Movie Franchises and Studios You Collect/Enjoy?

What movie franchises do you collect or at least, enjoy so much you make an effort to see in theaters or stream - and/or is there a studio you’re fond of and go back to?

While I have directors (Bunuel, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock) and actors (Blanchett, Brando, Lon Chaney sr. Keaton) I’ll go out of my way to watch, as far as franchises go…

I own every

Godzilla - and have seen or own a lot of the other Kaiju movies (Rodan, Mothra, etc) and will seek out anything Honda has directed

Eon’s James Bond

Resident Evil with Mila Jovovich

Don’t own them, but have some and will go out of my way to watch

Zatoichi, the Blind Swordsman (streamed these at Criterion)

The Underworld series (only own the ones starring Kate)

Dirty Harry (though honestly, only the first 2 were worth owning)

20th Century Fox’s X-Men series

Trilogies? I strangely don’t own Leone’s “Dollars Trilogy”, but have watched them many times. Don’t own but went out of my way to watch the 3 Colors Trilogy and the Before Trilogy.

I used to buy every Marvel movie but got burned out on the shared universe. I’ll still watch them, but don’t collect anymore unless I really like them (and of those, Edge of Spider-Verse and Logan weren’t part of, or beholden to, the Marvel-U).

Studios?

I don’t own every one of them, but I do seek out, and sometimes buy Hammer Studios films released from the mid-'50s to mid-'70s. Mostly the horror, but also the crime, noir, and war films (and I’ve seen a few before and after that golden era - the scary ones sure, but also a couple of their comedies, and a Paul Robson musical drama).

The Shaw Brothers get a lot of attention from me, as does Golden Harvest - I like the Martial Arts films, but have seen a handful of the early Shaw opera types too.

And I’ve spent a lot of time with Toho Studios, due to Kurosawa, Honda and the Kaiju, Naruse and others

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I try on-and-off to collect Amicus movies, sometimes get sidelined. The Anchor Bay coffin box sets dragged me into Tigon etc for a while.
Been decluttering the past few years and got rid of a lot of stuff. I used to be a completist for lots of things, difficult to organise when an actor/director/franchise overlap. I find it less fun now that the internet makes it easier to get a hold of everything.

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Yeah, I’ve been clearing out a lot of my clutter, and while I don’t buy as much as I used to movie-wise (I don’t own a lot of Shaw for example) when I do, I still like having physical media. I like the packaging, the bonus material, I like seeing those Hammers or Godzillas or Bonds lining the bookshelf.

Beyond the standard MCU, Godzilla, Gamera, Bond, Fast and Furiouses, I also collect “theoretical cinematic universes”, currently focusing on Space Race movies.

Apollo 13, Hidden Figures, First Man, The Right Stuff, October Sky, Salyut 7, and many many others, basically thematically linked films that can be strung into a larger narrative, I collect space race documentaries too, but Movie Moshing a universe together is addictive.

This is why I’m annoyed about Top Gun 2, it means Kiss Kiss Bang Bang can’t be “What Iceman did next”, and the Mission Impossible films aren’t really Maverick’s grown-up job, but oh well!

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For studios/labels, I have a fair number of Criterion titles, but am far away from a completist there. Also have a lot of Hammer and Toei films. I find quite a few movies I like are put out by New Line Cinema, Dimension Films, and Village Roadshow.

For series I own every Hellraiser (except for the newest one that doesn’t have Doug Bradley). Some of these I have in collector editions. Have all the Resident Evils and both Silent Hills, too. Have most of the Masters Of Horror titles but have been paring it down, it’s a very uneven series. And have collected pretty much everything in The Ring movies, foreign and domestic.

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Universal Monsters, by far. Loved watching creature features aired on weekends growing up. I have the 30 movie release and dip in to watch kinda frequently. Art below by Alex Ross.

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I have seen every Hammer Film I can find. I can’t find three: The Public Life of Henry the Ninth (which is presumed lost,) Who Killed Van Loon?, and Murder at Site 3.

I’ve also seen seen every film by Amicus, every horror movie by Tigon British, and every Tyburn film but one.

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Series I own every installment of on best quality available:

  • Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Star Trek (all incarnations)
  • Universal Monsters
  • Godzilla (save whatever 1998 was)

Odds and ends I have a lot of:

  • Jason Statham movies
  • pulp-type movies (ie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, The Shadow, The Rocketeer, etc)
  • an insane number of U2 bootleg concert videos; Bono has said that they’re fine with bootlegging as long as people aren’t “ripping off fans for lots of money”; almost all my copies are fan trades.

And the smatterings of musicals, classic sci-fi, and screwball comedies!

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The main one would be kung fu and East Asian action films. I have about 150 on Blu Ray and maybe about another 400 or so on DVD. Specifically Jackie Chan films, I’m a huge fan of his. Eureka and 88 films have been doing fantastic work releasing old martial arts films on Blu Ray over the past few years and I think I have every one they’ve put out. I also have Criterion’s Bruce Lee set imported from the US (not available on the UK) plus their Zatoichi, Lone Wolf and Cub, Samurai collections etc. Now Arrow are jumping in on the action too with a terrific looking Shaw Brothers boxset coming in December plus 88 have announced a new bunch of Shaw Brothers films as well as expanding their operation to the US.

I really enjoy old golden age horror films too so I like to collect those. Kaiju films as well of course.

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Impressive. Looking at my Hammer list, I’m at 46%, with 80 Hammers seen, 81 as soon as I finish with “Four Sided Triangle”

If anyone is curious to look it over, here’s my list of Hammer feature films (am I missing any?)

BTW, I’m enjoying the read, so thanks for sharing.

The numbers look about right. I will check it against my spreadsheet when I get home.

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Bruce Campbell movies.

Besides all the Evil Deads/AOD, I’ve got Bubba Ho-Tep, Crime Wave, and most recently Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat all on DVD/Blu-Ray. Also Jack of All Trades and Brisco County Jr.

Yet I’ve never seen Burn Notice. Some day I’ll have to check it out.

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I enjoy Jaques Tati so much so that I bought the BluRay Criterion collection. It wasn’t cheap but it is amazing.

Urge to watch PlayTime increasing

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I was getting into the “Along With Gods” franchise but I think it got covidded.

Yeah, books, sure, but I really can’t think of a lot of filmed franchises that do much for me.

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Oh, I forgot Detective Dee - the trilogy - I dig Dee

and though I’ve seen 2 on some lists out there, it’s got to be at least 3 to be a series IMHO

I am a complete sucker for those Criterion box sets (e.g. I own the 30+ movie & book $300 Bergman set) but I’m always careful to only buy them during Criterion’s or Barnes and Noble’s 50% off sales. I’ve debated getting the Tati one but they’re all quasi-permanently streaming on Criterion Channel (I’ve watched most of them!) and the packaging isn’t quite compelling enough to me to justify it.

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Oh, yeah, I saw The Four Heavenly Kings in the theater. Thought I might give the Korean version (Detective K, natch) a shot.

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Every kaiju I can get my hands on, I especially love Godzilla, but any big stomping monster will do. All of the LOTR, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, all of MCU. I didn’t collect much from DC but I love Harley Quinn so I got her movie and Suicide Squad. Also Aquaman, cause, you know, Jason Momoa (sigh)… I own all of the original and new Battlestar Galactica, even the 1980 season. All of the Stargate SG1 and related series. A smattering of Anime- Every episode of Ranma 1/2, Inu Yasha, and a bunch of odds and ends. A bunch of classics- Get Smart, the Pink Panther movies, a few of Groucho Marx. I have a fairly robust collection of Disney but nowhere near everything. There’s plenty more, can’t name everything!

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As soon as I get my shrink-o-ray, I’m making snow globes out of all those studio lots.

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