DVD region information—watch DVDs from the UK or USA.

Information on how to view DVDs from outside of your region—Region One, Two, from UK, North America.

DVD Region Workarounds–The Easy Way to Watch DVDs From Other Countries.

Don't be daunted by the fact that the DVD you so wish to watch is from another region (from the UK if you are in North America, or vice-versa). There's still a way to view these foreign DVDs, and it needn't cost you very much.

Both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk will ship internationally, so don't hesitate to order that DVD you covet! If you have an existing account with either online Amazon site (.com or co.uk), you should be able to log into the other one by using your existing username and password.

Playing the DVDs:
Now you must find a way to play the DVD—your home DVD player very likely won't play a foreign disk as-is, so you've got to coax it along. While this is not 100% guaranteed to work with every model of DVD player, odds are that with a little tinkering with your DVD remote, you can make your player accept all DVD disks—even ones from outside its "region." (Some common "regions" are: Region One: North America, Region Two: United Kingdom.)

DVD hack links (with instructions on how to program your existing DVD player to accept disks from all regions):

regionfreedvd.net (They probably just use the hacks listed in the links above to make these players region-free, but if you don't want the hassle of doing it yourself, they might be worth a shot.)
dvdbuyingguide.com Information about all things region-free DVD!

As you can clearly see, there's a great interest in region-free DVD players, so information on how to tweak your existing DVD player (or buy a player which is already set up to play all regions) shouldn't be difficult to find.

Region-Free the quick, cheap and painless way:
Hesitant to tinker with your existing DVD player? Another painless option is to simply play the DVD on your computer's DVD player, using the region-free VLC Player. This software is free, and is available for most computer systems—Mac, Windows, Linux, and others. I watch my Region 2 DVDs on my Mac Mini with no problems!

One caution, though—you must ignore your computer if it asks you to "switch" the region settings. VLC Player won't ask that of you—which is why you want to use it—but sometimes a computer's default DVD player pops up when a DVD is inserted in the drive and asks you if you want to switch to another region to accommodate the foreign DVD. DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING. There's no need. Just stick with VLC for all foreign DVDs and you'll never be expected to make any changes to your computer's settings. (Your computer has a set limit on how many times it can have its settings changed. After that number is exceeded, it is stuck with the latest region setting, and nothing—nothing—can force it to switch back again. It is hard-wired into the computer.)

The cost of ordering foreign DVDs—it isn't necessarily expensive!
I cannot speak for those in the UK or elsewhere who want to order DVDs from North America, but I can report that all the purchases I've made to Amazon.co.uk have been reasonably-priced—even with postage included. For instance, I recently ordered Shakespeare ReTold from Amazon.co.uk, which is a two-DVD set with four 90-minute movies. The price, (including shipping all the way to California) was £14.99. This roughly converts to $26.00 in US dollars, which is really not bad at all! The three-hour miniseries Sparkhouse cost me £13.28 (including shipping), which converts to approx. $23.13. Quite reasonable!