Ransom, the 1996 thriller starring Mel Gibson, made over $300 million when it came out, but long out of print and not streaming anywhere.

Yesterday, I wrote a story about how one of my favourite Thanksgiving movies, Dutch, seems to be nearly impossible to find nowadays, with the out-of-print DVD and Blu-ray pretty pricey and the movie not streaming at all on any service (although some readers noted it used to be on HBO Max). I’ve written at length about movies that are hard to find, but just how popular some of the missing titles are shocks me. It’s gotten to the point where niche titles, or at least ones with some kind of cult behind them, are often easier to find than formerly popular ones. Consider the fact that just today, Michael Mann’s The Keep, which never even got a DVD release, has just been announced for 4K Blu-ray.

I was pondering this very thing when I received a text from a friend of the site, Paul Shirey, who used to be our editor-in-chief back in the day. He noted that yesterday he wanted to watch the 1996 movie Ransom, with Mel Gibson (and directed by Ron Howard), but was unable to find it anywhere. Indeed, a quick search shows the movie isn’t streaming anywhere, nor is it available for digital purchase. It was released on Blu-ray around 2011 (for its 15th anniversary), but it’s long out of print, and it seems the easiest (and cheapest) way to see it now is via the old DVD.

While Gibson’s stock has diminished in recent years, it can’t be denied that the man made his share of classics. Thankfully, many of them are pretty easy to find. But Ransom, which was phenomenally successful when it came out, seems to have vanished. That’s pretty wild, considering it made over $300 million worldwide in 1996 dollars. It’s a famous movie, with Gibson’s “Give me back my son” line being a famous catchphrase in the era. 

If you don’t remember Ransom, it’s a pretty gritty thriller in which Gibson plays a multi-millionaire whose son is kidnapped. When his attempt to pay the ransom fails, he instead uses the money they requested as bounty on their heads, much to the shock of his wife, played by Rene Russo. Gary Sinise memorably played the movie’s bad guy, and it’s easily the most violent movie Ron Howard ever directed. 

Many view it as a classic, which makes the fact that it’s so hard to find pretty puzzling. About a decade or so ago, it would have been unthinkable that a movie as popular as Ransom would be so hard to see unless you pirate it. But, nowadays, where studios often let their biggest hits sit on the shelf gathering dust (for whatever reason), it seems to be a thing. Some may say it’s because Disney, who owns the rights, may not want to be associated with Gibson, but I doubt that has anything to do with it. They also have the rights to another classic Mel Gibson movie, Signs, and that movie is everywhere.

What other movies are surprisingly hard to find? Let us know in the comments!