Is Blockbuster still open in 2026?
Yes, in the narrowest possible sense. Exactly one Blockbuster store is still trading, in Bend, Oregon, and it has been the only one left on earth since March 2019.
Everything corporate is long gone. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010, and the last company-owned stores were shut by 2014. What survived was a single franchise that kept paying to use the name over the door.
The Bend shop is not a display case. It still rents discs, still sells merchandise, and still signs up new members. In October 2025 it threw a street party for the 40th anniversary of the chain's founding, held on October 18 outside the store, with an 80s costume contest, karaoke with a live band, and a share of the day's rental and merchandise takings going to the Humane Society of Central Oregon, The Bulletin reported.
So the accurate answer to the question people type into Google is this: Blockbuster is open, if you are willing to drive to central Oregon.
Who owns Blockbuster now?
The brand belongs to Dish Network, and Dish Network belongs to EchoStar.
Dish won Blockbuster's assets at a bankruptcy auction on April 6, 2011. The winning bid was valued at about $320 million, and after adjustments for available cash and inventory Dish expected to hand over roughly $228 million in cash at closing, according to the announcement it filed with the SEC. The package included more than 1,700 store locations, the brand, and the distribution channels attached to it.
Dish never rebuilt a retail chain out of that. Retail Dive reported that Dish said in November 2021 it licenses the Blockbuster brand to apparel and games manufacturers and to the store in Bend, and that blockbuster.com works mainly as a funnel pointing visitors toward Dish's own programming packages. The same reporting noted that Blockbuster gets no mention in Dish's 10-K filings, and that Dish counsel sent a cease and desist in November 2020 to Free Blockbuster, the volunteer project that stocks donated movies in repainted newspaper boxes.
The parent company changed again at the end of 2023. EchoStar completed its merger with Dish Network on December 31, 2023, with Dish surviving as a wholly owned subsidiary. Each share of Dish Class A stock converted into 0.350877 EchoStar shares. The combined company trades on Nasdaq as SATS and is run out of Englewood, Colorado.
How 9,000 stores became one
Blockbuster once had 9,000 stores worldwide, in the blue and yellow livery that sat in more or less every American strip mall. The collapse from that number to one took roughly a decade, and it happened in stages rather than in a single crash.
The 2010 bankruptcy took out the balance sheet. The Dish purchase in 2011 kept about 1,700 doors open on paper, but Dish closed and sold down the estate rather than running it, and the last company-owned locations were gone by 2014. After that, every remaining Blockbuster was a franchise, an independent operator writing a check for the right to use the sign.
Those went one at a time, usually over rent. Blockbuster stores in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska, closed in July 2018, which left Bend as the last Blockbuster in the United States. A store in Perth, Australia, closed in March 2019, and Bend became the last one anywhere. The chain that passed on buying Netflix ended as a single storefront run by people who know their regulars by name.
That arc is not unique. RadioShack and Circuit City both went through the same sequence of bankruptcy, asset sale and brand-in-a-drawer afterlife, but neither left a working store behind as a landmark.
What the last Blockbuster actually sells today
Rentals still happen. The store carries about 26,000 movies, and staff sign up new membership cards daily for locals and for visitors who flew in from other countries, according to The Bulletin's reporting in October 2025. The most-rented title is still "The Goonies," helped along by the fact that it was shot in Astoria, up on the Oregon coast.
The rest of the business is merchandise. The store sells branded shirts, hoodies and even branded beer, and that side of the counter is what keeps the lights on rather than the disc rentals.
The customer base is a nostalgia audience, and the store knows it. Visit Bend's own surveys show visitors to the store skew older and remember life before streaming, which is a polite way of saying the shop sells a memory as much as a movie.
General manager Sandi Harding has run the place since 2004 and has become the public face of the brand. Her line to visitors is straightforward. Renting a disc is the point, and buying a T-shirt on the way out is what makes renting the disc possible.
Why this store survived when the rest did not
Three things kept Bend open. It is a franchise, so it never depended on Dish's corporate strategy. It sits in a tourist town, so the foot traffic is not only local. And it leaned into being the last one instead of pretending the chain still existed.
The tourist angle turned out to be the business model. Back in March 2019, when the Perth closure made Bend the last store in the world, Harding told reporters the store had become a tourist attraction and was not closing anytime soon. That was seven years ago and it still holds.
Rumors that the store is shutting circulate on social media every year or two, and every time the store and local outlets knock them down. The one real risk has always been the same one that killed the Alaska stores, which is the lease rather than the rentals.
Dish, for its part, has no reason to pull the license. The brand costs it nothing to sit on, the store generates free publicity for a name Dish paid $320 million for, and the alternative is owning a trademark with no visible use at all.
Where to find Blockbuster stuff today
The store runs its own online shop, so you can buy Blockbuster-branded merchandise without going to Oregon. That is the only retail channel officially licensed to use the name.
Beyond that, the secondary market carries the physical leftovers. Clamshell rental cases, laminated membership cards, drop-box signage and store display standees all turn up regularly on eBay.com. Prices swing hard by title and condition, so check completed listings rather than asking prices before you bid, and be aware that reproduction membership cards are common.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you still rent movies from Blockbuster?
Yes, at the Bend, Oregon store, which carries about 26,000 movies and issues new membership cards to walk-in customers. It is the only place in the world where a Blockbuster rental is still possible, and it has held that status since March 2019.
How many Blockbuster stores are left?
One. Blockbuster once had 9,000 stores worldwide. The Alaska stores in Anchorage and Fairbanks closed in July 2018, and the Perth, Australia store closed in March 2019, leaving Bend alone.
Does Dish Network still own Blockbuster?
Yes. Dish bought Blockbuster's assets at auction on April 6, 2011 with a bid valued at about $320 million, and it still licenses the brand to the Bend store and to merchandise makers. Dish Network has been a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar since December 31, 2023.