You Can Get Ryan Reynolds' Just Friends On DVD For $5, So Why Is It $150 On VHS? I Did Some Digging

It isn’t that uncommon to go to a thrift store and find a wall of old VHS tapes for next to nothing. I mean, there’s an entire subculture of VHS collectors who’ll amass 10, 100, or 1,000 copies of iconic ‘90s movies like Titanic and Speed, and I don’t imagine that venture has them spending an ungodly amount of cash for their personal project.

Well, the same can’t be said about Just Friends, the 2005 friends-to-lovers romantic comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart. While you can pick up a DVD copy for $5 or rent it with an Amazon subscription or at other digital retailers for less than that, a VHS copy will cost you around $150 by the time it’s all said and done.

I recently learned about a strange collector phenomenon and why it’s making this Ryan Reynolds rom-com a big-ticket item in the VHS community.

I Stumbled Upon A Copy Selling For $150 On Facebook Marketplace And Couldn’t Believe My Eyes

This story begins where most crazy online purchases are found today: Facebook Marketplace. While scrolling through random movie listings, I stumbled upon a copy of Just Friends that cost $150. At first glance, I thought it was a typo. Clearly, someone wouldn’t be charging that much for a forgettable 2005 movie? Was it an error, and they meant to type in $1.50? However, that wasn’t the case, and I soon found out that this wasn’t the only copy going for that much.

I got on eBay not long after and found a “Buy It Now” listing for $160 plus shipping and handling. There is another copy that’s around $100 cheaper, but it’s the Korean release, and it still costs $62 plus shipping and handling. However, there was also a copy that went for $185 back in 2022, per VHS Collection Hero. That’s like a year and change of Mint Mobile.

Like, what is going on here?

It Turns Out Just Friends Was The Final Comedy Releaesd On VHS

So, why does Just Friends cost so much on VHS? Well, according to Legacy Box, the rom-com was the final comedy released on the format back in 2006. With so many collectors wanting to have the “final movie of [insert genre] on VHS,” not to mention the rarity of the tape, this thing has gotten quite pricey and highly sought after over the past 19 years.

This whole journey led me to discover that there’s an entire group of VHS collectors who are willing to pay top dollar for those late-stage VHS tapes from 2004 to 2005. This includes everything classic book-to-screen adaptions like Pride & Prejudice to sci-fi action flicks like Doom, and A History of Violence, which was the final Hollywood film to be released on VHS back in 2006, according to Far Out magazine. I found copies of that Viggo Mortensen movie, which was directed by body horror great David Cronenberg, for as much as $500 on eBay, which is straight up bonkers!

If you want to go off and spend $150 to $500 on a nearly 20-year-old VHS tape, be my guest. However, both of these movies are routinely available for a few bucks.