I found that you can get dvd players that play any region discs for under €50, if you look for the unknown brands. These manufacture them region-free and sell them as such. This is perfectly legal, even if the studios don't like it.

Blu-rays is another matter. These can only be made to play discs from different regions by hardware modification. In that case you can buy a (major brand) player from a store where they modify the device before shipping it to you. This costs about €100 more than the normal price of the same model, so you end up paying €200-400. It will be region-free for dvd's as well.

But then you finally have freedom to buy the discs where you want. Especially since many films only have us releases nowadays, this was worth it.

Of course, converting it with handbrake is free...