Life in Germany: Movie rentals in Hamburg

This is the video shop where we do our movie rentals. We don't do it often as it is very expensive and the system they have is strange, not to say a rip off. I don't know how it is in other cities in Germany, but here in Hamburg and particularly in this shop (there are several in the city), they charge you "pro Kalendar Tag" (per calendar day).

We did not understand at the beginning what that was and as you only pay when you give back the movie, we just understood one day later. Put it this way: if you rent the movie today at 11:00 and you give back the movie at 20:00 you pay one day. Fair enough. But if you give back the movie tomorrow, you pay two days. If the rental costs 1 euro and 80 cents, and you rent the movie today and you bring it back tomorrow, you end up paying 3 euros and 60 cents. Don't even think on keeping the film for long.

On the positive side, you do find all kinds of films and movies. Your average Hollywood movies, the classic films, TV series (careful, they don't have all the series and not all the seasons), European films and German movies as well. And all of them, but the German ones, are in the original version. When you are lucky enough, you can get a German movie with subtitles in English.

Ask beforehand how the rental works. And, of course, you need a "perso", or Personalausweis,
(ID card) to be able to get a film. I don't know if they will accept a foreign passport as a valid ID.