If I was in charge of our library of DVDs, I would organize alphabetically. But I’m not in charge. My husband is, and he’s come up with 11 categories.
Action Adventure
Christmas
Comedy
Drama
Fantasy
Foreign
Music
Mystery Thriller
Romance
Sports
Western
Christmas
Comedy
Drama
Fantasy
Foreign
Music
Mystery Thriller
Romance
Sports
Western
Within those 11 categories, he alphabetizes. The problem is, many titles overlap categories. Not only that, some categories are not represented.
What about the times you want to watch old movies?
The 1938 Robin Hood is filed under Action Adventure.
Casablanca and The African Queen are under Drama.
What about comic book movies?
Iron man is under Action Adventure and The X-men is under Fantasy. I wonder where he’ll put Spiderman when we get it?
Fantasy contains
I Robot, Lost in Space, Matrix, Men in Black.
But NOT Independence Day, Jurassic Park or Terminator. Apparently those movies are not fantasy. I have to search for them in Action Adventure.
Christmas seems straightforward, right?
A Christmas Carol, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Miracle on 34th Street.
But guess where he’s put Die Hard and Love Actually? Yes, in Christmas.
One of my favourite movies is Love Actually, defined on the Internet Movie Database as “comedy, drama, romance” and he’s filed it in Christmas. No wonder I couldn’t find it.
The Sports Section
has Hoosiers, Rocky and Shaolin Soccer. Fair enough.
It’s also got Bend It Like Beckham (comedy, drama, and, to me, romance) and Blue Crush (sports, but also drama & romance.)
And what about The Replacements? That’s in comedy. But the IMDB also calls it sports, and, for me, it’s also romance.
Westerns
are pretty much Westerns, though they could pass for Drama.
3:10 to Yuma, Cowboys, Fistful of Dollars, The Searchers.
Music
has The Blues Brothers, Hair and The Lion King. But that’s also where you find Patrick Swayze’s Dirty Dancing (drama, romance), and, get this, that’s where he put Mamma Mia! (comedy, musical, romance). I love that romance.
Romance
This is My Section and this is where you find Enchanted, Ever After and Sleepless in Seattle, as well as many others. But some of my favourite romances are hiding in other sections.
Knight & Day, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Sahara are all filed under Action Adventure. Those three movies also pass as comedy.
Titanic is in Drama. Speed is in Action Adventure.
And my favourite comedy of all time? Where did he put Stranger Than Fiction?
In Drama. IMDB calls that one comedy, drama, fantasy. I call it Comedy with a Capital C and, hey, it’s even got Romance, but then, being a romance writer, I could probably find Romance in a lot of things.
At least he hasn’t broken out DVDs from Blu-Rays. They are happily all mixed together.
And, unlike John Cusack’s character in High Fidelity, he hasn’t organized them autobiographically, by date of acquisition.
How do you organize your movies? Can you find what you’re looking for? What do you think of straight up alphabetization?
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Suzanne, your organization is amazing! Mine are all stacked willy nilly. Some are in the great room (mostly caUse we’ve ran out of storage cabinets) and some are in our room. The girls have a rack that’s theirs (mostly Disney but every so often I find mine there). I can’t imagine keeping it organized. I think it’s great that you do, but maybe we just don’t have that many to worry about!
I have my organized by what kind of music I think the director was listening to while he worked on it. Nah, not really.
I’m just glad if they’re all in the cabinet and not spread over the floor for the dog to chew on.
😉
My husband organizes ours alphabetically, Suzanne. And then I come along and shove them back into wherever there’s an open space. Drives him nuts but keeps me entertained. LOL!
Michelle – oh, we have lots to organize, but I can’t take credit for ANY of the organization. It’s my hubby who manages it all.
Liv – that’s a new one: organized by music. That would mean I’d never find anything!
Sheila – you make me laugh. I don’t bother trying to put anything away, because I can’t remember which of his categories it’s supposed to be in. So I leave them for him to re-file.
Thanks for stopping by everybody!
Happy movie watching and I hope you can always find what you’re looking for :o)
Just simple alphabetical. What? He hasn’t split movies from television?
Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, he has!
Genre first then alphabetized within that.
And you can remember genres? good for you!
We finally gave up and bought a DVD library program called Movie Collector so we can list all our movies. At least this way we know the movie is in the house. On the shelves,which my hubby has assumed charge of, they’re mostly alphabetical but his and my idea of alphabetical don’t always match. We keep tv series separate and he likes to keep his favorites – like John Wayne, Arnold, and certain others – separate.
OMG. I hope my hubby never separates them by actor!
And I didn’t know they had software to list movies – just googled it and sent him the link.
Thanks for stopping by, Helen :o)
Hmmm – are you supposed to organise those things? I thought the idea was to have a lucky dip – just reach out a grab something. Now you’ve given me one more thing to add to the non existent list. Great post in spite of the work and anxiety you’ve gifted me 🙂
no, no, no! This is not a make-work project! We have enough to do, and, I LIKE the idea of a “lucky dip.”
This was funny – I used to sort by general categories until I saw what my daughter and her hubby did and realized alphabetical was so much easier! And it gave me the browsing feeling so something unexpected could catch my eye. But I do have my costume dramas (P&P, Horatio Hornblower, Downton Abbey, etc.) all in one section.
We don’t have too many on the floor, but there are some stacked in front of the alphabetized ones waiting to be put away. And if my sons are home, they stack up more and more.
I think hubby just likes categorizing those DVDs. But for music, it’s different. All of his music is on the computer and, oddly enough, that *is* alphabetical. Every night, he plays a letter of the alphabet, so we’ll get Shakira followed by Simon & Garfunkel.
I think I would also like the “browsing feeling” with the DVDs . . .
I just toss them in a pile. They’d never get to alphabetized, and if I tried, they wouldn’t stay alphabetized. They go where they go.
BTW, it took me more than 3 times to post this comment. Blogger is not comment friendly.
Hi Linda – thanks for weighing in on the “to sort or not to sort” debate!
And yes, poor Blogger is being temperamental. One day I need to figure out WP, if only I can find the time . . .
OMG, wow. Um…we don’t. Organize that is. Right now, Mike’s building built-in drawers (that are GORGEOUS) for us to put our books of DVDs in. We have 2 huge books of them – one is Kylie’s, the other is ours. We don’t keep cases, and there is no organization at all!