On deciding what to watch

[Guido]

I know it has its defenders here, but I remember being an hour into Beau is Afraid at the theatre when I turned to my partner at the time and said: "We could be at home watching some wuxia right now." We immediately packed up and left.

[therewillbeblus]

I’m at 91% on the 2013 version, that feels more accurate. I’ve even been thinking lately about how I’ve probably seen 90% of the great films that I would enjoy out there (not that any of these lists are a true compilation of that) as I contemplate watching significantly fewer “new to me” films and focusing more on revisits, as the hit to miss ratio has been pretty low for me for a while. Like my famous declarations of quitting the internet when I turn X years old, this is more idle fancy than anything, but it’s something I have been thinking more about. It’s easy to love movies when you’re just getting into it and you could conceivably see five or six masterpieces a week, lot harder when there are now years without seeing five or six new (to me) masterpieces

(63% on the top four list)

I actually ran the numbers on this because I was curious. I went back to 2015 (which would have been about ten years into being a film lover/viewer), the first full year where I rated the films I watched (then for my own use in a Notepad doc). In 2015 I rated just under 20% of the films I saw for the first time four or five stars. Every year since, no matter the actual volume of films watched, the number of films rated four or five stars has been between 10 and 15 percent. Funny that this aligns closely with my off the cuff estimate of great films (for me, to me) remaining overall. Also gives me a lot to think about… is the investment for that 10-15 percent worth the 85-90 percent that doesn’t rise above okay at best (and is often much worse)? Would I be better served writing off the remaining hidden jewels and just revisiting “classics” for the rest of my life, in terms of maximizing time/quality of life value?

I felt this way a couple of years ago, and so I dedicated most of 2024 and 2025 to revisits. Unfortunately I rewatched my old favorites so many times that I've burned myself out on them, even as 'comfort movies' for the most part. I'm in a weird stage now where I'm relatively jaded on what I have to look forward to with this medium, occasionally obsessing about finding a new-to-me favorite but otherwise prioritizing music and other arts. I'll throw on a movie I think I'm in the mood to watch or rewatch and turn it off when I realize I was wrong in my estimation. It's definitely a strange period that I'm not too fond of - it's not that I think I've seen everything and have no un-mined territory left to enjoy, but rather that the films on my long watchlist will only be mildly enjoyable. I guess I'm still chasing high highs and should probably cool my expectations, but it is difficult as the years go on and time left on this planet begins to feel more precious

[ballmouse]

As I'm somewhat comfortable with my current 2000s decade list, I've moved on to the 2010s. I had extremely low expectations of the 2010s based on what I'd already seen. But I was pleasantly surprised by some films. And oddly enough many of them have zero mention on the forums (maybe more of a reflection of my unremarkable taste than anything else). My current list sort of resembles my 60s list in that at least half the films are non-English. I'd like to think I've watched the same percentage of foreign language films in all decades and so this is a positive trend for foreign cinema and movie making outside the US. But it could very well be me over thinking my own small sample size.

At the same time, it definitely also seems to one my weaker decade's list, similar to my 30s list. And my favorite films might be the weakest of any decade in the sound era. Maybe 1 film would crack my top 100/125. So it also projects enough of a unappetizing sentiment for me that I may stop at 2019 instead of also participating in a future 2020s list.

So I understand the sentiment. I'm not sure how much or how frequently we're talking about movie watching though. At a certain frequency, it becomes a grind and each unenjoyable one does wear you down as it seems I get bogged down with the bad instead of pleasantly surprised by the good. And it seems when the frequency decreases, the reverse becomes more true. Not sure why that is, but that's my general experience.

[The Curious Sofa]

After checking out a couple of new films, I always scurry back to the safety blanket of old favourites. I'm careful not to watch those too often; I need at least two or three years before I watch them again. Having only got into 4K this year, it's like discovering many of these films all over again.

[knives]

Similar boat as blus where this year I’ve really scaled back film watching aside from cartoons to focus more on reading even getting back into comics for the first time since I was a teen which has been a nice intellectual revelation especially with Ditko.

[bad future]

I actually ran the numbers on this because I was curious. I went back to 2015 (which would have been about ten years into being a film lover/viewer), the first full year where I rated the films I watched (then for my own use in a Notepad doc). In 2015 I rated just under 20% of the films I saw for the first time four or five stars. Every year since, no matter the actual volume of films watched, the number of films rated four or five stars has been between 10 and 15 percent. Funny that this aligns closely with my off the cuff estimate of great films (for me, to me) remaining overall. Also gives me a lot to think about… is the investment for that 10-15 percent worth the 85-90 percent that doesn’t rise above okay at best (and is often much worse)? Would I be better served writing off the remaining hidden jewels and just revisiting “classics” for the rest of my life, in terms of maximizing time/quality of life value?

I've trended in the opposite direction with high ratings, though I'm probably just hitting 10 years of being "into film" right around now, so it's apples to oranges.

For the longest time I think I felt like I couldn't consider anything a "five star" film that I had any uncertainty or misgivings about, that I didn't think I fully understood, so of course most of my highly rated films from those years are fairly frictionless, and many of the "interestingly flawed" ones were the real hits. These last few years though, it's like I don't even need interestingly flawed and full of secrets, only that sense of "this is why I watch movies" and I seem to find that everywhere. It is possible that sharpening both my understanding of my appetites and my skills at finding things has led to a golden period where I actually am just burning through an unusually high rate of potential favorites and I'm bound to hit a wall, but I have some reason to be optimistic that I won't soon run out.

The biggest reason has to do with the title of this thread: since 2020 (yep) I have structured the majority of my movie watching around elaborate projects, usually with some "time" element, either focusing on a narrow span of time or a certain theme but always watching films in order of release to the best of my ability. I started with around 80 films from 1985, then increasing quantities from each subsequent year until I stalled out at something like 130 1988 films...all in the span of spring/summer lockdown, just structuring entire days around 4-6 films (a luxury most did not have even in those months, I know-- I only had the option because of social security disability income.) But that permanently rewired my DNA, I think, and since then I feel like I appreciate film in a way much closer to my relationship to music, just chasing the "dankest" stuff, novel feelings good or bad, singular perspectives.

I've since spent a lot of time working through the silent era through the 1930s (so many depths left to plumb there!), a very broad fantasy/folklore project covering 1940-1979 (from which a crazy number of highlights have since been announced for release by Deaf Crocodile), and 2000-2006.

But an interesting side effect of choosing what to watch in this way is that, for example, Tsai Ming-Liang, Jacques Rivette, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Tsui Hark are all among my very favorite filmmakers and I've not seen any of their work from the 1990s because I haven't done my 'big 90s project' yet. I saw Green Snake and Cure before breaking my brain, but there is so much major stuff to come (literally any Borzage from the 40s?), and in the meantime I have watched major work from lesser favorites, so many things that were never going to feel major, and so many things I didn't expect to but did. Perhaps a reckoning with my finite time on this planet will force a recalibration, but for now I am happy to have a 'method' that seems to ensure that I won't soon run out of long awaited first time watches, while giving more contextual meaning to the things I watch in between those and encouraging me to dig more outside of what I already know I like.

[Red Screamer]

Yeah, I've had something of the opposite progression. At the start of my cinephilia, I was what Manny Farber(?) called a "big game hunter," meaning I was searching for masterpieces and was disappointed whenever I didn't find them. Now, I'm a happy forager; I spend long periods chasing down curiosities and relishing nothing but three-star finds and minor films worked on by people I find intriguing. It's rare that I even try to see two great new-to-me films in short succession! With experience, it's easier for me to appreciate the small victories and flashes of craft or inspiration on the margins.

I also find it continually fascinating how the experience of films changes in almost hallucinatory ways. In broad terms, I used to experience plots and dialogue the most vividly, then they faded a bit to the background as I became more attentive to shots, the soundtrack, and spatial construction, and now recently I've been most keyed into rhythms and narrative structure. These types of unconscious viewing emphases reshape films in ways that make me feel like I re-learn what a movie even is every 18 months!