History KeepCirculatingTheTapes / Rescued

* ''[[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.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Doom}} Doom 64]]''. 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 ''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 being announced to be remastered for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch in 2023.

* ''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 the film is OldShame for Scott, 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.

* 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 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 OldShame 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]].

* Music/DavidBowie's second leading man effort, and subsequent OldShame, ''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.

* The infamous ''Film/{{North}}'' was withheld from a DVD release for almost two decades because of how notoriously awful it was, especially to [[OldShame 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/{{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 it as an OldShame, 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.

* ''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 something of an OldShame for the author. Eventually 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.

* Music/GodspeedYouBlackEmperor's demo tape ''All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling'' is perhaps the holy grail of indie fans. It's an OldShame, 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.

* ''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 [[OldShame/VideoGames 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.

* 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".

** 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.

* 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''.

* ''Titicut Follies'', 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.

* ''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 [[NamesTheSame the same name]] by Sara Woods, which is more of a crime story - make sure to get the right one when ordering.

* The English dub of the Japanese puppet series ''Series/StarFleet'' (or ''Series/XBomber'' as it's known in Japan) 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.

* 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.

* 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]]). Then, by Fall 2020, it was officially delisted from the platform. 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.

** 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". So far, the first show to get a new distributor is ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'', which is now being released by Creator/NozomiEntertainment.

* During the 1990s, the Malaysian VHS/VCD company Berjaya HVN had an [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil anti-piracy awareness message]] to help viewers of their programs recognize a genuine HVN VHS. It included a genuine label hologram (either a Disney hologram for Disney tapes or just a white sticker with copies of the HVN logo on it) on either the spine of the cover or the cassette's spine, a blue videocassette skin, etc. However, it was inside the VHS which stores the cassette (also called inlays), and now HVN's tapes are long out-of-print, with seemingly no one being interested in taking a scan of the ad (or even posting it online). In February 14, 2022, an [=YouTube=] channel named "The Video Archive" posted a video called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLI9SfUpe8 Quick-Fire Collections: Malaysia]]", in which the video uploader showcased a few Malaysian [=VHSs=] he bought and also showed the inlaid warning messages for a while. However, these were taken from too far away, the texts weren't clearly readable and parts of them were hidden by the fingers, but at least the inlaid warning messages were finally discovered. CIC Video Malaysia did a similar thing for their genuine VHS release, but like the HVN one, it wasn't discovered for many years until The Video Archive showed it on an video. The Lost Media Archive Wikia even had an article about it [[https://lostmediaarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Southeast_Asian_VHS_Inlay_Warning_Messages here,]] which made a few months after its discovery.

* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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 moreso after since the below ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' announcement came the same day.)
* 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.
* ''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.
* 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.]]

* 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]].
* 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.

* ''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.

** 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-fliped manga was available in English. Tokyopop's old censored and flipped editions went for high prices for quite a while.

* The English dub of the Japanese puppet series ''Series/StarFleet'' (or ''Series/XBomber'' as it's known in Japan) 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 episode 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 went 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 rerelease on DVD and Blu-Ray.
* 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.
* The ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' anime went into the 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.
* 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.]]
* 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 shit out of luck cuz 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.
* 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.
* 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 of 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.

* 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.
* ''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 boxset containing the entire Japanese series with English subtitles.
* 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.
* ''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. Fortunetly, Creator/DiscotekMedia has licensed it and will be released in DVD in Region 1.
* ''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).
** 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.
* ''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 audios 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.
* ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' was literally this since its license pickup by Media Blasters in 2010, but dropped it in 2013. Not even releasing a single volume or boxset of it even. Until...Nozomi Entertainment has licensed rescued the series for a 2020 Blu-Ray release stateside.
* ''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.
* 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 boxset 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.
* 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.
* 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 ''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 aquired 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.
* ''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.
* ''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 boxset 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 will release in November, while the special editions will launch in December.
* 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 license 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.
* 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.
* 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.

* 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's 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/{{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.
* 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.
* 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 snatch the rights for a DVD 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/{{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/{{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.
* The underrated 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.
* 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 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.
** ''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 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.
* ''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 it as an OldShame, 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.
* 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 has 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.
* 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 boxsets contained the uncropped version. Widescreen [=DVD=]s finally became available again in 2011, in honor of the movie's 50th anniversary.
* ''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.
* ''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.)
* 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.
* 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.)
* 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 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* ''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.
* ''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.
* 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 rerelease ''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 reedited 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).
* 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.
* 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 on July 2005, 20 years since its most recent showing on television, and a DVD release followed just a month later.
* The infamous ''Film/{{North}}'' was withheld from a DVD release for almost two decades because of how notoriously awful it was, especially to [[OldShame 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.

* Orson Welles's classic Shakespeare film ''Film/ChimesAtMidnight'' finally received a proper DVD release via the Criterion Collection in TheNewTens.
* 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.
* ''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 the film is OldShame for Scott, 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.

* 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.
* ''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.
* 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 on 2011, even restoring the "fertility dance" sequence that hadn't been seen since the original theatrical release.
* Speaking of the Razzies, two of their 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).

* ''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 rereleased the film on Blu-Ray with all of the original music intact.
* ''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}}.
* ''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.
* ''Titicut Follies'', a 1967 documentary about the mistreatment of patients at Bridgewater State Hospital, was infamously {{banned|InChina}} by the state of Massachussets 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, heath care professionnals, 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.
* ''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.
* ''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/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.

* 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.
* 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/TheWonderfulWorldOfTheBrothersGrimm'', a Creator/GeorgePal superproduction 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.
* 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.
* Music/DavidBowie's second leading man effort, and subsequent OldShame, ''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.
* 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.
* Due to a lawsuit filed by a paparrazo 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.

* 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 knowledgable public for its low quality.

* 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 forgot 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.

* In 1977, Music/PaulMcCartney released the unusual album ''Thrillington'' under the psudeonym 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 relase. It wasn't legally available in CD form until the 2012 Deluxe Edition Box Set of ''RAM'' album.

* Some of the ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' comic strips were this for quite a while, especially the ones from the early 50's[[note]]this is because Charles M. Schulz was afraid people would notice how different his art style was back then[[/note]]. That is, until 2004, when Fantagraphics started to publish ''The Complete Peanuts'', a collection of every Peanuts comic from 1950 to 2000[[note]]the full versions of a few of the Sunday strips could not be found, however; some of the title panels of the Sunday strips had to be replaced with archival ''Peanuts'' drawings or new ones[[/note]] which Fantagraphics finished publishing in 2016. About 2000 of the 17,897 ''Peanuts'' comics never saw the light of day in printed form until ''The Complete Peanuts'' came around. Schulz's other work, ''ComicStrip/LilFolks'', also counted as this until the entire comic's run was collected in the 1999-2000 volume of ''The Complete Peanuts''.

* SPI's board game adaptation of the George A. Romero film ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'' fell out of print and rare to find. However, fans of Romero's Living Dead films who run Homepage of the Dead scanned in the materials from the game, including the manual, cardboard game pieces and the board to allow for fans to download and print out the game to play. One fan named [=WitchMaster=] Creations did a graphical remake of the original game's board to improve the graphics, making it possible to play the game on the original board or the improved board without any changes to the game's play.

* 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.
* ''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 became 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.

** LEGO has a reputation to take games off their web pages, but leave 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.
* ''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.

** As of April 14, 2018, ''Live & Reloaded'' was finally re-released through the Xbox One's Original Xbox backwards compatability.
* The only rerelease 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''.

* ''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.

* 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 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.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' didn't see a rerelease 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.

* 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'', will be released in February 2023.

** 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 was released in February 2015 for Sony systems ([[UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 PS4]] and [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita PS Vita]]) and personal computers (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
** ''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.]] Like ''Grim Fandango'', a remaster for the [=PS4=], PS Vita, and PC was released by Double Fine in March 2016.

* For the longest time, late-entering fans of the ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' series had an extremely tough time getting ahold 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. A enhanced Wii version was also made, and was released shortly after the Wii version 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.

* For decades, ''VideoGame/RedEarth'' was the only game made for 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 for the longest time, until a recent PSN re-release.
%% Could someone please better define "recent"? Is this more recent that the PSN release in 2010?

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' was widely considered to be the worst Sonic game by many. This eventually led the game being one of the Sonic games known for their poor quality [[OldShame/VideoGames 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.

** Then, in 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 in 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).

** And then, in June 18, 2021, ''[[VideoGame/TouhouBunkachouShootTheBullet Shoot the Bullet]]'' was released on Steam.
* ''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 a 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.
* ''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).

* ''Film/AtLongLastLove'' is a legendarily awful 1975 musical starring Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd. The movie was so hated that director Peter Bogdanovich took out ads in several newspapers throughout the country, apologizing for the film and saw to it that the movie was never released on video in any format. Bootlegs were hard to find but did exist, and those who saw them couldn't seem to agree if the flick was SoBadItsGood or just unwatchably awful. (There was no lip-synching -- the actors had to sing while filming. And these actors weren't known for their singing.) This film is of historical interest regardless; aside from the star power, Bogdanovich was one of the great auteur directors (he did ''Film/TheLastPictureShow''). 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.
* 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 the VHS release. 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 with both the general release version ''and'' a 197-minute version that incorporates the surviving cut material.

** ''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 reedited 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 won't be included due to the aforementioned rights issues).

* 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 on 2011, even restoring a "fertility dance" sequence that hadn't been seen since the original theatrical release.

* ''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 80's synth on the DVD due to music licensing issues. Fortunately, Shout Factory later re-released the film on Blu-Ray with all of the original music in tact.

* ''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.

* ''Film/TheWonderfulWorldOfTheBrothersGrimm'', a Creator/GeorgePal superproduction 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 featuring both letterboxed and non-distorted versions.

* Creator/ValGuest was never paid for working on ''Film/{{Toomorrow}}'', 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.

[[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/WesternAnimationRescued Examples of rescued Western Animation shows]], [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes/ComicBooks 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).

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

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The ''[[Comicbook/{{Miracleman}} Marvel/Miracleman]]'' comic was long considered to be inextricably ScrewedByTheLawyers, due to notoriously complex legal wrangling between multiple camps over the rights to the characters and stories. The rights were acquired by Marvel in 2009, but only for the original 1950s/1960s ''Marvelman'' stories, the scripts from the Creator/AlanMoore and Creator/NeilGaiman stories, and the rights to use the characters in new stories. While this meant that the Gaiman stories could be reprinted, Neil's run completed, and new ''Marvelman'' stories published, the Moore stories were still off-limits due to Marvel having to renegotiate with the artists, and a reprint without the Moore stories was considered infeasible since they were the ones that most people wanted to see. Marvel finally managed to come to an agreement with the artists and start releasing the Moore run, initially in serial comics form, in 2014. However, Moore refused to allow his name to be used on the comics, causing him to be credited only as '[[TheTropeFormerlyKnownAsX The Original Writer]]'. According to Moore, this was because he had come to believe that the '''original''' ''Marvelman'' creator Mick Anglo had been cheated out of his rights, and that it had been wrong for Moore to write about the character.
* ''Comicbook/FlexMentallo'' was originally introduced in an issue of ''Comicbook/DoomPatrol'' as a parody of the well-known "Insult That Made a Man out of Mac" comic-strip bodybuilding ads by Charles Atlas. Later on, in 1996, he got a mini-series of his own, written by his creator Creator/GrantMorrison and drawn by Frank Quitely. Some time after the mini-series came out someone (reportedly a fan who [[WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings thought they'd be flattered]]) informed the Charles Atlas company about Flex, and they promptly sued DC (the publisher of ''Doom Patrol'' and ''Flex Mentallo'') for trademark infringement. Since Flex, as an obvious parody, was legally considered to be a case of UsefulNotes/FairUse, the lawsuit was [[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E2DC1430F932A0575BC0A9669C8B63 settled in favour of DC]]. However, even though the creative team of Morrison and Quitely later released some critically praised and popular series (''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'' being the best known of them), DC took many years to collect the ''Flex Mentallo'' mini. The origin story of Flex (where the Charles Atlas connection is much more obvious than in the mini-series) was actually collected in a 2006 ''Doom Patrol'' trade paperback, so clearly there was no remaining legal obstacle, but it took until April 2012 for the mini-series to be collected.. Only 16 years after it originally came out. The legal problems over Flex are probably why it took until the mid-2000s for the Morrison ''Doom Patrol'' run itself to get a proper trade paperback series, despite its high reputation.
* IDW has scored the reprint rights to the original Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and has begun putting out definitive collections: five-six hardcovers that collect the core "canon" of the series (the issues that Laird and Eastman did together) and a softcover line for the filler stories done by other creators in TMNT #15-18, 22-44).
* In [[TurnOfTheMillennium 2000]], Creator/MarvelComics finally released a volume of ''Essential ComicBook/ConanTheBarbarian''... which was never followed up, as Creator/DarkHorseComics acquired the license soon after. Seven years later, Dark Horse started reprinting not only the original Conan ongoing, but also ''Savage Sword of Conan the Barbarian'', ''King Conan'', and all the other ComicBookAdaptation(s) of Creator/RobertEHoward's works.
* The 1980s ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'', a popular series which had super-villains being sent on black-ops missions in exchange for a full pardon for their crimes, remains uncollected, and plans for a black-and-white Showcase Presents reprint were scuttled by issues involving royalty rates for DC Comics published from 1976-96. These royalty rates also have screwed other Showcase titles such as ''Jonah Hex'' (Volume 2 can't be released because the issues that would be collected would contain issues published in this timeframe) and scuttled plans for Showcase volumes collecting "Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew" and "Who's Who in the DC Universe".
** More specifically, DC royalty rates from this time period were for a fixed amount rather than a percentage of the cover price. Showcase Presents reprints a lot of issues at a low cover price, and the fixed amounts would make it unprofitable, so DC has to renegotiate everything.
** While a color TPB ultimately ''did'' come out for the first nine issues, the second volume (effectively collecting everything in the aborted Showcase Presents volume) was cancelled a week before it was to come out and DC basically once again shelved the series.
** The series has finally been completely re-released digitally. It's not a printed edition, but it's at last available.
** And as of 2015, DC have been releasing print [=TPBs=] of the series.
* An infamous case is ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'', which had huge chunks of the series uncollected. Although original series writer Jamie Delano's work is finally in the process of being reissued in trade paperback (as of 2010 everything from Issue #1 through "The Family Man" is available), not one issue of Paul Jenkins' forty-issue run on the title has been collected, despite this including some of the series' pivotal events such as Constantine's [[spoiler:encounter with God, rescue of Astra from Hell, and creation of his own demon-self]]. This was finally corrected in 2016, with the reissue of Jenkins' complete run.
* When Fleetway went bankrupt, Rebellion snapped up the rights to ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' and ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd Megazine'', and Egmont took the rest, including ''ComicBook/{{Buster}}, Cor!!, Oink, ComicBook/WhizzerAndChips, Battle, Action, Lion, Valiant, New Eagle, ComicBook/{{Misty}}, ComicBook/{{Tammy}}, ComicBook/{{Jinty}}'', and others. Egmont proceeded to sit on the rights for nearly 20 years until Rebellion bought out the rest of the archive in 2016 and established the Treasury of British Comics imprint to keep the classics in print.
* Issues 13 to 36 of the ''Marvel Classics Comics'' series (comic re-imaginings of classic literature) were collected in an omnibus and released on September 2020. Issues 1 to 12 aren't included in the set because they are reprints of Pendulum Press ''Now Age Classics'' line, which aren't owned by Marvel.
* ''ComicBook/{{Sturmtruppen}}'' went unprinted for years, with many of the later strips being never released in the native Italy due the publisher shutting down (the series continued being published in Germany). This ended in 2015, with Italian publisher Mondadori re-released the entire series, including the strips never before published in Italy.
[[/folder]]

* 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.

* 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).

* 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''.