Saying that the organisation of physical media at home is a ‘problem’ would be offensive even compared to first-world problems, so let’s call it a puzzle.

For years, my Blu-rays have been more or less organised in the same way: in two small IKEA Bestå shelves assembled one on top of the other, with my favourite directors on the top shelf, boxed sets in the middle levels, and a horror section in the bottom part, which kept getting larger and larger.

Then, as the collection grew and discs started being layered on any available surface of the living room, I decided to reorganise the whole layout.
Yes, but how?
Any sorting strategy will have to take into account boxed sets, some of which could be split into separate films or subsets, others not.

Alphabetical is not for me

A cinephile friend of mine is adamant that alphabetical order by title is the only consistent way (boxed sets have a name too) I don’t think that is a satisfactory strategy; practical, yes, but I’d like contiguous cases to have more in common than just similar names. Furthermore, what title would I use? The English one? Even for the non-English films I own? Or the original one? I’m not sure I can get that proficient with Korean titles.

Full chronological attempt

My first reaction was a fully chronological organisation, sorted by release date.
Boxed sets composed of several cases would be split, the monolithic ones would find their slot according to the release date of the first movie included.
In order not to spend days finding the release dates, I imported my pre-existing list of owned media into Letterboxd, and sorted it ‘by release date’ (I haven’t investigated what release date Letterboxd is using for each film - I suppose it’s the earliest one, including festival premières, but that will do).
I was quite happy with this solution, especially because it gives some context, both expected (for instance, confirming what a year 1999 has been for films) and surprising (did The Exorcist III really come out after Back to the Future III?).
I kept this organisation for a couple of months, but I realised that it made a bit difficult to find a film, especially if I needed to identify a gap in someone’s filmography.

So I came up with a different approach. I’m happy with it but it also required establishing several different rules (and exceptions), which I’ll detail here - mostly as a reminder for myself.

Overthought current solution

General principles:

  • it doesn’t really matter, but this reorganisation only concerns Blu-ray disc; DVDs are currently hidden, because they just don’t fit in these shelves;
  • all sorting is based on the films I have, not on complete filmographies; so every new purchase will change things;
  • boxed sets are never split, and their ‘release date’ is the release date of the first film;

The collection is divided into three consecutive sets (starting from the bottom shelf, then moving upwards), each with its own chronological order:

  1. auteurs (actually, directors - with two exceptions, detailed below) that created at least two films I own:

    • general rule: I apply two levels of sorting

      • first level: I first sorted directors chronologically by their first film…
      • second level: then for each of them I ordered the movies by their release date
      • So, for instance, all Hitchcock films come before Kubrick ones even though Dr. Strangelove was released before Psycho;

    • specific rules:

      • a boxed set is included in this group only if all the films it contains have the same director;
      • films belonging to a franchise are in this first set only if all the movies have the same director;
        • e.g. the Indiana Jones boxed set, which doesn’t include Dial of Destiny, is in the Steven Spielberg section;
      • if I own multiple films by the same director, but all except one belong to a franchise, that single film is considered as a stand-alone film and not included in this group;
        • for instance, I won’t include Scott Derrickson’s Black Phone in this set because his other films I have, Doctor Strange and Sinister, are stored with their own series (if I like Black Phone 2, then of course this will change);

    • exceptions:

      • I treat two screenwriters in the same way as directors because of their distinctive voice:
        • Charlie Kaufman: since I own only a single Blu-ray for both Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, I grouped Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind;
        • Brit Marling: although Another Earth is directed by Mike Cahill, I stored it between Zal Batmanglij’s Sound of My Voice and The East;
      • Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas was, well, not directed by Tim Burton, but still I treat it as if it was;

  2. film series/franchises:

    • general rule: again, the same two levels of sorting:

      • first level: franchises are sorted chronologically by their first film…
      • second level: then, for each franchise, the Blu-rays that belong to them are sorted chronologically;

    • specific rules: as mentioned above

      • if all the films in the franchise have the same director, they are included in the ‘auteurs’ group
      • belonging to a franchise takes precedence over the corpus of an author: so Alien 3 is grouped with the other films of the series, not in the David Fincher section;

  3. stand-alone films (also known as ’everything else’):

    • general rule: these Blu-rays are, simply, organised chronologically by release date;
      • in theory, they could just be considered special cases of the first set, but it would be harder to find them, interspersed in between auteurs’ filmographies.

Exceptions: any exception is allowed for practical reasons and general tidiness; for instance:

  • a few self-contained boxed sets by classic directors (Chaplin, Bergman, Buñuel, Tarkovsky) fit perfectly on a separate bookshelf, so that’s where they are now;
  • some sets might be too large or too tall for their ideal positions (Bestå shelves can fit three levels of standard-height Blu-ray cases, but only the top and bottom levels can accommodate slightly taller editions), so the ordering may be altered accordingly (sigh).

Arguable points:

  • what constitutes a franchise?
    • is Creed III still the same series as Rocky? For the time being I only own Creed, which is indeed grouped with films about Rocky Balboa;
    • what about Batman films? I’m treating the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher era as a single series (a single, indivisible boxed set spared me a difficult decision), the Christopher Nolan movies as a separate trilogy, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman as yet another entity;
  • what to do with Twin Peaks? Season 2, unfortunately, exists.

If you have devised a better system, please let me know!

p.s. I do own High Fidelity, but on DVD only, so it’s not included in this reorganisation. I haven’t upgraded it to BR yet, one, because I don’t feel the need to, and two, because this physical DVD has some personal meaning.