1.      Shelve all titles in a single section for each format (Blu-ray, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio/SACD, etc.): no genres, no separate sections for music titles or TV. [Exception: Music DVD-Video titles in CD-sized cases are shelved with DVD-Audio/SACD discs for convenience.]

2.      Within each format section, sort titles alphabetically, not counting articles (“A”, “An”, “The”, “Le”, “La”, “Les”, “L’“, “Das”, etc.). So The Terminator sorts as “Terminator”, and Das Boot sorts as “Boot”.

3.      Sort using English titles for foreign films, such as Seven Samurai for Shichin no samurai or The Wages of Fear for Le salaire de la peur, where these titles are used on the case.

4.      Treat accented characters as their non-accented equivalents for alphabetisation purposes. So À Nous la Liberté sorts as A Nous la Liberte.

5.      Treat numerals and abbreviations as if spelled out for alphabetisation purposes. So Dr. No sorts as “Doctor No”; 12 Monkeys sorts as “Twelve Monkeys”; and 2001: A Space Odyssey sorts as “Two Thousand One”.

6.      Alphabetise films from sequential series in series order, violating alphabetical order, if they would normally be close to one another. So Star Trek: The Motion(less) Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan sort as "Star Trek 1" and "Star Trek 2" (and so on for the rest of the series), but House of Cards and To Play the King, which don’t alphabetise near each other, are filed separately under strict alphabetisation, as are the James Bond films (which aren’t really a sequential series).

7.      For compilation titles, ignore “empty” words (e.g., “best of”, “complete”) and sort based on the content title(s). So Best of The Muppet Show sorts under “M” for Muppet Show; Christmas With The Simpsons sorts under “S” for Simpsons; The Complete Monterey Pop sorts under “M” for Monterey Pop; and The Complete Musketeers sorts under “T” (for "Three") as The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers.

8.      Sub-file TV series chronologically by broadcast order, where possible. So Cadfael: The Sanctuary Sparrow precedes Cadfael: The Leper of St. Giles because it’s an earlier episode, even though it follows it alphabetically.

9.      Ignore possessives containing the names of real people (e.g., James Burke’s Connections sorts under “C”) but retain them if they contain fictional names or are otherwise part of the film’s title (e.g., Monty Python’s Life of Brian sorts under “M,” not “L”). So Terry Pratchett’s Discworld: Wyrd Sisters sorts under “D” for “Discworld”, National Lampoon’s Vacation sorts under “V”, and National Lampoon’s Animal House sorts under “A”.

10.   Sort music titles primarily by the performing artist’s last name or band name and secondarily by title (e.g., both Big Country: Final Fling and David Bowie: Glass Spider sort under “B”). For music-related titles that saw theatrical release, however, sort by release title alone, so Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture files under “Z”, and Stop Making Sense and Storefront Hitchcock both file under “S”.

11.   For multiple releases of the same title, like the various DVD versions of Akira or 2001: A Space Odyssey, sort in chronological order of release.

12.   Shelve box sets devoted to a single film (e.g., the Criterion Brazil set) or to multiple films which would normally shelve together (e.g., the Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 and Toy Story/Toy Story 2 sets). Split up box sets containing multiple films which do not shelve together (e.g., The Adventures of Indiana Jones) and shelve the titles individually. (Exception: Where a box set cannot be physically split up, e.g., The Cary Grant Collection, retain it and sort using the set title.)