BobSchlapowitz

Alphabetically.

I keep my TV Seasons separate. They're alphabetical, as well.

But my wrestling DVDs are kept seperate, they are NOT alphabetical. They are in chronological order by date of the event.

tonyc3742

Alphabetically by title (not counting The or A, of course) with some room for blending...all three "Lord of the Rings" together, all five "Star Wars" (I don't have the sixth/third), etc. I can't go as detailed as 'director' or 'year' or 'star', the only other thing I could do is separating Animated/Live Action.
Two shelving units from Best Buy, running across then to the next shelf then to the next bookcase.

SethDLH

I put #s before the As. I only have about 10 movies starting with a # though, so its not hard to keep track of.

Evad

Mine are usually in order of purchase, in a box, grouped with other boxes and in yet another box. Many others are either still in original shipping boxes (say from DeepDiscount) or in original bag from store with the receipt stuck to the plastic shrinkwrap.

Actually stopped buying dvds as I never get around to watching what I have.

toddly6666

My collection is shelved with no "order" - total random mish-mosh. Trilogy-type dvds are kept next to each other though.

hitman tommy

Like most others I go alphabetical. With a few exceptions.
-The Bond movies are in order of release and filed under J.

-Jason goes to Hell, Jason X, Freddy Vs. Jason and His Name was Jason are filed in F, behind the rest of the Friday the 13th movies.

My Blu rays, HD Dvd's, TV Seasons and Wrestling are all separate from my main collection.

Travis McClain

Sweetness! I've wondered how this works!

Yes, but I'm the kind of person that would be bugged by such an inconsistency. For that matter, even numerical order presents issues. For instance, DVD Profiler tells me 1941 comes before 9 to 5. But, of course, 9 precedes 1941 numerically. I elected to go by the value of the first number in the title, in which case 9 to 5 is actually (I believe) the first title on the left on the first shelf.

I did this for a while, but decided that if I was going to alphabetize the library, it should be done throughout. I have Star Trek: The Motion Picture shelved between Star Trek: The Animated Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete First Season; the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is actually in reverse chronological order; Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is in the middle of that series.

This brings up another organizational curiosity: The boxed set. This is actually why I quit trying to group DVD's by director or any other title-specific method. For instance, what do you do with The Adventures of Indiana Jones? At first glance, you might simply take out the three movies and put them in their chronological order if you organized a Steven Spielberg section, but that leaves the bonus features disc and the box itself to figure out. I gave up, and now it's alphabetized with the A's (for "Adventures").

But what do you do with those odd assortment collections? For instance, we have one that contains four unrelated movies: Blood River, Deadly Drifter, The River Niger and The Death of a Prophet. There is no comprehensive title for the box; the only other text simply informs you that these four movies star at least one of the following three actors: James Earl Jones; Morgan Freeman; Louis Gossett, Jr. I've got it under "B" because Blood Tide is the first title listed.

I know there are other odd collections (especially some of those Double Feature pairings) that have to drive organizers insane. What are some of yours, and how have you handled them?

RobCA

I have several of those:

Camp / Saved!
Capote / In Cold Blood
Fear / The Watcher / Raising Cain

etc., etc.

I just alphabetize them by the first film in the set.

Also, as others have mentioned, I always spell out numerical titles for both movies and TV shows, and I also put sequels with their originals, i.e. The Dark Knight is after Batman Begins, which is after the earlier Batman films, which are chronological rather than alphabetical.

Bluth54

Mine are in alphabetical order with a few exceptions, like the Bond films, the Die Hard films, the Indiana Jones films and the Godzilla films.

Trevor

I have over 100 box sets or double feature sets, like the Film Noir sets, Warner Brothers actor sets, Midnite Madness, etc.

Right now, all the box sets are in a separate section. But I sometimes think about opening them up and filing them alphabetically.

This thread is giving me a headache, as I slowly realize that I'll never have my DVDs organized "properly".

smashthesymbols

I've got a few of those and I always just put them at the end of the movies in their own section. There's no particular order to them, other than trying to keep similar items together. For instance all the MGM Midnite Movie double features are together or similar genres like a Ben Stiller set and the Mel Brooks set are together.

LickTheABCs

Organization? Pfft. What's that?

No, seriously. I have movies all over the place. In fact, I'm pretty sure I found a couple of TV sets sitting in the magazine rack next to my toilet.

jjcool

The more I read in this thread, the more I realize that I really do not adhere to as strict an alphabet as I thought. My Indy box set is filed under "I" for Indiana Jones. I dont really care that the boxset is called "The Adventures of Indiana Jones". If I'm looking for Temple of Doom, I know where to find it, under "I". The Fast and fursious films I have are under F in sequence. Star Trek films are under "Star Trek" in release order. But Die hard 1-3 are in numerical order together, and Die hard 4 is with the other steelbooks in that section, under "L".
The x-men films are filed under "xmen" in release order.

Travis McClain

The fun thing about alphabetizing the way I do is that when anyone else browses the library, things aren't necessarily where they would expect to find them. Imagine the curiosity it must provoke to see The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection under "C" between Christmas with the Kranks and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian!

Also...you actually did make that your signature, and I for one applaud it!

BUZZKILLER

think my last count was 2,711

up top... tv series/box sets/movie collections of more than 3 parts as long as the spines match.. alphabetically...

under that... individual dvds.. alphabetical...

currently in a box.. all kids movies.. formerly alphabetical, now a big unorganized mess..

on separate shelf...
blu-ray/hd-dvd box sets up top...
blu-rays in alphabetical order
hd-dvds in alphabetical order

on a separate shelf...
a bunch of various boxes/collections that dont fit on shelves.. matrix bust thing.. scarface box.. etc for example..
and i have more of those thing pretty much wherever there is room..

and then there the 'stuff i haven't organized yet' (currently 152 pieces) which is pretty much a jumbled assortment of all of the above in stacks and piles wherever i can fit them.. until there is just no more room at which point i reserve an afternoon to sort things out.

oh then there is also the 'pile next to the tv' which is stuff i'm currently watching ..
which is currently csi miami season 5 and scrubs season 5.. along with a stack of emergency wonder pets dvds for the baby : )

tonyc3742

My numbered titles (granted, I only have a few) are before the As. Unless the number is spelled out in the title...the Fifth Element, for example.
The main reason for organizing them is so I can find them, so I organize them the way that makes sense in my head.
I do also have a stack of 'current in the dvd player' next to the TV, which used to be organized in order of the disk tray, except for box sets which are back on the shelf.

BullGooseLoony

I've always organized my DVDs by the type of case. I'm more interested in how it looks on the shelf than a linear organization, since I only have about 150 DVDs.

The top shelf is movies in keep-cases, organized alpabetically. I tried organizing by studio AND alphabetically, but since some titles have multiple studios, it can get a little controversial (for example, is Gladiator DreamWorks or Universial? Should I file Shaun of the Dead under Rogue Pictures of Universial. Too bothersome to keep up.

The next shelf the remaining movies, followed by wrestling DVDs. The wrestling DVDs are listed alphabeticlaly and then chronologically. In other words, TNA Wrestling DVDs first, and then WWF/WWE. I have the ppvs lined up chronologically, topped off with compliations. My WWF/WWE collection is completely chronological, from WrestleMania X-Seven to No Mercy '08, topped off with a few compilations in keep-cases.

On that same shelf are the double keep-cases, holding the 5-star editions of The Abyss, ID4, and Speed. Next to that is the 5-star edition of the Die Hard Trilogy, T2 in the metal case, and the only two movies that I kept the slipcover for: Halloween (Best Buy exclusive lenticular, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Cure of the Black Pearl. Two more box-sets act as book-ends.

The fourth shelf is steelbooks, bookended by my Rey Mysterio DVD set (the Best Buy exclusive in the box).

The next shelf is slip-cover box-sets (Titanic, Casino Royale, Kingdom of Heaven, bookened by the X3 and Star Wars trilogy tins.

Finally, the last shelf is WWE dvds in those cardboard foldouts (like WrestleMania 21-on), bookended by the FYE-exclusive tins.

It looks pretty, and since I only have so many DVDs, everything's pretty easy to find.

Travis McClain

I just bought my first Steelbook last weekend (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at FYE, new, for $19.99). I like the design, but I still loathe any package that lays one disc atop another. And in this case, since there was no paper insert on the left, I really do question why there wasn't a disc hub on both sides.

Anyway, I am interested in further Steelbooks being added to our library. I think, though, that I would prefer not to separate them. Not only would it beg the question why they were deserving of being singled out, but I think it would be pretentious. It's like I'd be saying, "Look at these! They're special cases I have that you don't!" I'd rather they just be subtly filed with everything else.

BullGooseLoony

I rarely let anyone near my DVD collection, so the way it's displayed is for me and me alone. I seperate the steelbooks from the regular keep-cases because they're very sleek, heavy, and are usually store exclusives, so they feel extra special.

The only other person I know who collects DVDs has way more than me (he doesn't have Beowulf, haha), so he's never particularly envious.

mmyersisgod

Alphabetically.

cracksky

I've changed the way I put my dvd's on my shelves several times but currently I have all my boxed sets alphabetically including tv, film & steelbooks as well (I don't get putting all the steelbooks together unless they're in protective plastic because I would be afraid of them scratching one another). The larger boxed sets that don't fit on the shelf are stacked elsewhere (for now) with the discs placed in clear slimline jewel cases on another shelf a-z.

All my Italian discs (Argento, Bava, etc...) are separated chronologically.
All my Stephen King discs (Carrie, etc...) are separated chronologically.
All my Criterion discs are separated by spine number.
All my music & concert discs are separated a-z.
All my comedy discs are separated a-z.
All my drama discs are separated a-z.
All my action/adventure discs are separated a-z.
All my horror/sci-fi discs are separated a-z.
All my western discs are separated a-z.
All my miscellaneous discs are separated a-z.

Within each category, all sequels or subsequent films of each filmmaker follow the original. So, all the director's work will be together (unless the dvd's are in other categories) or all the film's story.

Travis McClain

I forgot to address the subsection of bonus discs packaged separately. I have currently elected to pair these with the main release. For instance, I bought Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at Walmart and it came with a separate DVD called The Story of Star Wars. Rather than alphabetize the bonus under Story, I have it come after Revenge of the Sith. I have only a few of these (Hot Fuzz, Transformers and Spider-Man 3), but the bonus discs are named in such a way that they would be separated were I to go just by their individual titles.

SethDLH

Alphabetically, for the most part. Box sets are on the very top shelf and at this point some are sitting on top of others. The rest are more or less #-z. Some exceptions are made such as Leatherface: TCM 3 being with the rest of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, though the Rambo sequels are not with First Blood. No real reason for doing this, just how it felt right at the time.

deto

Movies: Alphabetical

Blu-ray: Alphabetical

TV Shows: Alphabetical

Wrestling: By company and then in chronological order.

TheDuke

Box Sets
Criterions
Movies of directors that I have a lot of (so far only Kubrick and Lynch)
Alphabetical