Picked up Time Bandits and Silence of the Lambs in November of 1999 from reel.com.

I purchased Seven Samurai (#2) and Beauty and the Beast (#6) at the same time very early 1998. The last one purchased was Ikiru (#221). I only have about 30 of them.

I think my first was probably the Royal Tenenbaums. I saw it at Blockbuster for $9.99 pre-viewed and thought it was a steal. nowadays its pretty easy to come by.

seven samurai!

I only actually own two.... my first was "Silence of the Lambs" and my second one is "My Own Private Idaho"

Chasing Amy followed by Royal Tenenbaums and Traffic.

I bought four at the same time. Braveheart, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Exorcist (the version you've never seen), and Goodfellas in 2003. Hell of a late start.

I only have 84 Dvds, which I actually thought was a large collection.. until I went on the internet and found Dvdtalk.com and saw YOU peoples ogre-sized collections! Nice site.

Silence of the Lambs CC and Sid and Nancy CC.

Only have 2:

My 1st was Chasing Amy, the 2nd was The Rock.

had no idea what Criterions were when I got them

LD: Seven (cost me ~$120 back then -eek- )

DVD: Seven samurai

Laserdisc: Not sure, I got the Vengeance Is Mine directly from Criterion (they would also sell directly back then, even to overseas. Got an official Criterion T-Shirt with printed signatures from the directors they'd released films by as a gift), and I already had one or two already.
DVD: I had Seven Samurai (v1), Beauty and the Beast (v1), Hard Boiled, The Killer all on preorder, so the one that was actually released first.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. My girlfriend bought it for me after a fight.

I bought Battle of Algiers, Spartacus, and Slacker at my first big DDD sale.

Brazil: CC. My girlfriend bought it for me.

I don't remember, maybe chasing amy.

The Third Man followed by 8 1/2 and The Seventh Seal (regretfully, haven't even watched it yet).

I got the three of them for a total of $100 CND... and that's on EBAY. They're too expensive for me, which is too bad since there's so many of them I want (mostly everything Kurosawa).

The Third Man in 2004

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums

Flesh For Frankenstein #27
Have since bought:
Man Bites Dog #165
Naked Lunch #220
Videodrome #248
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou #300

This is Spinal Tap

Blade Runner

seven samurai

All these Criterion threads got me curious how my collection has grown this year. At the beginning of the year, I decided I was going to try to get the entire collection, not because of the spine numbers, but because the films rarely disappoint.

I took a look at DVDProfiler this morning, and as of 12/31/2004, I had a whopping 16. Jumping forward to my most recent addition on 10/11, I'm up to 159.