Collecting DVDs can be educational and fun. Movies are expressions of our society and life, whether they are set in the past, present or future. First of all, they are meant to entertain us. In order to do that, they must start with a good story. The story must contain unique and well-developed characters. The film must have good actors who can portray the characters. The script must have dialogue that lets the story be heard. However, the story should be shown, not told.
Dialogue is not the same as conversation. A good screenwriter knows the difference between the two. The cinematography gives the movie a landscape. Finally, the sound gives the movie a backdrop. Taking all these things into consideration, building a good DVD collection depends on finding DVDs that speak to you on all of these levels.

You can find a million lists of the "best movies ever made" on the Internet. You may agree with some of the movies in any one list, but you will not agree with all of them. They can be a good starting point to building your own list. You can also think of DVDs in genres. You might like drama, mystery, comedy, romance, war stories, animation, science fiction, crime stories or horror. You might want to divide your DVD list into several genres that you enjoy.

You may find that genres overlap and end up simply making an alphabetical list. You might like to collect the work of certain actors or directors. For older movies, The Criterion Collection has restored many movies in digital, high fidelity, wide screen format. If you are a fan of old science fiction or horror movies, you would be surprised at the 'B-movies' you can find online.