Best video store

"We want quirky and comprehensive!" Phoenix readers seem to exclaim with their choice for best place to rent their flicks. Classics, documentaries, foreign films, and all the indies: Brookline's Cinemasmith delivers. An inventory of 20,000 videos and 3000 DVDs includes a wide-ranging selection of foreign, hard-to-find, and independent titles, as well as special spotlight sections. Recently those included In Memoriam, honoring a few personalities no longer with us, like John Ritter, Charles Bronson, Johnny Cash, and Leni Riefenstahl; the American Film Institute Top 100 Films; Sensual Sinema; and French Directors, not to mention the staff's informed picks. And the store's Web site offers essays on film, like Karen "Mal" Malme's engaging take on the history of funny females in film.

Like Cinemasmith, Hollywood Express in Cambridge and Somerville specializes in classic, cult, and hard-to-find films, as well as Tinseltown hits. A membership gives you access to more than 100,000 movies, and allows you to rent and return at any of the three (soon to be four, when the new Davis Square store opens) locations. And Hollywood Express is in line with the Brattle Theatre, chosen by Phoenix readers as best big-screen art-house: the Porter Square location has a section featuring movies that the Brattle screens, and when you present a Brattle ticket stub, you get two rentals for the price of one. The store offers an array of other coupons, deals, and specials, plus a free newsletter produced and written by the staff. Film buff or occasional Friday night-renter, chances are Hollywood Express has what you're looking for, and probably what you didn't even know you wanted.

Cinemasmith, 283 Harvard Street, Brookline, (617) 232-6637. Hollywood Express, 1740 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 497-2001; 765 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 864-8400; 14 McGrath Highway, Somerville, (617) 628-6000; coming soon, 238 Elm Street, Somerville.