Amassing Movies: The Art of the DVD/HD Collection

Ever since I was very little I've indulged in the collecting compulsion. At one time or another I collected just about everything: rocks, bouncy balls, erasers, marbles, stamps, coins, baseball cards (I didn’t even watch baseball), Star Trek paraphernalia, collectable card games (Magic: The Gathering being just one example), collectable dice games (has anyone even heard of Dragon Dice?), science fiction books, etc. I’m lucky to have missed out on Pokemon, but I played my share of videogames that preyed on the “gotta catch them all” premise.

In retrospect, quite a bit of this insatiable hoarding process was utterly useless and downright embarrassing. I mean, Pogs? Seriously? Why was I paying money for glorified bottle caps simulated with cheap cardboard and used for a game with almost no merit whatsoever? And surely I should have been too old for beanie babies, right? I certainly wasn’t collecting things in the hopes of making a financial success out of them. These days the collectable debris of games whose rules I long ago forgot are worth approximately zero, and even the more popular items are worth more to me in nostalgia than the eBay pittance they could earn.

Today I’m occasionally tempted to read my collector’s drive as purely unhealthy mental compulsions or early-childhood capitalist brainwashing, and those these are doubtlessly important factors, the truth is that I did (and do) derive a degree of satisfaction from collecting. Over time, I’ve come to prefer there to be some form of genuine utility intrinsic to the items amassed. My rock collection has long since been reinstated in the wild, though I do still fondly display a walrus menagerie, locked in an endless war with their race’s ancient arch-nemeses: Katie’s robot collection. Today the only collections that I maintain with any real monetary commitment are books and movies.

I remember a high school acquaintance boasting about his 200+ DVD collection. I asked him to name some of his latest additions and, though I forget the exact titles, it might as well be the five top-grossing Hollywood comedies and action fodder from any given month. What bothered me was not necessarily the stifling banality and narrowness of his recent purchases (his idea of a broadminded approach to cinema was appreciating the occasional romantic comedy), but the total redundancy of owning films that could be found at every video store, on half the TV channels and in the homes of all his friends.

In college I saw the same thing taken to an even greater extreme. You could probably find twelve copies of every mainstream college-themed comedy made between 1978’s “Animal House” and 2003’s “Old School” on my freshman floor alone. Almost every self-styled hipster I knew (including myself) had a copy of “Reservoir Dogs,” “Donnie Darko” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” The requisite checklist of off-Hollywood films to own ran maybe a dozen titles long, and was primarily designed to signal to browsers that you were intellectual, indie and deep. I’m hard-pressed to name a foreign language film other than anime, “Amelie” and “Run, Lola, Run” that I saw in the possession of a dormmate.

Questions of taste aside, it was troublesome to see how culturally insular college could be (even for the Midwest) and to witness the scarcity of experimentation, open-mindedness, curiosity and interest in the average freshman. Fortunately, a great deal branched out as their college years went on. Even so, my frustration with the minimal “college canon” was one of my reasons for joining and later running SPLICE, an alternative film club which maintains a healthy following to this day.

So what films do I think are worth owning? Here are some of the questions I ask myself as a guideline:

1) Do I like the movie?

Seems obvious, yet people still buy films they haven’t even seen and are unlikely to enjoy just because the title is recognizable and they missed it in theaters. Or they’ll buy movies they felt vaguely positive about just to “round out” a collection, take advantage of a negligible sale or “just in case” they ever feel like seeing it again. You can get Netflix for a month with less green than most DVDs, and you’ll have time to peruse for a film you don’t regret later. This test is also a great defense against completionist collecting, an expensive and generally overrated task.

2) Am I likely to rewatch the movie?

If no, why are you buying it? If the answer is “rarely,” maybe you should reconsider. A negative answer to this question can be offset by criterion #3.

3) Is this the type of film that I’d want to show or lend to other people?

This is absolutely key for me. One of the main reasons I own films is so that I can lend them out to friends who wouldn’t otherwise be aware of or seek out such pictures. Technically, I’m sure this is somehow illegal, but I doubt I’m actually cutting into the bottom line of anyone (hopefully the Film Walrus has even tossed some miniscule iota of business to distributers out there). This often combines with #4 where I find myself foisting a rare or obscure film on an unsuspecting mark to back up some exuberant review I’ve just spouted.

4) Is there any way of seeing the film outside of buying it?

I am much more likely to purchase a film I’ve never seen if there is no other feasible way of viewing it. If I can rent one of eight copies from the library or play it on Netflix Instant Watch or see it every other week on TBS, then why spend the money? On the other hand, if I have to drive five hours to a midnight screening or wire money to the Slovak Film Institute or wait for a half-razed archive in Alabama to hold an auction, then I will, but I’m only going to do it once and then I want to put a secure a copy in my collection. Besides, finding rare films generates better memories, conversations and karma.

5) Is it worth the price?

When I bought my first movies I maintained a price cap of $10. That figure has steadily climbed and has since been entirely removed. Now there is no definite cut-off, but a gradual decline in probability as the price heads skyward. I will gladly pay more for good English subtitles, a pristine transfer in the correct aspect ratio and worthwhile special features. I enjoy indulging in Criterion DVDs, because I also find a definite value in tasteful box art and informative essay booklets.

6) Is this likely to be the definitive release of the film?

It pains me greatly to have to pay for something twice, so I generally like to get things right the first time. Obviously format changes make this a little difficult. Basically, if I’m on the fence about a particular release and I think a better edition will one day come along, I usually wait. An example that comes to mind are the cheap cardboard snap-case DVDs for Stanley Kubrick films. The movies are must-see, but I won’t own copies until they give him the high-quality treatment his films deserve (Blu-Ray, are you man enough for the task?).


Much of these principles can be reduced to the concept of getting value for your money and utility from the value. Before you buy a film you haven’t seen, do a little bit of research and make sure the odds are favorable that it’s worthwhile and see if you can view it first through a free/cheap resource.

My personal collection is a little odd because my stash is relatively lean (for a film-obsessed nerd of reasonable means) and tips towards my favorite categories: Czech New Wave, Italian horror, foreign arthouse, cult, sci-fi, noir. I still keep around VHS tapes when few other options exist (An Actor’s Revenge, Blood and Roses, My Twentieth Century, Phenix City Story, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, and Death Watch (1980) to name a few). For digital media I often insist on having subtitles, even for English language films. As for presentation, my movie collection is currently colorbatized (courtesy of Katie), since we reasoned that it increases browsing attractiveness for others and only mildly inconveniences us.

[Images: Previously, even the black and white DVDs were ordered by font color, but it only made things more confusing.]

Of course, everyone who collects movies will have their own guiding principles and preferences. Some will focus on genres, actors, directors, countries or time periods. Price may be no object or a deal breaker. Some people prefer box sets or collect multiple editions while others could care less about cases and like the minimal storage hassle of a disc album. I’ve met collectors who are more interested in the transfer quality or bonus materials than the actual movies and others who never watch any special features and don’t notice or care about sins as egregious as pan-and-scan.

Anyways, I’d love to hear about everyone else’s collections. Are there important factors in your purchasing decisions that I’ve left out? Do you have eccentric specializations or deep convictions about what should and should be on any self-respecting cinephile’s shelf? Do you have the world's largest collection? Let me know.