How do you organize your Blu-ray Collection? (3 Viewers)

[EdReedFan20]

Clearly members have a lot of fun organising their collections. Not the same with downloads/streaming is it!

I sort my digital stuff the same way as physical (by studio) and am annoyed when not given the chance. Vudu for instance just allows you to sort it by title, purchase date, or most recently watched. iTunes for me is great until it unsorts my movies when a particular movie is sold in a new bundle. For whatever reason, the information in my movies (such as album title) is altered. For instance, right now, Finding Nemo and Up are part of a bundle called Finding Nemo/Up: Adventures with A Strange Pair to Faraway Lands. This is a new bundle, yet I've owned the movies individually much longer than that. It's annoying when I have to remove the album information, but once I do so, my movies are correctly sorted.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Clearly members have a lot of fun organising their collections. Not the same with downloads/streaming is it!

Fun, maybe for some, but it's chore and a PITA for me with so many discs.

 

[AshJW]

DVD and HD titles (HD-DVD + Blu-ray) are separated.

A-Z? By Studio? By Genre? By Actor?

I organize my titles, simply, from A-Z. Makes everything easier to find.

In general I too organize my tites from A-Z.

But three genres are so special that I had put them separately:
- Animation (from Disney's and such to Animes)
- Music films - first only musicals, later I decited to put all music related films in that shelf.
- Westerns - That is my favorite genre and the only one where DVDs and HD-DVDs/BDs stand together
These three of cause also organized from A-Z.

Documentations, special interest titles and music titles (no films) are also separated.

 

[Eric Vedowski]

A to Z, grouped by Movies (includes documentaries), TV shows, music (filed by artist), old home movies on DVD (via Costco) last.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I sort by genre, then alphabetically within each genre. I will sometimes append a "sub genre", such as "Hitchcock" or "Spaghetti Western", to the end of one of the genres if I have enough films to warrant such. This works best for me, because we will quite often be in the mood to watch something within a particular genre, and this makes it easier to browse the shelves that way. I mix my BD and DVD titles together, too, as I care more about the film than which format it's on.

 

[Kevin EK]

I have multiple sections, as Adam can attest. Too many discs to simply go A-Z with the entire lot. But each section is organized, usually by A-Z at a smaller scale.

I have a general section for Blu-ray, and another general section for DVD. Those are filed A-Z. I have separate sections for 3D, animation, sci-fi/fantasy, superheroes, documentaries, sports/theatrical performance, current TV programming, classic TV programming, music - all of which are filed A-Z in their own areas. There's a separate shelf for Star Trek programming, organized by story chronology and numerically by movie. The Bond movies are all kept together, organized by production order. Various movie series are kept together in production order (Matrix, Back to the Future, Harry Potter, Terminator). The big box sets are kept mostly down below as a separate idea. Several directors have their own sections (Spielberg, Lucas, Hitchcock, Coppola, Kubrick, my grandfather) and each of those are organized in production order. I keep a separate section for classic cinema of other directors, organized A-Z. And on the top shelves, I have the Criterions, separated between Blus and DVDs and each type organized A-Z. Because Criterion is of course, top shelf.

 

[Rodney]

I sort alphabetically by genre.
With Blu-ray I originally kept them separate from DVDs, and I have been breaking down the box sets and purchasing blank Blu-ray cases so they look better on the shelf.
After my last house move, I now have DVDs and Blu-rays mixed together.

 

[David_B_K]

Alphabetically, with no sections for genres, studio, etc. All alphabetically. At least for single titles. It's the only way I can find things. The one exception I made was that all my Buster Keaton films are filed under Keaton.Box sets are in a shelving unit with small shelves, so they are in whatever order that fits on the shelves.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

That's why I call mine a 'library' instead of a 'collection.' But if you lend, you have to be perfectly willing to let that one go, or replace it if you want to see it again any time soon. Even with trusted friends, it may be a while.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That's why I call mine a 'library' instead of a 'collection.' But if you lend, you have to be perfectly willing to let that one go, or replace it if you want to see it again any time soon. Even with trusted friends, it may be a while.

There are certain titles in my collection I won't loan out, for exactly that reason. Generally, anything that's still in print I'll loan out.

 

[titch]

Once my blu-ray collection exceeded 2000 titles, it started to become very unwieldy. I always kept my laserdiscs alphabetically but I found that this system made it hard to find a film that suited the mood for a gathering of friends. After all, I hardly ever watch films by myself. What does one choose when a triple bill is suddenly scheduled on the spur of the moment? A bit tricky trying to remember all the titles after a bit of refreshment! Besides, we never had arguments when everything was sorted in alphabetical order and a good argument about my way of sorting films is invariably the start of a most entertaining evening. This system has worked well for the last two years. The blu-rays are stacked on racks, consisting of eight shelves on each.

1) Criterion rack (with subdivisions for French and Japanese titles). The Criterion rack allows for no exceptions: if it is Criterion, it goes here. This rule has resulted in occasional moments of regret (see 5).

2) Horror/thriller/sci-fi/action-adventure rack (makes it easy to pick out something when my arthouse-hating friends come over). I dub this rack the "Oystein" rack because my friend Oystein once had a nervous breakdown when he watched a Jean-Pierre Melville film ("You call Army Of Shadows exciting?!", he asked me tearfully, as he was clearly expecting something more in the line of Inglourious Basterds). Since then, Oystein will only ever go to this section. He will very occasionally accept something from another rack, but it will have to be extremely funny or have Jack Nicholson or Clint Eastwood in it.

3) Classic films/Drama rack, sorted by period: 1902 (A Trip To The Moon) to 1950, then by each decade until 2000. Just about all the black and white films (not Criterion) have ended up in here. That's the rack I'll go to if I want Buster Keaton (classic), a classic western or something that has recently been playing theatrically (Dallas Buyers Club). Excellent system for when you want something from the '70's - but wait: did I put Death Wish in this rack, or on the horror/thriller/sci-fi/action-adventure rack? Arguments ensue! And why are all of Clint Eastwood's films here on the Classics/Drama rack, instead of the other one? Surely everyone would agree that one wouldn't put Dirty Harry on the same rack as the Bridges Of Madison County, or The Outlaw Josey Wales? Controversial! But very easy for when the third title on a triple-bill has to be decided upon. You want Double Indemnity or The Fly (the Vincent Price version)? Look no further! Think: "what would Oystein prefer most?" If he's over, then we want the David Cronenberg version in the horror section!

4) Animation rack (sorted by studio), with shelves for musicals, documentaries and non-English language titles and comedy. It really works having comedy by itself for mood. My friends can reasonably argue that the all comedy classics should be here but I argue that a comedy classic, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets, suits a different mood than Groundhog Day! Of course Some Like It Hot is on this one!

5) Rack for favourite auteurs: this is why one buys films, instead of streaming them. It's like looking through someone's record collection. You show me your favourite directors - the ones you that you watch every single good or bad film that they have made and we can bond. Hitchcock, Coen brothers, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam. It is very annoying that I have to keep the Criterion Hitchcock titles on a separate rack. And Kurosawa and Bergman should absolutely be on this rack, instead of the Criterion one but what can one do? I have space for many more directors but then I get worried that it could undermine the other racks. However, after writing this post, I think it's probably about time Clint Eastwood was given a shelf here.

I have no idea what will happen if the collection (perish the thought!) doubles. I will probably have to consult a librarian!

 

[Yorkshire]

By genre. From memory:

Action
Children's
Comedy
Drama
Horror
Musicals
Sci-Fi
Thriller
War
Westerns
Directors
Studios/Collections

Within those genres I sort alphabetically, apart from trilogies (etc) which are in release order, and the Directors section where the films are also in release order.

I keep Hitchcock and Bond on a different shelf, with films in the large boxes and films not in those boxes kept next to them.

Steve W

 

[CraigF]

^ Yeah, mostly like you. It must be common because you can get pre-printed plastic shelf dividers with those titles on them.

Exceptions: I do not have a Director's section, though I do keep all my director box sets, and my actor box sets, on separate shelves just because that shelving is better for boxes, and the racks a bit better for singles.

I do not have a Children's section. I have:
Fantasy (e.g. Harry Potter, LotR)
Comics (covers almost all the non-animated superhero stuff and a lot more these days)
Animated
which covers most of those.

Then there's:
Noir
Gang
Spy (yeah, the Bonds go here)
Classic
Music (not musicals)
Test/Demo
Documentary

And a few brand-specific:
Criterion
Fox Classics
Disney Treasures
Midnite Movies

Basically, if I have a lot of something, I make a new category. Strictly for easy finding, no particular logic. Obviously many categories overlap, like it's not hard to find a sci-fi/action/fantasy/thriller/drama...these hurt my brain, but I'll probably put it in sci-fi.

Oh yeah, just remembered: I split Drama, since there are so many, into:
Historical [Drama] (e.g. Gladiator, Braveheart, Cleopatra...)
Drama (regular)

Edit again: D'oh, forgot my biggest main section, TV, which is divided into:
American TV (gotta be >80% of the section)
British TV
Canadian TV