MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Do you arrange movie titles starting wit...

Do you arrange movie titles starting with an "A" as A?

posted 4 years ago by actionkamen (23176)
36 replies | jump to latest

Or omitted the "a" and arrange according to the first letter of the second word?

I always put "the" at the end so that my movie collections sorted by the second word instead (e.g., LEGO Movie, The) would be in L and not T, but keep A in front (e.g., A Separation) so that it would still be in A and not S.

Wikipedia uses BOTH (so everything duplicates) in their list of films.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films:_A

What do you prefer?

[–] LauraGrace (15570) 4 years ago

i arrange by genre, not alphabetically.

[–] brux (14666) 4 years ago

Genre is not a good way to organized because genre is not a reliable way to tag movies. Like Science_Fiction, Fantasy and Horror always get conflated, so it is not obvious where things go unless it is to the owner of the collection.

[–] LauraGrace (15570) 4 years ago

it's a good way ,for me.

[–] brux (14666) 4 years ago

You might like it, and you might memorize where you put everything, but for everyone else, and in general, it is not a really good way to organize movies or media because ambiguity will affect search time looking for something. However, if genre floats your boat ... go for it.

The one thing where separating by genre might work out best is if you have X-rated content and do not want the kiddies to come across the porn while browsing for movies.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

But do you organize alphabetically within the genre?

[–] LauraGrace (15570) 4 years ago

[–] davodikum (5968) 4 years ago

well that's just chaos

[–] TimMC (9143) 4 years ago

I arrange by genre and within the genre my favorites go first.

[–] LauraGrace (15570) 4 years ago

there you go

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

I drop the A.

I also file movies with a number at the start of the title before alphabetical titles. That is, 10 Cloverfield Lane comes before Alien in my collection.

I'm very particular about it. It's quite ridiculous.

[–] jobiwan58 (212) 4 years ago

I follow the same system. "A" or "The" are prepositions so I put that at the end so you don't end up with a lot of titles all lumped together by an insignificant word.

BUDDY HOLLY STORY, THE
CLIENT, THE
FIGHTING 69TH, THE

And so on.

[–] actionkamen (23176) 4 years ago

10 Cloverfield Lane comes before or after 2 Fast 2 Furious then?

Because 2 is after 1, but before 10... it's confusing!

[–] mikethemartian (6057) 4 years ago

I think the first article (A, An, The) are supposed to be ignored when placing titles in alphabetical order.

I always find it annoying when I have to go through a list of universities when the name of the school is “University of Someplace” vs “Someplace University”

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

The Thing will always be a T and The Exorcist will always be an E for me. 👍

[–] AndyKing1967 (33696) 4 years ago

^this^

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Stratego (29190) 4 years ago

I arrange chronologically.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (20411) 4 years ago

☝️ This ☝️

[–] actionkamen (23176) 4 years ago

By the movie release or by the media (dvd or bluray, etc.) release date? Also just the year, then jumbled randomly for movies of the same year, or also using the date and month of release?

[–] Stratego (29190) 4 years ago

Original US movie release date.

[–] actionkamen (23176) 4 years ago

Don't you have movies not released in US?

[–] Stratego (29190) 4 years ago

Of course. But most of the movies I own are American, so I confused myself a little there.😁 Original release date, I mean.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 4 years ago

I arrange by release date. I don’t arrange by genre because there are a lot of grey areas

[–] GlenEllyn (21066) 4 years ago

Way back when, I was taught to skip 'A' or 'The' when alphabetizing titles, so that's what I do. I sure wish BritBox followed that rule, but they don't. "A Touch of Frost" is under 'A' instead of 'T' where I would look for it. It becomes really annoying when I don't even know that a title contains 'A' or 'The.'
Maybe it's the British was of alphabetizing??

I have very few movies with titles that begin with a number, so they're all grouped together before the A's. I think I have them in numerical order.

[–] actionkamen (23176) 4 years ago

So "2 Fast 2 Furious" will be grouped before A, but "Two and a Half Men" will be under T?

[–] GlenEllyn (21066) 4 years ago

For me, yes. This assumes that both are the actual name - i.e. using the digit vs spelling it out.

[–] TexasJack (12515) 4 years ago

I agree with this approach. Or I would, if I bothered to organize my movies. I usually don't even put the disc back in the right case. 🙃

[–] GlenEllyn (21066) 4 years ago

Eeek! That would drive me crazy! Also, I borrow a lot of DVDs from the library. I don't think they'd appreciate this approach.

[–] actionkamen (23176) 4 years ago

I always put the disc in the right case AND in the upright position. It looks better that way.