What is left of Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon?
One store, in Bend, Oregon, and it still works like a video store rather than a museum. Discs go out on rental, staff write up membership cards for walk-ins, and the shelves sit under the blue and yellow signage that used to face out from strip malls across the country.
The shop is not run by a corporation with a Blockbuster logo on its letterhead. It is an independently owned franchise whose owner pays to use the name, which Retail Dive described in November 2021 as one of the very few live uses of the trademark left.
Rentals are only part of the business. Branded shirts, hoodies and even branded beer do as much work as the discs, because most of the people walking in came for the photograph and the sign rather than a movie for the night.
General manager Sandi Harding ran the store through the years when every other Blockbuster closed, and she has been the brand's public face ever since, in news reports and in the documentary made about the store.
So the accurate answer to the question people type into Google is yes, Blockbuster is open, as long as they are willing to drive to central Oregon.
Who owns Blockbuster today?
The brand belongs to Dish Network, and Dish Network is part of 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 along with the brand itself.
Dish never rebuilt a chain out of that. Retail Dive reported in November 2021 that Dish licenses the name to apparel and games manufacturers and to the store in Bend, that blockbuster.com works mainly as a funnel pointing visitors toward Dish's own programming packages, and that Blockbuster gets no mention in Dish's 10-K filings.
Then the owner ran into trouble of its own. On June 30, 2026, Dish DBS Corporation and several of its subsidiaries filed prepackaged Chapter 11 cases, with holders of more than 88% of Dish DBS notes signed up to support the plan and the filing entities targeting an exit from bankruptcy before the end of the third quarter of 2026.
The television service kept running through it. "We are operating as usual throughout this process, delivering the same high-quality services that our customers expect," co-founder and chairman Charlie Ergen said in the statement announcing the filing in June 2026. Nothing in that announcement touched the license over the door in Bend.
How did more than 9,000 stores become one?
Blockbuster had more than 9,000 stores worldwide at its peak, about a decade before its retail arm was switched off, and the drop from that number to one happened in stages rather than in a single crash.
The 2010 bankruptcy took out the balance sheet. The Dish purchase in 2011 kept more than 1,700 doors open on paper, but Dish wound the estate down instead of running the stores.
On November 6, 2013, Dish said it would close the roughly 300 company-owned stores left in the United States and end the DVD-by-mail service, a decision that cost as many as 2,800 jobs and was finished by January 2014. "This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," Dish president and chief executive Joseph P. Clayton said at the time.
Everything left after that 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. The Alaska stores in Anchorage and Fairbanks closed in July 2018, which left Bend as the last Blockbuster in the United States, and a store in Perth, Australia closed in March 2019, which left Bend as the last one anywhere.
The chain that passed on buying Netflix ended as a single storefront. Its closest rival went further still: Hollywood Video left no store standing at all, and RadioShack came out of bankruptcy as a website with a licensing department.
Why did the Bend franchise survive?
Three things kept it open. It is a franchise, so it never depended on Dish's corporate strategy. It sits in a tourist town on a highway, so the foot traffic is not only local. And it leaned into being the last one instead of pretending the chain still existed.
Being last turned out to be the business model. "It was pretty exciting to know that we had outlasted everyone else," Harding told TIME in 2019, after the Perth closure made Bend the only Blockbuster left on earth. Visitors started arriving from other states and other countries to rent a disc they did not need.
Rumors that the store is closing circulate on social media every year or two, and the store and local outlets knock them down each time. The real risk has always been the one that closed the Alaska stores, which is the lease rather than the rentals.
Dish has little reason to pull the license. The name costs it nothing to sit on, the store generates free publicity for a trademark Dish valued at about $320 million in 2011, and the alternative is holding a mark with no visible commercial use at all.
Does the Blockbuster name turn up anywhere else?
In a few places, all of them licensed rather than operated. Retail Dive's November 2021 reporting found the name on apparel and games made under license, and blockbuster.com pointing visitors at Dish's own packages instead of at anything to rent.
Dish has also defended the mark. In November 2020, Dish counsel sent a cease and desist letter to Free Blockbuster, the volunteer project that stocks donated movies in repainted newspaper boxes, according to the same reporting.
What Dish has not done is grant new franchises, which is the mechanical reason Bend stays the last store rather than the first of a revival. Anyone who wants to open a Blockbuster storefront in 2026 cannot buy the right to do it.
The 2026 restructuring does not change that picture on its face. It reorganizes debt at a satellite television company that happens to own a video rental trademark it does not use.
Where to find one today
There is no Blockbuster to shop in outside Bend, so what circulates is the paperwork and the plastic: clamshell rental cases, laminated membership cards, drop-box and aisle signage, and the occasional store standee. Condition and store origin drive the price, cases and cards sit at the cheap end, and reproduction membership cards are common enough that clear photographs matter. Etsy is the sensible place to look, because sellers there date and photograph the pieces: browse Blockbuster memorabilia on Etsy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Blockbuster stores are left in 2026?
One. The Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon is the only store left in the world, a position it has held since a store in Perth, Australia closed in March 2019. The chain had more than 9,000 stores worldwide at its peak.
Can you still rent movies from Blockbuster?
Yes. The Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon still rents discs and still signs up new members, and it is the only place in the world where a Blockbuster rental is possible. It has held that status since March 2019, when the store in Perth, Australia closed.
Does Dish Network still own Blockbuster?
Yes. Dish Network has held the Blockbuster brand since winning the company's assets at auction on April 6, 2011 with a bid valued at about $320 million, and it licenses the name to the Bend store and to merchandise makers. Dish Network is part of EchoStar, and its Dish DBS unit filed prepackaged Chapter 11 cases on June 30, 2026.