If you had to distill your Blu-ray collection down to 25 Blu-Rays...

[wilky61]

So I finally looked myself in the mirror this week and admitted that movies really aren't one of my biggest passions any longer... This has been a long time coming, really dating back to about my second year in college... But as I begin to start my career now (just hired yesterday, woohoo) I really don't expect to have as much free time any longer... and whenever I do have free time as it is now, I don't make time to watch movies... I typically spend my free time listening to/expanding my music collection and/or watching all manner of sports (ya never know what's gonna happen next ).

Anyway, I had as many as about 310 Blu-Rays two months ago, but you can see the 25 I've decided to keep to the left. They're not necessarily the 25 that I think are the best (and I didn't really intend to end up at that number); they're just the 25 that I think define my life and/or are the 25 that I find most enjoyable to rewatch at any time.


What about you? It's amazing how small of a number 25 really is when you try!

[K i r a]

Good thread.

I've been dwindling down my collection bit by bit, just getting rid of the ones I don't watch at the moment or don't plan to within a year or so. More of a "I wanna make room and keep room organized" then adding a THIRD bookshelf, so it's fine with me. I have access to watch almost anything, so no point in keeping the non-essentials.

[toddly6666]

Actually, it wasn't as hard as I expected! These are my top 25 high-rotation favorite films from a 450+ blu-ray collection. I should have these 25 organized to be together on the shelf in case of some emergency!

Kirikou and the Sorceress
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Full Metal Jacket
Gladiator
The Graduate
Heat
Risky Business
Rushmore
Star Wars Original Trilogy
Point Break
Amelie
The Big Lebowski
Bugsy Malone
Hair
The New World
Training Day
Army of Darkness
The Holy Mountain
Legend
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
300
Days of Heaven
Platoon
The Road Warrior
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

[Petra_Kalbrain]

If... and I emphasize the word IF... I "had to" reduce my collection down to only 25, there would have to be an "or else" consequence involved. And, since there would be an "or else" involved, I would gladly welcome the "or else" before getting rid of THAT many of my favourite films.

[SLeeK]

There Will Be Blood
Goodfellas
Truman Show
Boogie Nights
Zodiac
500 Days of Summer
Alien
Blue Velvet
Fight Club
Gladiator
Godfather
Gone Baby Gone
Groundhog Day
Inception
Dark Knight
Pulp Fiction
Toy Story
Old Boy
Pans Labyrinth
Sin City
Snatch
Shawshank Redemption
Se7en
Matrix
Blade Runner


Tried making a somewhat diverse list between my favorites, a few "popcorn" flicks, and some foreign/comedy....that was tough

[ry35an]

I don't plan on buying much more than what I have now, but, I could live with only owning these:

1) The Godfather Trilogy
2) The Lord of The Rings Extended Trilogy
3) Alien Anthology
4) The Assassination of Jesse James
5) Zodiac
6) Se7en
7) Close Encounters of The Third Kind
8) Blade Runner
9) Gladiator
10) The Exorcist
11) Goodfellas
12) Pulp Fiction
13) Miller's Crossing
14) Once Upon a Time in America
15) Taxi Driver
16) The Thin Red Line
17) The Nightmare Before Christmas
18) The Road Warrior
19) Gone Baby Gone
20) Apocalypse Now

Not in any order..

[Seymour]

Couldn't do it. Wouldn't want to do it. Glad I'm not doing it.

[wilky61]

Originally Posted by ry35an

I don't plan on buying much more than what I have now, but, I could live with only owning these:

1) The Godfather Trilogy
2) The Lord of The Rings Extended Trilogy
3) Alien Anthology
4) The Assassination of Jesse James
5) Zodiac
6) Se7en
7) Close Encounters of The Third Kind
8) Blade Runner
9) Gladiator
10) The Exorcist
11) Goodfellas
12) Pulp Fiction
13) Miller's Crossing
14) Once Upon a Time in America
15) Taxi Driver
16) The Thin Red Line
17) The Nightmare Before Christmas
18) The Road Warrior
19) Gone Baby Gone
20) Apocalypse Now

Not in any order..

Holy crap what a list, full of classics.
Miller's Crossing, nice inclusion!


I think I will probably net at least $3,000 selling off all of these Blu-Rays total (I've already sold like 175 or so). That's a decently significant portion of my student loan debt.

[ry35an]

Originally Posted by wilky61

Holy crap what a list, full of classics.
Miller's Crossing, nice inclusion!


I think I will probably net at least $3,000 selling off all of these Blu-Rays total (I've already sold like 175 or so). That's a decently significant portion of my student loan debt.

I should have added No Country For Old Men as well.

I have been thinking about selling off most of my collection and keeping what I consider essentials.

Making this list has pushed me towards the idea even more.

Nice to see that you're getting some money that can be put to good use.

[tylerdurden10]

While I couldn't fathom a world where I only owned 25 movies ; this thread does intrigue me. Here are the ones that I would NEVER part with:

(In no particular order)

1. Fight Club
2. Goodfellas
3. Star Wars: Original Trilogy
4. Memento
5. Inception
6. The Prestige
7. Batman Begins
8. The Dark Knight
9. Blade Runner
10. Pulp Fiction
11. The Crow
12. Lost (Complete Series)
13. The Naked Gun
14. Airplane
15. Anchorman
16. American Psycho
17. Back To The Future Trilogy
18. Boogie Nights
19. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
20. Silence Of The Lambs
21. The Goonies
22. The Matrix
23. Old School
24. Scarface
25. Harry Potter Series

[Cevolution]

Yet another one of these type of threads, is it really something that needs to be discussed every week? If so, instead of opening a new thread every time, why not just use the threads that are already opened by others members who decided to do the same thing before you?!

[videohead]

Isn't this the same as " name your top 25 bd's in your collection?

Wouldn't, couldn't, and shouldn't !

[Gardenofstone10]

This is a toughie, I just went from over 700 blu rays down to zero and am rebuilding so this will be easier for me.
1. Spider Man Trilogy
2. harry potter series
3. hook
4. stand by me
5. super 8
6. goodfellas
7. the godfather collection
8. once upon a time in america
9. green mile
10. shawshank redemption
11. pirates of the caribbean series
12. toy story
13. pulp fiction
14. halloween
15. cars
16. a bug's life
17. the lion king
18. ratatouille
19. wall e
20. eastbound and down series
21. star wars saga
22. platoon
23. the x files movies
24. the goonies
25. the skeleton key!!!

[wilky61]

Originally Posted by ry35an

I should have added No Country For Old Men as well.

I have been thinking about selling off most of my collection and keeping what I consider essentials.

Making this list has pushed me towards the idea even more.

Nice to see that you're getting some money that can be put to good use.

Yeah, NCFOM was one of many that I was sad to part with... A Serious Man... Blood Simple... Blade Runner... Heat... Jackie Brown... Collateral... L.A. Confidential... Drive... The Big Lebowski... Annie Hall... Full Metal Jacket... Children of Men... TGTBATU... Platoon... Easy Rider... Ferris Bueller... Blazing Saddles... Enter the Dragon... Boogie Nights... Bull Durham... see how hard it is to narrow a list down to just 25, lol. I just asked myself, do I really need each of these Blu-Rays sitting on my shelf at this point in my life? And at the end of the day, I just don't think that I would think to myself in the near-future "Man I wish I could watch Platoon right now." And yaknow what? If I do think that one day, then maybe I will buy it again.

I had originally pared down my collection from 310 to 189 and then shortly thereafter to 164... I was pretty damn happy with the way it looked on my shelves at 164, but I figured it would still take me more than five months of watching one movie every night to get through it all...

There was one point in time where I was obsessed with the idea of creating the perfect Blu-Ray collection, representing a variety of genres, without any filler... but I don't really know why it seemed so important to me at the time... I'm not going to impress anybody with my digital collection link on this site, and none of my friends care (hardly have any friends these days anyway, hah).

My ex-girlfriend used to be my movie-watching mate, and so having a collection of 200+ Blu-Rays always gave us something to do on a free night, but since she left me I just don't care to watch movies by myself much any longer...

Anyway, just kinda rambling at this point.

Hey, gardenofstone10, I really like your tattoo man!! (gonna get my third tomorrow )

Originally Posted by Cevolution

Yet another one of these type of threads, is it really something that needs to be discussed every week? If so, instead of opening a new thread every time, why not just use the threads that are already opened by others members who decided to do the same thing before you?!

Here's the difference, Cevolution. If I go into page 4429248 of whichever "Top 25 Blu-Rays" thread and post my story of my struggle of narrowing my collection from 310 to 25, then nobody notices, nobody cares, nobody takes a second to stop and think about their own buying tendencies and hoarding habits...

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by wilky61

Here's the difference, Cevolution. If I go into page 4429248 of whichever "Top 25 Blu-Rays" thread and post my story of my struggle of narrowing my collection from 310 to 25, then nobody notices, nobody cares, nobody starts thinking about their own collection...

I wasn't referring to the "Top 25 Blu-rays" thread, I was referring to how every week someone seems to be opening a new thread talking about how they have or are wanting to down size their collection, where you could have posted your situation in 1 of those already opened threads which are similar!

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by Gardenofstone10

This is a toughie, I just went from over 700 blu rays down to zero and am rebuilding so this will be easier for me.
1. Spider Man Trilogy
2. harry potter series
3. hook
4. stand by me
5. super 8
6. goodfellas
7. the godfather collection
8. once upon a time in america
9. green mile
10. shawshank redemption
11. pirates of the caribbean series
12. toy story
13. pulp fiction
14. halloween
15. cars
16. a bug's life
17. the lion king
18. ratatouille
19. wall e
20. eastbound and down series
21. star wars saga
22. platoon
23. the x files movies
24. the goonies
25. the skeleton key!!!

Why would you take it down to zero, and then start "rebuilding"? I hope you aren't re-buying any of the same titles because you're probably losing lots of money on that exchange.

Anyway, I don't even know if this is worth the time to put together a list because I would literally NEVER limit myself to that few. Plus my top 25 is CONSTANTLY changing... oh well, I'll do the hypothetical anyway.

1)Apocalypse Now
2)Citizien Kane
3)Ben Hur
4)Seven Samurai
5)Star Wars Complete Saga
6)Lord of the Rings: Extended Trilogy
7)Blade Runner
8)Avatar 3 Disc Extended (just because it's the most "reference quality" disc I have)
9)The Lady Vanishes
10)North by Northwest
11)Modern Times
12)The Night of the Hunter
13)Diabolique
14)Go West/Battling Butler
15)Rapture
16)Fright Night (1985)
17)Bridge on the River Kwai
18)The Man With No Name Trilogy
19)Yojimbo/Sanjuro
20)Taxi Driver
21)The Conversation
22)Godfather Trilogy
23)Once Upon a Time in the West
24)Four Feathers (1937)
25)Twilight Zone complete series (ok I don't have this yet, and I'm watching it on Netflix, but if I could have the full series on blu for free I would want it as one of my top 25).

[AgentOrange]

The reason this is impossible, is because I can already think of 5-10 blu-rays that are available that belong in my top 25, that I simply haven't bought yet. Even if I just stick to what I own, I'm sure if I did this list blindly in just a couple of weeks, that the list would be VERY different from what I just came up with.

Then start looking towards the blu-rays that are either announced, or strongly rumored to be coming out - certain films that become my favorites when I discover them for the first time on blu-ray.

I think I could easily weed out about half my collection that I don't care about. But 25 would be cutting it way to thin for me.

[poke smot]

thought about chopping down myself but not to 25. im in serious money trouble so i cant buy like i once did. how are you selling them off? my only way would be pawn shops and hastings. maybe 3-4 dollars a disc, and that would be tops.

[wilky61]

Originally Posted by tuck301

thought about chopping down myself but not to 25. im in serious money trouble so i cant buy like i once did. how are you selling them off? my only way would be pawn shops and hastings. maybe 3-4 dollars a disc, and that would be tops.

All Amazon Marketplace, though when I get down to the last few I may examine the possibility of initiating an Amazon Trade-In.

I've gotten really good at shipping these suckers, too. For awhile there, I was trading everything I shipped into an eco-case to cut down on the shipping weight/cost. The cheapest way I've found to ship them is to pick up plain manilla envelopes (like 9" x 12" or so) at Walmart and to buy rolls of bubble-wrap separately; I've found this to be cheaper than buying bubble-mailers.

Amazon gives you $2.98 shipping credit per item, which is hardly anything, but I'm averaging real close to $2/item shipped (which helps to offset the commission Amazon takes) on most non-Digibook blu-rays via USPS First Class Mail, and the current rate for USPS Media Mail is $2.47 for packages under a pound. I've also realized that the zip code/distance doesn't affect the postage rate for these services (as I once thought), but it does for Priority Mail if a customer requests for Expedited Shipping. You really wanna shave off every ounce you can when a customer asks for expedited...

[Seymour]

Originally Posted by wilky61

What about you? It's amazing how small of a number 25 really is when you try!

This is pretty funny, but I was just looking at the release calendar for March, and I estimate that I'll be buying 25 blu-rays just next month (between new releases and catalog titles being made available for the first time).

So yeah, 25 is way too small of a number for an entire collection.