially [[BuryYourArt suppressed the film]], the film's failure at the U.S. box office, claims of misrepresentation about Columbus' chronicled actions when he landed at the New World and the claim that a special 3-hour director's cut is being worked on. Things finally changed in August 2016 when it was announced that the film would make its long-awaited DVD and Blu-ray debut from Kino Lorber, which it eventually did in June 2017.
* The delay of the [=DVD=] release of ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension'' is one of the strangest stories in the industry. Producer David Begelman made a shady career for himself as an executive at several major Hollywood studios, including Columbia Pictures and MGM. During this period, he was the target of multiple lawsuits and criminal prosecutions for embezzlement and fraud (including a notorious check-forging scandal that exploded after actor Cliff Robertson discovered that fake checks had been made out in his name, which eventually led to Begelman being fired from Columbia), and successfully blackmailed Creator/JudyGarland with illicitly obtained medical photos. After being fired from those studios, he ran an independent company, Sherwood Productions, where he backed ''Buckaroo Banzai''. Due to some legal chicanery, he ended up the sole owner of the rights to the film, and because of a falling-out with the writer and director over financial issues, refused to allow any further use of the property. This included blocking a planned television series, a sequel film, and the later DVD release. During this time, Laserdisc copies of the film were selling for well over $100. It took Begelman's bankruptcy and subsequent suicide for the rights to devolve to his largest creditor, Crédit Lyonnais bank, and then to Polygram Entertainment where executive Steve Gelber (a ''Banzai'' fan) pushed for a DVD release; it was finally released in 2002 under MGM's distribution. Begelman's obfuscatory and legally questionable bookkeeping practices continue to prevent any further development of the Banzai property — such as the long-awaited sequel, or a soundtrack album — as no one is really sure who owns the various rights involved.
* ''Film/TheAfricanQueen'' only got a DVD release in 2010, as both the rights to the film jumped from hand to hand and the original negatives for restoration were hard to find.
* The 1995 teen comedy ''Film/{{Angus}}'' was a title demanded by fans to be released on DVD since the format's inception. It was finally released as a launch title for the Warner Archive in 2009.
* ''Film/AtLongLastLove'' is a 1975 Cole Porter JukeboxMusical starring Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd. The movie was so hated upon its release that director Peter Bogdanovich took out ads in several newspapers throughout the country to apologize, and subsequently saw to it that the movie was never released on video in any format. Bootlegs were hard to find but did exist -- it helped that aside from the star power, Bogdanovich was one of the great auteur directors of New Hollywood, so there was historical value in it -- and those who saw them couldn't seem to agree if the flick was SoBadItsGood or just as awful as its reputation. (There was no lip-synching; the actors had to sing while filming, and they weren't known for their singing.) Eventually it surfaced legally on Fox Movie Channel from time to time, then appeared on Netflix Instant for a while, and finally got a Blu-Ray release in 2013 -- along with some positive critical reevaluation.
* ''The Big Fix'' was only available as an edited VHS cassette for many years, until Twilight Time released it on Blu-ray in 2019. Even the VHS release didn't happen until January 1986 due to the same music issues that would result in the aforementioned gap between releases.
* ''Boom!'' -- a poorly-received big-screen adaptation of Creator/TennesseeWilliams' play ''The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore'' starring Creator/ElizabethTaylor and Richard Burton, and directed by Joseph Losey -- was "buried" in a VHS release by Universal just as DVD was becoming the dominant home-video format. Shout Select (Shout Factory's upscale imprint) finally released a Blu-Ray in May 2019, featuring an audio commentary by fan Creator/JohnWaters among other things.
* While ''Theatre/TheChildrensHour'' has been readily available on DVD, the earlier ''These Three'' was unavailable on video from 1997 onwards until a 2016 DVD-R from the Warner Archives was released.
* Orson Welles's classic Shakespeare film ''Film/ChimesAtMidnight'' finally received a proper DVD release via the Criterion Collection in TheNewTens.
* Howard Hughes tried everything to ensure ''Film/TheConqueror'' would never, ever, ever be seen again. He went as far as buying every print to the movie from RKO to [[BuryYourArt keep it out of circulation]]. It remained off television for decades, and it's rumored that he had watched the film constantly to remind himself of his regret toward the movie in the final years of his life[[note]]Though this could also have had something to do with his infamous SuperOCD complications he had suffered for much of his life[[/note]]. It took several years after his death for Creator/{{Universal}} to purchase the rights to the movie and return the film to circulation, getting VHS and DVD releases in decades that followed. The film became sort of a CultClassic because of [[SoBadItsGood how awful the film really was]].
* The Music/VanillaIce starring camp classic ''Film/CoolAsIce'' was given a DVD release in 2011 after much fan demand, along with people wanting to see if it was that bad.
* The 1981 made-for-TV thriller ''Film/DarkNightOfTheScarecrow'', having only been released on VHS in the mid-1980s, was finally released on DVD in September of 2010.
* Warner Bros. never wanted to issue ''Film/TheDevils'', a very [[NaughtyNuns blasphemous]] piece of controversy, on DVD - across the Pond, the British Film Institute released a 2-disc DVD that managed to get the uncut 111 minute theatrical version (all the VHS versions cut up to 7 minutes) - and even on digital distribution it's been a hard path: the movie was available for only 3 days on the [=iTunes=] store, and both [=FilmStruck=] and its successor [[Creator/TheCriterionCollection The Criterion Channel]] had it included and then removed. Still, ''The Devils'' entered the Creator/{{AMC}} streaming service Shudder in 2017 and is still in its catalogue.
* Parodied with ''Film/DudeBroPartyMassacre3'', which claims that after its first airing at midnight in the late 80s, [=DBPM3=] was banned by executive order of President UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, with this copy only existing because a teenager stayed up to record the broadcast on his VCR.
* ''Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial'' came to DVD in 2002 with the 20th Anniversary Edition included on Disc One, and the original version included on Disc Two. A while later, Creator/{{Universal}} stopped selling this DVD with the second disc, making the original ''ET'' a rarity. In 2012, Universal started selling the original ''ET'' again, on Blu-Ray and DVD. Interestingly, this release does not include the 20th Anniversary Edition (the two scenes added to the 20th Anniversary Edition are included as bonus features, though the alternate gun/walkie-talkie shots are not), turning ''it'' into a rarity. (Although no one seems to mind as much.)
* The 1984 cult classic ''Film/ElectricDreams'', starring Lenny Von Dolen, Virginia Madsen, and Bud Cort. It's a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a computer. Sadly, VHS copies of this film run for pretty much the same price as the computer featured in the movie. There's only one discernable reason given why this movie remained out of print until 2009 (but even then only released in Region 2): they thought nobody would buy it. (Well, we didn't say it was a bad reason.)
* Every ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' film from the Showa era has received a DVD release or two. Some of the movies, such as those released by Classic Media, are still available and easy to acquire, but several have fallen out of print. Fortunately, to coincide with [[Film/{{Godzilla2014}} the 2014 remake]] of the original ''Film/{{Gojira}}'', a company called Kraken Releasing has acquired the rights from Toho to re-release ''Film/GodzillaVsHedorah'', ''[[Film/EbirahHorrorOfTheDeep Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster]]'', and ''Film/GodzillaVsGigan'' on Blu-Ray.
** When the original Classic Media DVD copies of the Showa era movies eventually went out of print, Creator/TheCriterionCollection came to the rescue in 2019 with a commemorative box set that had all 15 films bundled together for the first time. The downside though is that, aside from ''Film/Godzilla1954'' and ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla'', none of the American cuts were included in the set, still making them valuable. On a positive note, the Japanese cut of ''King Kong vs. Godzilla'' was finally made available to American viewers after so many years.
** ''Film/TheReturnOfGodzilla'' was, for the longest time, the only Godzilla film not available on DVD or Blu-ray in the states due to rights issues concerning its initial U.S. distributor, New World Pictures, who re-edited the film a la the original ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters1956 Godzilla: King of the Monsters!]]'' and released it theatrically as ''Godzilla 1985''. When New World Pictures folded in the late 90's, the only way to obtain the film in any form on home media would be a VHS copy containing the ''Godzilla 1985'' cut, and even that eventually went out of print. Fast forward to May of 2016, when Kraken Releasing announced that they had managed to acquire the rights to ''The Return of Godzilla'' and would finally be releasing the original Japanese cut on DVD and Blu-ray (the release also includes an [[HongKongDub international English dub]] that is standard for Godzilla movies, though the ''Godzilla 1985'' cut couldn't be included due to the aforementioned rights issues).
* Due to rights problems (including song copyrights), ''Hellzapoppin'' has never been released on VHS or DVD in America. It ''did'' get a UK DVD release in 2007, though.
* Considered to be a forefront for the DisasterMovie genre, ''The High and the Mighty'', starring Creator/JohnWayne, was in this trope for a couple of '''decades'''. After a decade-long string of television repeats, it was stricken off the airwaves in 1985 due to multiple royalty issues and a constantly delayed restoration due to years sitting in the vault surviving water damage and having one copy of the movie lost, making a near pristine restoration of the film nearly impossible. After a year of remastering and an extra three months to correct audio issues, the fully restored and remastered film finally made a rebroadcast on AMC in July 2005, 20 years since its most recent showing on television, and a DVD release followed just a month later.
* Creator/AlfredHitchcock pulled ''Film/{{Vertigo}}'', ''Film/TheManWhoKnewTooMuch'' (the remake), ''Film/TheTroubleWithHarry'', ''Film/RearWindow'', and ''Theatre/{{Rope}}'' (the five films he completely controlled the rights to) from legal circulation in the 1970s for reasons that were never made clear[[note]]Some say he did this in order to deliberately increase the films' value so they could act as a ''de facto'' trust fund for his daughter Patricia and her family after he died. Others claim it was in response to the rise of the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era[[/note]]. Fans turned to the black market to watch them -- unless Hitchcock's estate managed to destroy the distributor's print. ''Rear Window'' and ''Vertigo'' became especially valuable. After Hitchcock died, Creator/{{Universal}} bought distribution rights to these movies, and then gave each a long-awaited theatrical re-release in the early 1980s. They've since received official home video releases on several formats, and ''Vertigo'' in particular saw its reputation go ''way'' up once people were able to see it again.
* Due to a lawsuit filed by a paparazzo who alleged improper reappropriation of a spy photo he snapped on the set of the film that became our first look at the Iron Man suit, ''Film/IronMan1'' was unavailable in its original version following the original theatrical release until 2021, when Disney released the 2018 IMAX Enhanced version to its Disney+ service with the original picture on ''The Chronicle'' intact.
* ''The Iron Petticoat'', a 1950s film featuring the only on-screen performance of Creator/BobHope with Creator/KatharineHepburn, was suppressed by Hope shortly after its original theatrical release, as he had bad memories of the making of the film, including fights between him and writer Ben Hecht (Hope insisted on having him and his gag writers write schtick for the movie, and Hecht resisted.) Hope had ended up with all rights to the movie, and sat on it for the rest of his life. It was only in 2012 that his estate relented and allowed the film to be released on Blu-Ray and for TV broadcast.
* After its original theatrical release, ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'' had its {{Intermission}} (which had its own soundtrack of police radio coverage of the various parties' progress) dropped and was cut to 159 minutes for worldwide distribution, with the edited footage discarded. Some of the discarded film was eventually found in an abandoned warehouse, and roughly 20 minutes of footage were re-edited back into place for one of the VHS releases. The movie couldn't be digitally converted with the extra footage -- which was still in 70mm format -- so DVD releases used only the general release 159-minute cut, at most using some of the cut scenes as bonus features. But in 2014, Creator/TheCriterionCollection brought out a set including both a 4K restoration of the general release version ''and'' a 197-minute version that incorporates the surviving cut material in as high-definition a transfer as could be managed.
* The films of Creator/AlejandroJodorowsky were unavailable for many years due to a bad partnership Jodorowsky had with manager and producer Allen Klein. For years fans had to circulate bootlegs. This changed in 2007, when El Topo and The Holy Mountain became widely available for the first time on DVD.
* For nearly 20 years, a copy of ''Literature/JohnnyGotHisGun'' was fairly difficult to acquire. Why? Well, Music/{{Metallica}} wanted to use footage from the movie for their video of "One" back in 1988, [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney and found it simpler to just purchase the rights to the movie]]...and then do nothing with it. Only in 2009 did Shout! Factory snatched the rights for a DVD release.
* Music/DavidBowie's second leading man effort, ''Film/JustAGigolo'' (1978), only had a Region 2 [=DVD=] release in Germany until June 2021, when Shout! Factory dug it up for Region 1. For bonus points, unlike the late 1980s [=VHS=] release of the 98-minute American cut from 1981, this is the 105-minute U.K. version.
* Creator/DennisHopper's ''Film/TheLastMovie'' became such an infamous FollowUpFailure that after a VHS release it remained hard to find for decades, even as it got some critical reappraisal. While it got a DVD release in Europe, the one that Hopper planned once he got the rights back in 2006 did not happen by the time he died four years later. Eventually Arbelos Films picked up the project, and did a 4K restoration of ''The Last Movie'' that in 2018 got released on Blu-ray, preceded by a special screening in Hollywood.
* The 1980 PBS made-for-TV adaption of ''Literature/TheLatheOfHeaven'' was unavailable after the rights expired in 1988. A DVD was finally released in 2000, albeit with a cover version of Music/TheBeatles song used in the original.
* ''Film/TheLegendOfBillieJean'' spent years in release limbo with no shot of ever getting a DVD release, despite massive fan demand. It was finally released in November 2011 through Sony Classics On Demand with an audio commentary.
* For the longest time, you could only find ''Film/LittleDarlings'' on VHS, as music licensing issues prevented the film from being released on DVD or Blu-Ray. Paramount eventually ironed those rights out, and by 2019, the film was made available for digital download.
* When Usefulnotes/GoldenRaspberryAward founder John Wilson wrote a book on the best SoBadItsGood films, one of them was the infamous 1973 musical adaptation of ''Film/LostHorizon'', which he noted had never been released on home video in the US and was only available "trying to find it on [=eBay=], or watching it on some all-night/all-movie cable channel with very low standards". Wilson was kind of wrong in that the film did receive a laserdisc release in the early '90s, but in scarce quantities. Eventually it got a DVD and Blu-Ray in 2011, even restoring the "fertility dance" sequence that hadn't been seen since the original theatrical release.
* The Creator/FrankSinatra film ''Film/MeetDannyWilson'' has yet to be released on DVD in the United States, presumably for music rights issues. However, the movie was released on VHS in the mid-90's and isn't too difficult to find. It ''was'' given a DVD release, [[NoExportForYou but only in the UK]].
* ''Film/{{Moonwalker}}'' didn't get a Region 1 re-release for a long time, [[ScrewedByTheLawyers for obvious reasons]]. It was finally released internationally on Blu-Ray in 2010, albeit with some of the violence in the "Smooth Criminal" segment trimmed.
* ''Film/{{Mosquito}}'' from 1995 was out of print for a long time. Copies went for $200+ on Amazon. Luckily, with the 20th Anniversary re-release, this movie is now easy to get. Now we can watch Leatherface cut up some big-ass mosquitoes with his chainsaw.
* ''Film/{{The Muppet Christmas Carol}}'' is widely available, its most recent release being a Blu-Ray in 2012. But most home video releases don't include the deleted "When Love Is Gone" song. It was removed from the theatrical cut to director Brian Henson's strong objections, but restored for the 1993 VHS and laserdisc. The [=DVDs=] from 2002, 2005, and 2012 include the full-length cut, but it was not in widescreen -- only the theatrical cut was. The aforementioned Blu-Ray, and the Digital HD version, don't have the song at all. Thankfully, the "When Love Is Gone" sequence would eventually make its HD debut as an extra on the movie's [=iTunes=] and Disney+ releases.
** And ''then'' Henson announced in 2020 that a pristine version of "When Love Is Gone" had been discovered and would be reinstated in a forthcoming 4K re-release.
* The 1952 RedScare film ''My Son John'' starring Robert Walker, who tragically died while making this film, as the title character, was very hard to find and only managed to get a home video release in 2010. This is in large part due to the embarrassment on the part of Paramount for making this film, which is infamous not just for Walker's death but for its very, ''very'' questionable messages, one of which is that open-mindedness is the gateway to Communism. (!)
* The infamous ''Film/{{North}}'' was withheld from a DVD release for almost two decades because of how notoriously awful it was, especially to [[CreatorBacklash nearly everyone who worked on it,]] with the notable exception of director Creator/RobReiner. Creator/ColumbiaPictures finally released the film on DVD-R as part of the burn-on-demand Sony Pictures Choice Collection in 2012. Before that, all you had to rely on were the VHS release and television broadcasts.
* ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}'' was like this for a long time due to claims from the [[{{Dracula}} Stoker Estate]]. Both are now in the public domain, ending the dispute. It's worth noting that because of the dispute, all copies of the film were ordered to be destroyed; were it not for those dedicated bootleggers, ''the film would not have survived at all''. To those collectors and reprinters, wherever you may be — the fans and historians of the world salute you.
* ''Film/TheOscar'', a campy melodrama from 1966 co-written by Creator/HarlanEllison and featuring the only acting performance of Music/TonyBennett, had a VHS release in the mid-1980s...and that was it for three decades. Creator/{{TCM}} plays the film occasionally, but is forced to use an older pan-and-scan master (unusual for the network). This is very telling of the film's current demand because for a time it was included in many "Worst Films of All Time" lists as well as the Medved brothers' ''Golden Turkey Awards'' and even warranted a ''Series/{{SCTV}}'' parody (''The Nobel''), but appears to have been overshadowed by more recent films that are a lot worse and more infamous. Ultimately, Kino Lorber released the film on Blu-Ray in February 2020 with a new 4K remaster and two audio commentaries, with one of them featuring (of all people) Creator/PattonOswalt as a participant.
* The 1982 horror/slasher spoof ''Pandemonium'', despite its cult status, was stuck on VHS until 2020, when Vinegar Syndrome brought out a 2K restoration on Blu-Ray.
* ''Film/ThePoughkeepsieTapes'', for the longest time, could only be seen as a bootleg due to MGM shelving the film a month before it was set to open (due to their financial issues). As a result, trailers and posters were all over theatres in 2008 for a film that was never released. However, strong reactions from the bootleg (taken from a festival version of the film) got the directors two studio films since the film was shelved (''Film/{{Quarantine}}'' and ''Film/{{Devil}}''). It was first made available legally...through Blockbuster Online. It was then finally released on Blu-ray and DVD through [[Creator/ShoutFactory Scream Factory]] on October 10, 2017.
* ''Film/{{Rad}}'' was one of the only films from Talia Shire's production company Taliafilm not to receive a digital media release for many years, even though it did pretty well on [=VHS=] and has a passionate fan base. Despite a petition to get a DVD release it wasn't until 2020 that its day came: It was restored in 4K from the original camera negatives, coming to home video courtesy of cult film label Vinegar Syndrome, who partnered with Utopia Distribution (a film label owned by Shire’s son - and Jason’s brother - Robert Schwartzman) for a strictly limited 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray release. Utopia was originally going to premiere the restoration at South By Southwest, but [[UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic the COVID outbreak]] led to that festival’s cancellation. Happily, the Blu-Ray release still went forward that May, [[https://film.avclub.com/a-holy-grail-of-80s-cult-movies-has-arrived-on-blu-ray-1843594857 and the A.V. Club even did a feature on it, explaining why it took so long]].
** Taliafilm also produced the drama ''Lionheart'' (not [[Film/{{Lionheart}} the Van Damme one]]), which was buried in a limited theatrical release in 1987, and was released on VHS in 1990. For many years the film was unavailable aside from the occasional cable airing until 2009 when it became one of the first DVD releases from the Warner Archive Collection.
** Mill Creek Entertainment released a Blu-Ray [=Steelbook=] of the movie in March 2021 and serves as #46 Mondo X [=Steelbook=] collaboration with some totally rad artwork.
* Two of the Razzies’ Worst Pictures that had only been available on VHS got Blu-Ray releases in 2017, ''Film/TheLonelyLady'' and ''Film/GhostsCantDoIt'' (the latter, a double feature with fellow Creator/BoDerek "winner" ''Film/{{Bolero}}'', which did get a DVD back in the day).
* Creator/RodgersAndHammerstein:
** The movie versions of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'', ''Theatre/{{Oklahoma}}'', ''Theatre/{{Carousel}}'', ''Film/StateFair'', ''Theatre/SouthPacific'' and ''Theatre/TheKingAndI'' debuted on DVD in 1999 and 2000, but ''Literature/FlowerDrumSong'' did not receive a DVD release at this time. It ultimately did so in 2006, partly to celebrate the movie's 45th anniversary, and partly because Creator/{{Universal}} wanted to cash in on Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox releasing remastered [=DVD=]s of seven R&H movies.
** ''The Sound of Music'' went out of print in 2014, possibly even earlier than that. Past releases garnered rather hefty prices in the Amazon Marketplace. Fox put the movie back in print in 2015, in honor of its 50th anniversary.
** The widely panned 1962 remake of ''State Fair'' just barely beat ''Flower Drum Song'' to DVD. It did not receive a release until 2005 when its predecessor turned 60. Unfortunately, this went out of print some years later.
* ''Film/RomeoAndJuliet1968'' became this after its U.S. DVD release went out of print in the late 2000s. The movie got a Blu-ray release... but [[NoExportForYou only in Europe and Australia]], which was a shame because it was a groundbreaking movie for its day. Then, Creator/TheCriterionCollection released it for the first time on Blu-ray in the U.S. market on Valentine's Day, 2023.
* Creator/DavidCronenberg's feature film debut, ''Film/{{Shivers}}'' (aka ''They Came From Within'') saw only scant and OOP video release over the years despite Cronenberg's godlike status among horror fans and the generally good success of his films (like ''Film/TheFly1986'', ''Film/{{Scanners}}'', and ''Film/AHistoryOfViolence''). It's odd that Anchor Bay released a special edition VHS, but didn't re-release it on DVD. Strange and infuriating. But British cult film label [[http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/shivers/ Arrow Films]] released a new Blu-Ray of the film in the fall of 2014, and Lionsgate brought out a Region 1 Blu-Ray in 2020. In between, legal streaming services also began to offer it.
* ''Film/{{Sorcerer}}'' was unavailable on VHS and Laserdisc until 1990, the first DVD issue in 1998 (transferred from the Laserdisc) was a very rare item, and rights issues kept even repertoire theaters from screening it. Once director William Friedkin took matters into his own hands, suing studios Paramount (who financed production) and Universal (who was a co-distributor) for the rights, he manage to settle things, and Friedkin supervised a restoration financed by Warner Bros. (who would then hold the home media and streaming distribution, with Paramount for theatrical and Universal on TV), used as the basis for the first ''Sorcerer'' Blu-Ray on 2014.
* ''Film/{{Static}}'', the first feature-length film by ''Film/OneHourPhoto'' writer/director Mark Romanek, saw its theatrical debut in 1985. Was not made available on DVD despite a fairly strong cult following; and the existence of VHS and Laserdisc versions; both becoming increasingly difficult to find in good condition. WordOfGod was that, while Romanek didn't view regret it, he considered it an inferior sophomore effort (if he acknowledged it at all), and therefore not worth re-releasing. Romanek eventually relented, and it was officially released on DVD by Telavista in 2007.
* Despite having critical acclaim, an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in Richard Farnsworth and directed by Creator/DavidLynch, ''Film/TheStraightStory'' has not seen a Blu-Ray release in the U.S. and Europe, though Japan got a Blu-Ray release by Creator/{{Paramount}} and Comstock and later a German Blu-ray in 2019, as the U.S. DVD is out-of-print (though since the film was so little seen, it was still easy to find copies for cheap). However, it is available on Vudu, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and the iTunes Store in the U.S., though the latter service offers it only for rental; and was later rebroadcast on Creator/{{Showtime}} in 2017 in preparation for Series/TwinPeaks third season. It is also on Disney+ in the U.S. as of May 2020.
* Creator/RichardLinklater's ''[=SubUrbia=]'' was unavailable on any digital physical format until a DVD-R from Warner Archive was released in 2018. Up until that point, you could only find a digital copy on Amazon Instant.
* F.W. Murnau's silent arthouse classic ''Film/{{Sunrise}}'' (which won Best Picture, back when there were two Best Picture categories) was only available on DVD through mail-order in the United States for many years. On top of that, it was only available if you collected other titles in a set of classic 20th Century Fox films and mailed proof of purchases to the company. That release eventually went out of print and it commanded a pretty penny on eBay and Amazon, both for the solid restoration of the film and the DVD's impressive extras. After that, the only places that it was in print were in two box sets (one is a box set of early Oscar winners from Fox Studios which despite costing under $30 is still pretty hard to come by. The second is a handsome set of films by Murnau and Frank Borzage...which commands a price of ''over $200''), or by importing a 2009 British, region-free Blu-Ray from [[http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/sunrise/ Eureka Entertainment]] (part of their 'Masters Of Cinema' line). Fans had to wait until 2014 for the first wide-release home video version of ''Sunrise'' in the United States, and it was well worth it: The film got an acclaimed Blu-Ray[=/=]DVD combo set that made ''Sunrise'' one of the first silent films to ever be released in a high definition restoration.
* ''That Night'', a little-seen but acclaimed 1993 comedy with Juliette Lewis, C. Thomas Howell and a young Creator/ElizaDushku (in her film debut) about a girl's romance told from the point of view of her neighbor, a 10 year-old wanting to know what love is. The film was released on VHS but is out-of-print. Warner Bros. never released it on DVD; whether this might change now that said studio's rights to the film has expired is anyone's guess. 20th Century Fox has released it digitally via Movies Anywhere. As of January 2019, the film is also available on the American Creator/{{Netflix}}.
* ''Film/TiticutFollies'', a 1967 documentary about the mistreatment of patients at Bridgewater State Hospital, was infamously {{banned|InChina}} by the state of Massachusetts for supposedly infringing on the privacy of the patients. Following an appeal by director-producer Frederick Wiseman, the film was allowed to be shown to doctors, lawyers, judges, healthcare professionals, social workers and students in those and related fields in 1969, but could still not be distributed to the general public. The ban was lifted in 1991, but outside of one broadcast on Creator/{{PBS}} in 1992, the film remained out of circulation until 2007 when it was released on DVD.
* Creator/ValGuest was never paid for working on the pop musical ''Film/{{Toomorrow}}'' (which featured Olivia Newton-John's film debut), so he obtained an injunction saying the film could never be shown in public until he was. As a result, ''Toomorrow'' was shown for only one week before being shelved. For the next forty years, the only available copies were bootlegs, until it was finally released on DVD in 2012.
* ''Film/{{Tron}}'' lapsed into this after its 20th anniversary DVD release went out of print around 2008. In 2010, when the sequel ''Film/TronLegacy'' hit theaters, the film was reaching prices of up to $215 on Amazon, and even Netflix was having availability problems (the lack of re-release at such a propicious time [[https://web.archive.org/web/20110322143853/http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/11/10/tron-dvd-is-hard-to-find/ was questioned]], [[https://web.archive.org/web/20101119074308/http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/11/16/tron-dvd/ raised]] [[https://gizmodo.com/is-disney-deliberately-keeping-tron-out-of-print-on-dvd-5690466 theories]], [[http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/new-strategy-for-tron-dvd/ and boosted piracy]]). But at least it got a re-release, on both DVD and Blu-Ray, when ''Legacy'' hit shelves in 2011.
* The 1977 nuclear-war thriller ''Twilight's Last Gleaming'' was in DVD release limbo for years after numerous announcements followed by cancellations from former rights holder Creator/WarnerBros In 2012, Olive Films released it on DVD and UsefulNotes/BluRay, making a legal DVD copy now possible.
* The original widescreen version of ''Film/{{West Side Story|1961}}'' inexplicably disappeared from DVD shelves in the mid-2000s. All the [=DVD=]s produced during the remainder of the decade presented the movie in PanAndScan, although movie box sets contained the uncropped version. Widescreen [=DVD=]s finally became available again in 2011, in honor of the movie's 50th anniversary.
* ''Film/WhereTheBuffaloRoam'' a film starring Creator/BillMurray as writer Creator/HunterSThompson (made many years before Creator/JohnnyDepp [[Film/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas would take the role]]) was always available on DVD. But if you wanted to hear the original Neil Young soundtrack, you had to track down an old VHS copy. Anchor Bay replaced the music with generic '80s synth on the DVD due to music licensing issues. Fortunately, Shout Factory re-released the film on Blu-Ray with all of the original music intact.
* For 28 years, the only way that you could see Samuel Fuller's ''White Dog'' was through the occasional repertory screening or a bootleg copy taken from the few television airings of the film. In 2010 Creator/TheCriterionCollection came to the rescue and released a DVD.
* The 1927 classic ''Film/{{Wings}}'', the first film to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture, was announced for release in 2011 on DVD and Blu-Ray by Paramount. Before this announcement, it had been the only film that had won Best Picture at the Oscars that hadn't been released on DVD. It doesn't help that the movie is one of the very few silent movies still under copyright, which made public domain releases impossible.
* ''Film/TheWonderfulWorldOfTheBrothersGrimm'', a Creator/GeorgePal super-production that was one of only two non-documentary films shot in the specialty Cinerama format[[note]]the other being ''How the West Was Won''[[/note]], has never had a DVD release; Turner Classic Movies occasionally aired it but only in a letterbox format which distorts the wraparound imagery. While it was believed the original negative was too water-damaged to restore without prohibitive expense for a niche title, [[https://www.in70mm.com/news/2020/grimm/index.htm?fbclid=IwAR29rxmuNjjFVDJfPKefbCYKGqqjHPG4Yd1l63QAA7xJu-KTPJTxFyq5xg8 this proved not to be the case]]. Warner Archive's 4K restoration was released in 2022, and includes both letterboxed and non-distorted versions.
[[/folder]]

* For a long time [[Creator/TerryPratchett Sir Terry Pratchett's]] first novel, ''Literature/TheCarpetPeople'', was out of print and almost impossible to find second hand due to a tiny original print run. However, eventually his publishers got so fed up of having to tell people there was no demand for it that it was reissued. Technically, it was reissued as a new [[DirectorsCut Author's Cut]], since Pratchett wanted to fix a lot about the novel. So you can read the special edition, but good luck finding the original.
* Probably one of the oldest and most obscure examples is the story of Michael Servetus's heretical text ''Christianismi Restitutio'' (Latin for "The Restoration of Christianity"). Since Servetus was more radical than even most Protestants of the time (for example, he rejected both the Trinity and infant baptism), Catholics and Protestants alike denounced and suppressed him and his works. John Calvin led a huge effort to destroy all copies of Servetus's books and eventually [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill had Servetus burned at the stake on a pile of copies of ''Christianismi Restitutio'', with the last known copy of the book bound to his leg.]] Only three first-edition copies still exist; for nearly half a millennium, these copies have passed from person to person through Europe. But there are many later copies, and the book is still in print (you can find it on Amazon.com).

* ''Film/RomeoAndJuliet1968'' became this after its U.S. DVD release went out of print in the late 2000s. The movie got a Blu-ray release... but [[NoExportForYou only in Europe and Australia]], which was a shame because it was a groundbreaking movie for its day. Then TheCriterionCollection released it for the first time on Blu-ray in the U.S. market on Valentine's Day 2023.

** The widely panned 1962 remake of ''State Fair'' just barely beat ''Flower Drum Song'' to DVD. It did not receive a release until 2005, when its predecessor turned 60. Unfortunately, this went out of print some years later.
* Creator/DavidCronenberg's feature film debut, ''Film/{{Shivers}}'' (aka ''They Came From Within'') saw only scant and OOP video release over the years despite Cronenberg's godlike status among horror fans and the general good success of his films (like ''Film/TheFly1986'', ''Film/{{Scanners}}'', and ''Film/AHistoryOfViolence''). It's odd that Anchor Bay released a special edition VHS, but didn't re-release it on DVD. Strange and infuriating. But British cult film label [[http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/shivers/ Arrow Films]] released a new Blu-Ray of the film in the fall of 2014, and Lionsgate brought out a Region 1 Blu-Ray in 2020. In between, legal streaming services also began to offer it.
* ''Film/{{Sorcerer}}'' was unavailable on VHS and Laserdisc until 1990, the first DVD issue in 1998 (transferred from the Laserdisc) was a very rare item, and rights issues kept even repertoire theaters from screening it. Once director William Friedkin took matters at his own hands, suing studios Paramount (who financed production) and Universal (who was a co-distributor) for the rights, he manage to settle things, and Friedkin supervised a restoration financed by Warner Bros. (who would then hold the home media and streaming distribution, with Paramount for theatrical and Universal on TV), used as the basis for the first ''Sorcerer'' Blu-Ray on 2014.

* Despite having critical acclaim, an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in Richard Farnsworth and directed by Creator/DavidLynch, ''Film/TheStraightStory'' has been not seen a Blu-Ray release in the U.S. and Europe, though Japan got a Blu-Ray release by Creator/{{Paramount}} and Comstock and later a German bluray in 2019, as the U.S. DVD is out-of-print (though since the film was so little seen, it was still easy to find copies for cheap). However, it is available on Vudu, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and the iTunes Store in the U.S., though the latter service offers it only for rental; and was later rebroadcast on Creator/{{Showtime}} in 2017 in preparation for Series/TwinPeaks third season. It is also on Disney+ in the U.S. as of May 2020.