Scarecrow video has it all. I decided to go into this place on a whim today after seeing this place on yelp. Let me tell you, I was in movie heaven! Any movie you can imagine is at this store! Their organization is amazing. There is a section organized by directors, which is super helpful if you are in a film class like myself. They have new and used DVD and VHS's to buy and they keep up with all of the new releases as well. This store is two stories along with an espresso bar, and the movies are organized by genre in different sections of the building. It's like a maze of movies. The staff is really knowledgable and helpful into finding a movie, and if you really can't find what you are looking for they have a computer to look it up. The rental prices are really good, and you can even rent series of television shows. What I also enjoyed was along the shelves the workers would post little notes about their favorite films, fun facts, and their opinions of movies! I will definitely be returning to rent some movies and recommend people stopping into Scarecrow video A.S.A.P. read more

I really like this place. It's got all the movies I could ever want, the staff is helpful and I love their system of organization. And if you go on Wednesday (2 for 1 rentals) it's not that expensive. Plus they have awesome screenings. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because of their return policy. Rentals are due back in a week. They close at 10 every night. One would assume as long as it's back by closing you should be good. Not so fast! Their policy is to charge a late fee if you return a movie after 9PM on the day it's due. There is no sign anywhere to let you know about the 9 PM thing. You'd think it would be near the return slot, but it's not. Apparently it's in the paperwork when you sign up for an account, but I was under someone else's account and never saw it. I got an $18 late fee because I returned some movies after 9 on the day they were due. I made some noise, and they didn't refund the $18 but they did give me some rental credits to make up for it so that's something. I really do think there should be signs up letting last-minute people like me know about the policy. Seriously, though. Everything else about this place is amazing. I wish there were more video rental places like this. read more

Musty? Yep. Crazy mad selection? Yep. As mi amiga might say: "It's the diggity bomb". read more

One star? Five Stars? You decide..... It's the Championship Vinyl of video stores. If you get that reference, you'll love the place; rate it five stars; wonder how someone can be so obtuse as to suggest anything less than five stars. Philistine. If you go looking for that movie and don't know that it's directed by Stephen Frears... oh, wait, is there a Stephen Frears section....? Will one of those musical moron twins behind the counter help me out without a condescending eye-roll? Who would rate this place anything more than 1 star?!? All that said, their customer service is great. The staff may be a bit introverted, but they're always willing to help and will often give you more information than you could have ever expected. Other plusses: they're independent, the selection is beyond belief and the price is good. Joe Bob says check it out. read more

It's like dropping through the floor and landing in 1994. This is the kind of video store where Quentin Tarantino must have toiled away before he discovered that shooting a lot of people in the ear would someday be called genius. There are 100,000 movies to rent here, organized in the most bizarrely satisfying way - not to mention the entire MUPPET section. A quick scope of the labyrinth aisles yielded the incredible classic, Schoolgirl Hitchhikers (sadly, Hapa Boy held out for Highlander). The clerks are funny, savvy, and kind of adorable: Me: How many of these movies have you seen? Clerk: Maybe 2000. Me: That's all? Clerk: Well, every couple of weeks, I leave my house. Outside is kind of nice too. What's not to love? read more

Scarecrow is awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. In reality, they would get 4.5 stars from me if I could. Sometimes I get creeped out by the filth factor in the store. It is a wee bit grungy. I suppose that adds to the charm for some. I also wish they had a system where you could go there to rent the movie and then pop it back in the mail. They are a pretty big drive for me and so I invariably get my movies back late which makes me not want to rent too often. Awesome selection though. It is an amazing place to browse. Be prepared for a wait in line though. Just know that is pretty typical and don't get a bee in your bonnet about it. UPDATE: Well, I am happy about this. You can now have movies out for 7 days. Yee haw! That is good for me since I live so far away. They did raise the price but I don't care. The extra days are worth it for me. read more

This is a Seattle gem. The selection is overwhelming, so I asked a clerk for a fun campy action. (I figure they have this job b/c they live for questions like this) He was amazingly helpful! he walked me to all of these different selections, his recommendations were either stuff I already loved, or stuff I was excited to watch. Everyone should support this business, I would hate to see it disappear! read more

I have a netflix account, and even when I have a movie at my house to watch, I absolutely cannot resist taking a trip over to this place simply to be overwhelmed by the overflowing shelves. Granted, it is a tad more expensive than your average movie store, but it is worth it to be able to rent....pretty much any movie you've ever imagined to exist. They even have a copy of the ever-sought-after film "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe." As a person who loves both libraries and movies, this place is heaven. Quite literally. When I die, I want to haunt Scarecrow Video. read more

Virtually every DVD worth watching, and many more that aren't, are here. I found the organization of the titles to be somewhat idiosyncratic, but the staff is friendly, and there are the computers to search the database (and map your movie's location). You'll probably need to know what you're looking for (or at least have a pretty good sense of it), as the vast selection discourages impulsive browsing (or if not discourage, certainly make it less rewarding). Still, this video store is one of the absolute joys of living in Seattle, especially if you consider yourself any kind of movie fan. read more

Never change. Never leave us. I may not go to this place as often as I would like, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bring me great pleasure to know it's there. I make a point to go to Scarecrow once or twice a year. You should too. It is a treasure. read more

I don't think there is anything bad that could be said about this place. And I've spent a lot of time there, so I think I would know about the badness, were it to exist. It's the biggest video rental place in the history of the world.. or at least, of my life. Videos are arranged in such a manner that you always end up renting something you've never heard of before, and when they have their Used Inventory Sale, you can get such gems as "A Land Before Time en Espanol" for a quarter- A QUARTER, I say! Their adult selection is friggin awesome, and the one time I went in there and said "I really want to watch a good western" I got a twenty minute private tour through the Directors section by one of the employees and ended up with a list of about twenty movies I "needed" to see. They have an amazing video guide (a huge tome of a book), and one of the staff members wrote a pretty excellent unofficial guide to the tv show 'Firefly', which impressed the hell out of me. They also sponsor a ton of great film events, like All Freakin Night in Olympia, and different goings on at The Grand Illusion. Their blog (you can find it through their homepage) is a pretty good read as well. The only downside is that I am often too embarrassed to rent crappy new releases, because my simian brain wants to "impress" the video geeks who work there... or, if I can't impress them (I would imagine that would be pretty hard), then at least save myself from abject humiliation. So I usually end up going else where to rent horrible movies that I end up falling asleep while watching ('Sahara' anyone?) They also now have a "Two for the Price of One" rental night (Wednesdays) and have extended the length that movies can be checked out (I think everything other than new releases can be out for a week??). I've heard rumors that they will ship movies to people out of state as well, but no one I know has tried that out yet. read more

i am a fan of video stores. dvds. rentals. sales. i used to go to a place called dvd planet once a year. down in huntington beach- offa west hiway 39. over by the booze emporium. great store. dealt the death knoll when online sales and megastores choked them out. so. these are important things to me. these shrines to a loan at a reasonable rate. something concrete. you can read the package, and you can dig the whole thing. and this one has an insane collection. and they have a something weird section. For an out of towner, it is still a great stop. buy something and support. read more

HUGE selection at this store. As many others have said, this place carries literally everything. Everything! As in, there is not a single video that they do not have -- or won't track down for you. They've also published their own guide to movies which is exhaustive -- although not as exhaustive as their selection. Decent staff who will help you find what you're looking for. They're not necessarily always the friendliest bunch, and they do come across as a bit elitist, but I guess you don't have to be down to earth when you're Scarecrow Video and you have *everything*. read more

I will admit that scarecrow has a pretty damn nice selection they fall short in some key areas. When someone asks about where a popular movie is the clerk should probably know where it is or at least try to help instead of just saying they don't know and leaving you to wonder the store. If they can't help they should at least point out the terminal in the corner that lets you find things your self but they didn't. After asking the second time we were pointed in the right direction. The self service machine is brilliant but located upstairs in the corner and wasn't obvious to us anyways. Better promotion of this feature that is sorely missing from other stores would be a good idea. I haven't had the misfortune of running to their late fees yet but I read the renters agreement and they are simply insane. Charging the rental fee per day late is inexcusable. I can call in and renew it over the phone so why not just auto renew it if I am late instead of raping me? If I need a movie RIGHT NOW or netflix doesn't have I'll be coming back here but otherwise I'll stick with netflix. read more

Scarecrow Video is my absolute favorite place in Seattle... maybe even the world! I am a huge film buff and this place has everything I could ever ask for... and if they don't, they can get it. They also have movies screening through out the week in their screening room and they have a little cafe. They also let me film my web series there! Most of the people that work here are incredibly knowledgeable about film. If you're wondering why you should go here instead of download a movie, it's because you can obtain rare movies legally without much search effort and without the risk of downloading something else by mistake. It truly is a film buff's heaven and is one of the biggest reasons I love Seattle so much. It's the greatest place in the world! They have EVERYTHING! read more

The largest video rental store on the West coast and bragging right of all Seattle dwellers. This place is movie heaven. I love watching movies but my taste tend to run to rare, foreign and obscure films. So Blockbuster video just doesn't cut it for me. This place is the first I've ever seen with a full wall of foreign films from countries that I didn't even know made films! Not to mention the incredible sections of videos. Best horror/camp movie section I've ever seen. And a great variety of Japanese movies. I'm huge Takashi Miike fan and they had a great collection of his work. They also rent various zone DVD players, which when you rent some obscure foreign titles, you may need. This is a plus when you aren't in the market for a Japanese zone DVD player. Only drawback is late fees. So don't be late, they can be brutal. read more

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is one HUGE ................... selection (where'd you think I was going with that?) of international movies! And parking?! Yay! read more

Awesome place to rent videos. Long live the anti-Blockbuster. The selection of movies is great, with unique and hard-to-find titles. There are classics, dramas, foreign, adventure, TV shows, and.....porn. Yes, you can see the room with the XXX titles tucked away. Just ask. Prices are fair, the staff is very helpful and the location is great. read more

Why have I not moved in 19 years? Because this place opened and I can walk there. It rains in Seattle. A lot. Movies in theaters better be worth the price of the ticket. When in doubt, rent. And Scarecrow lets you rent. My son has a fascination for deep sea vent creatures. Scarecrow had a movie about them. And not just one. There were 5. There is a shelf of surfing movies, even Jack Johnson's. Remember Man from Atlantis? They've got him. Tony Jaa fan? Him too. Even without English. If you need a movie, a television show, or you don't know, go. The staff is great at offering suggestions based on what you might be in the mood for. read more

As pretty much everyone has noted, they have every movie you could possibly want. I've also bought a couple moviews from them that I couldn't find anywhere; in each case they tracked it down and had it to me within a few weeks. The staff knows a lot about film and can usually answer your questions and feed you a few bits of trivia while they're at it without having to reference their computers. There have been several times that I've been checking out a movie and an excited clerk will ask "have you seen [x]?"; if I haven't, I can almost always rely on them to be a solid recommendation. There are only two downsides to Scarecrow that I can think of (and, together, they explain why I use Netflix instead). 1, there is only one and it's in the University District. 2, they have steep late fees (and I'm not terribly responsible when it comes to returning videos). read more

Holy movie geek heaven!!!!!! Straight out of the gate how can you give this place less than 5 stars?!?! If you're looking for a movie that they don't have ... Chances are it doesn't exist. Seriously! I popped in looking for a movie ... Very obscure from 1989 ... Shag (if you haven't seen it ... It's a southern chic flick at its finest) ... And they had it! I went back a week later and they had what I was looking for. A friend asked me to check on a stand up comedy flick for him ... They had it. They seriously have it all. EVEN the INCREDIBLY hard to find Carolina loved Cheerwine soda. Let me tell you ... Stocking that alone, makes me a fan for life. In the nearly 2 years of living in Seattle I've not found a "dealer" for that awesomeness. They have over 117,000 titles and growing. Every genre you could ask for and friendly knowledgeable staff to boot. Word to the wise ... They don't play around with late fees. They are for real about it, BUT give 'em a call a day ahead and sometimes they may work with ya (or so I've heard). read more

I live way too far away now, but I lived in U-District for a couple years. I was a student back then, and they always had these 2-for-1 coupons in the Husky survival kit. I had a stack of these coupons, and rented from this place all the time. It's just as good as Blockbuster or Hollywood Video when it comes to new releases and older titles, albeit not as many copies of each of these. Where Scarecrow really shines is in their selection of non-mainstream categories, of which their selection is very diverse. I rented countless foreign films--Chinese, Korean, Japanese movies. It's sad because, since then, I haven't had convenient access to another video rental store like this. Granted I haven't really searched either, but as a result I've watched very few foreign movies since then. Also, having the convenience of a Blockbuster Online sub for the last 4yrs, that's where I get all my movies. I'm sure you already know that outside of mainstream movies and tv shows, Blockbuster's selection blows. read more

What can I say that hasn't been said...Scarecrow is the best video store in the city, without equal....sorry to all the rest, but come on, who can compete with the selection, the knowledge of the staff...more regions than I knew even existed...if you have yet to get a region free DVD player, do it now, yr missing out on ALOT, and guess what, Scarecrow sells them... I swear I don't work for them.... read more

A novelty video store with a wide range of videos. They have a deep knowledge of movies if you don't remember them by name and can likely help you find out which movie it is you are thinking of if you are having an issue remembering what movie it is you are looking for. read more

Awesome cinema store, may it last forever! If you want something rare they'll either have it or they'll find it. Special edition dvds and blurays you missed? They won't charge through the nose just because they've gotten rare. Whether you rent or buy, this is like the finest Rare Books Library but for movies! read more

They have everything here. I get dragged here frequently when we are in Seattle. We often don't rent anything, so I'm not sure why I have to go, but it's part of the Seattle ritual. For people like me, the draggee and not the dragger, it would be helpful to have a bench or chair or something for me to lounge in so I don't have to sit on the stairs. Opening the windows wouldn't hurt either, it's a bit crypt like in there. Still, if you love movies, it's the place to go. read more

This place is overwhelming at first because of their spectacular selection of videos. A little cluttered but fun. You could get stuck here looking around. Small free-surface lot for parking while at the store. read more

As one of my friends would say, I die!! This place is wall-to-wall video heaven! Of course, if you want one of the more obscure titles, make sure that you have a VCR. They have it all: horror, westerns, musicals, foreign, etc. If you come in here not knowing what you want, you may walk out with a handful of movies! read more

The store itself is 4 stars but gets the 5th for being independent. It's one of the pillars of the U-District "vibe". Scarecrow does have a huge collection and tons of unique stuff. If you and 10 friends are trying to pick a movie really late at night then this store is your best bet. Mostly I go here when I'm planning a big movie night. The staff is knowledgeable but likes to recomend some weird movies, not all of them fun for a party. Either way, be sure to come here when you don't know what you want since exploring is very adventurous. read more

I really like going in here for many reasons. 1. They have at least a couple movies from almost every country out there. 2. They have a section where movies are arranged by director. 3. They don't have different shelves for different genres, they have ROOMS. 4. There are two (albeit buggy) computers where you can search for the movie you want, and it tells you the section to look for. 5. They have horror movies separated by categories such as "stalker, zombie, ghost, etc." very convenient. read more

I'm a film snob (yes I said "film") and I find it impossible to believe this store would have any less than a five-star rating. If you can't find it and the employees are busy (usually every single one of them is busy, and for good reason), then use their handy-dandy computers to look up the info you need. If you can't figure out the computers, then use their stacks of books. If you still can't figure it out, wait at the empty end of the counter until someone can help you. They DO however ask for high deposits on extremely rare films, which is fine because they are, as I said, extremely rare... and anyone attempting to rent one of these extremely rare films should already be aware that they are going to need a deposit. It's a good place to go to rent off-the-wall stuff and dirty UK versions of clean US films. I don't know what I would do without this store. Sometimes I'll see Kin working and ask him for a recommendation. I usually always take his suggestion! They even have this deal where you can purchase a package of 10 rentals for 30 dollars and that saves you (what is it now?) 50 or 75 cents per rental. It even works as a renewal if you get a two-day rental and don't get a chance to watch the darn thing. read more

Movie Mecca. If you can't find a film here odds are you're not going to find it anywhere. They have an incredible selection. Love the space. 2-for-1 Wednesdays. Decent selection of DVDs for sale. Best video store ever. read more

This two floor multi room location is one of the reasons I persuaded film, television, and photography, because I knew Scarecrow Video would have it. From Dallas TX to Los Angeles CA to all the way up to here in Seattle WA it is one of the best Video stores on the west coast (I have been hunting for one to top it in 10 different western states for the past 20 years). It is even better than some of the Hollywood movie studio video libraries I have been to and put's many film school libraries to shame. I have also seen the transition from video tape to laser disc to DVD go seamlessly as they kept up with the latest home video technology (Streaming is next I hope). I have also seen many stars hiding out inconspicuously in the aisle (Courtney Love was a memorable customer in the 90's). The staff is very knowledgeable but are very task orientated so do not expect the same service you received at Hollywood Video or Blockbuster. There is also very little parking and those who do park usually are there for a couple of hours. Don't expect to get a New Release on the first week as there is only a limited amount (sometimes only 1). Wednesday is a 2 for 1 movie deal with some restrictions and most of the new or old release's you can buy cheaper than the department stores. But if they cannot find you title they will find it and get it. If they can find William Shatners made for TV movie 'The Horror at 37,000 Feet' they can more the likely find your movie. read more

Scarecrow, you my favorite bird!! Oooh, the shelves! This kitty likes to climb high!! read more

Watching 3-5 movies a week could make me a film geek or cinema nerd or it could make me an avid Scarecrow fan. All of the above? I don't live near Scarecrow and it can be a shlep, but it's worth it. I like obscure films and Netflix doesn't always have them, but Scarecrow does. It's especially good for teachers who want to find a film on people who rifle through the trash for food (The Gleaners) or you need Sesame Street in Hebrew. Who knew? Scarecrow did. read more

I love that this place even exists, in a Netflix-subscription era when video rental places are going the way of the dodo. I love that it's a small business and not a huge corporate place like Blockbuster or Hollywood used to be. I love that they have a ginormous collection of both newer, more mainstream stuff and really obscure stuff that only true movie geeks would know about, and everything in-between. I love that all their employees are friendly and helpful and NOT the condescending hipsters that - let's all just admit it here - we were kind of expecting to encounter the first time we walked into this place. The rentals are cheap, too - a few bucks to keep most things a whole week! But by god, do NOT return things late! How the videos are organized is kinda funky, and even though they have a computer to look locations up, you will probably end up having to ask someone for directions once in a while. read more

It's like an archive of every movie ever released on tape or disc. You can go in here on a mission to find a super-obscure movie (and most likely find it), or just wander around and discover half a dozen interesting-looking movies that you never heard of before. I have no gripes, even though I incur late fees almost every time I rent from here. (The smart thing to do would be to call in advance to extend your rental, but I always think I can return it in time.) Another cool thing is that when you buy a DVD from them, you get a free rental on your next visit. read more

I have rented some of the weirdest damn movies from this place. Keep up the good work! Good For: videophiles, obscure, japanime read more

Hands down, best video store in Seattle! I try to go here as much as possible and stay away from chain stores. The simple fact is that these guys know what they are talking about. They love film, love discussing it, and love busting each others balls about films they should be ashamed of liking or even sitting through. The collection is amazing and a bit overwhelming. But do not fear! Take your time in there and enjoy it! read more

Harry and the Hendersons! I thought I would never be able to share a childhood favorite with my 5th grade class... but these folks had the movie! Try and rent it anywhere else, you'll be sorry. By the way, I knew they had it without having to search every room in the store because I searched online. read more