While I will admit it's a little OCD, and definately fuels the fire to "fill in the gaps," they just tend to look better that way. There are definately periods when the covers and spines kind of "go together." This is especially prevelant with the first 50 and the all-black spines (with the exception of the rogue "A Night to Remember").

Once I organized my DVDs alphabetically within genre, life became a lot less complicated for me and my family. We have about 1200 DVDs and we can find any movie in about 2 seconds. Nothing ever gets lost, and browsing is so much easier. Current genres are Drama, Action/Adventure, Romantic Comedy, Comedy, Musicals, Animated, Westerns, Sci-Fi, Crime/Noir, Suspense, Horror, Sports, Kid Stuff, TV. Collectible box sets are usually used as DVD bookends or displayed on the top shelves.

Alphabetical by studio, and then alphabetical within the studio.
Anchor Bay A-Z
Alpha A-Z
Blue Underground A-Z, and so on. Do this because I like matching spine designs to be together. Special series within a studio I keep together(Midnight Movies, Western Legends, etc.). Box sets on top shelves and spread throughout the room. Snapcases kept seperate but organized the same.

Just recently re-organized mine from alpha for that very reason.

I separate by TV box sets from movies...but both are in alphabetical order

autobiographically.

Autobio...CRUD! was beat by one post!

AFI Top 100
Oscar BP winners since 1965
Kevin Smith
Hitchcock
Spike Lee
TV
Music
Kids
Superhero
The Rest Alpha

I currently have them seperated in 3 cabinets in many groups and I labeled each shelf they are on with a label maker like it was a video store.

Horror
Sci/Fi
Action/Adventure
Crime/Drama
Lucasfilm
LOTR
Animation
Family
BBC shows
Tv Series
Kevin Smith
Q.T.
John Carpenter

Here is where my OCD takes over:

By Studio - in catalogue order,

Then I alphabatize the studios and place the in theri spotl

EXAMPLE: The Woody Allen Collections is under the MGM umbrella, so I sort them by catogue number within that catagory. So within the MGM groupof DVDs, there is PRINCESS BRIDE, ANNIE HALL, SLEEPER, MANNAHATTAN, INTERIOR, THE BISHOPS WIFE, etc.

By genre, alphabetically.

Criterions separate shelf, by spine number.

TV shows get their own shelf and again alpa.

Dvds with fancy packaging (usually those from Japan and Europe): separate cabinet to be displayed in all their glory. They're the only ones not displayed in alphabetical order.

Alphabetically - Movies
Alphabetically - Television
LOTR Trilogy
Star Wars - Both Trilogies

Pretty much the same way my DVD Aficionado listing is:

Criterions by spine
Foreign by country
Genres grouped together and alpha by title
TV grouped by genre, but not alpha at all. *shrug*

Numerically by their UPC numbers.

stacks and stacks all over the place.

all my dvds are chronological by u.s. cinema release date

Randomly.
Currently I have dvd's stuck in:
* the bottom shelf [with doors] of a bookcase [some big box sets/oddly shaped things go here, Monty Python, Nightmare on Elm Street, Simpsons S1-3, Akira tin, etc.]
* the top shelf of same bookcase for more box sets [Matrix LE, Excel Saga Imperfect, Freaks and Geeks yearbook]
* a nice dvd shelf that has doors and a shelf on the bottom. Apart from trying to have series together, and anime on one row, they're pretty much tossed in at random. I *did* have one shelf being my 'on deck/next to watch', but that didn't last long.
* another narrow shelf that has 4 shelves of PS2 games and a top shelf of currently-watching DVD cases.
* some square box shelves mounted on the wall in a staggered fashion; these hold mostly anime and tv series.
I do keep DVDProfiler up to date, and sort by purchase date.

Movies - Alpha
TV - Alpha

However, when I get to the first title in a series, I put the rest of the titles in said series in chronological order after that. For example, Night of the Living Dead goes under 'N", with Dawn, Day, Land folloing that.

I've been considering a move to genre, just because I'm getting bored, but I have trouble deciding where I should put some titles. For example, movies like Adaptation or Donnie Darko that could be said to span multiple genres.

Films are organized alpha... Tv is sadly in a state of organized random...

I know a guy on another forum that does that, too. He's from Canada and...hey, wait a minute...

Alphabetically works fine for me. I have no problems finding a disc

I'm really weird with mine. I organise mine by actors.

So like I have all my Jim Carey films together then Eddie Murphy etc..

I use those examples because I have the most films by them.

Animation, I use the Dewey Decimal System.

The rest are alphabetical by the last name of the key grip.

my boyfriend likes to put amaray movies with the boxsets and tv boxsets separately. he's got a thing for his DVDs. he can tell when i clean the DVDs. oh yea and some DVD sets we don't have in the case so we put that on a separate shelf. LOL

-Kat

Everything alphabetical except for TV stuff which is separated. Given I only have Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Ken Burns Civil War and some Sponge Bob stuff, that's pretty minimal.

I hope that guy who alphabetizes by the director's last name was kidding...

I dunno, if I had a bigger collection i could see giving that a try.