DVD R types?

Ok I just picked up a DVD RW drive last weekend,ive been trying to burn off and back up some of my moves but all have failed.

The DVD type I use is -,but I was told + was better for movies. Could this be why all my burns have failed?

I used -R and my DVD player was fine with them. As far as + and - go, all I can suggest is to check the specs of your DVD player. I've seen at least one that only took one of the two.
But there could be a million reasons why your burns failed.

You can check if your discs have at least been authored correctly by playing them back on the same computer you used to burn them - that will at least tell you the disc is readable and doesn't contain garbled or incomplete data. As for playing on standalone players, +R and -R have around the same level of compatibility (though not necessarily on the same players) - estimates are around 80-90% compatible with players currently in use. Older players are generally worse at reading recordable/re-recordable discs. I found +R/RW worked nicely in my PS2, but barely at all in my old Samsung player (which I've since replaced with a Pioneer recorder that reads just about anything you can throw at it). Even the cheaper DVD players available today are more compatible with (re)recordable DVD formats than a lot of older players, and many are promoted as compatible with the various -/+ R/RW formats. If your player is more than about three years old, consider buying a newer one (even just a cheap one). You might also want to try different brands of recordable media - in this case, the cheap brands are generally not as good as named brands, so the money you might save on cheaper discs ends up in the trash anyway.