editor's note:
2023 was not a year in which I watched a lot of movies. Well, maybe more than some people, but definitely less than other people. And so it goes.
Inspired by pal NathanC, I've been not just blogging movies, but now I do a whole list thing every year, and you can see everything I watched in a single spreadsheet.
For Comparison:
In 2022 I watched 190 movies
in 2021 I watched 302 movies
in 2020 I watched 269 movies
in 2019 I watched 204 movies
in 2018 I watched 179 movies
Percentage difference from prior years:
2022: -9%
2021: -43%
2020: -36%
2019: -15%
2018: -3%
So, of course 2020 and 2021 were prime COVID years and we were:
- trapped at home
- doing podcasts
- doing watch parties
- had minimal sports in 2020
- less new stuff to watch as Hollywood sorted COVID
In addition to movies, this year I also watched a lot of serial television (post coming), MLS soccer, Women's World Cup, Cubs baseball, World Series, Longhorn Football, and other stuff. There's things on this thing they have called "YouTube" that are okay to look at.
We also left the house, socialized and saw family.
Not least, we had some personal stuff going on, so that kept me from watching a movie or two along the way. But, you know, 172 movies is... a lot. So, it's not that I'm apologizing. I just didn't watch as many as before. And that's okay.
By the way, I think I technically watched 170 movies because I watched two of these twice.
And what were those?
Godzilla Minus One, which was great and I heartily recommend. And Superman IV, which I've seen before and which is not great. It is not even good. And is bad for Lois.
What am I doing with my life?
I also didn't count most Hallmark Movies because it's too hard to remember what I watched and didn't when I don't write a movie up - so I think there's a representative one movie and I discussed Hallmark films a bit in December. But you coould maybe add on 8-10 movies here that could count toward total movies. But are they "movies"? I don't know.
Anyway.
Genres
I kind of don't care a lot about genre enough to have super specific categories anymore. But neither do many-a-movie. Like, I really don't know how to categorize The Northman. And I don't much care, I guess. But try I did.
I don't really set movie watching goals by genre, but I think I slacked off on Noir and maybe watched too many Horror and Christmas movies, especially with all the phantom Hallmark films. We also watched a lot of comedies this year, which is fine.
Decade
So, as you likely know, I think of movies like books. It doesn't matter when it was written - if you pull it off the shelf, you might find something you like no matter when it came out. Here's this years' numbers.
I'm absolutely floored by how many 80's and 90's movies I watched and how few movies from the 60's I saw. This literally needs to be remedied. I think we've been doing some comfort viewing and that's had a nostalgia effect on what is being selected for viewing.
Months Watched
Anyway, no real notes here. I'm not overly shocked to see the summer is actually a lower movie-watching period for us despite the fact we tend to stay inside (it was ridiculously hot here this year).
Nor am I shocked when we speed it up in December. We had some stuff happening in November, plus some TV shows we were watching, so numbers dropped off there.
Format
We've gone almost all streaming since starting this blog, with only 10.47% of movies on disc. But, still, we believe in physical media for a lot of reasons that will be clear in the coming decade.
We're still using Amazon as our Blockbuster, after checking in with way too may services to see if they have what we're looking for. And I'd argue when you do see me using non-Amazon, it's because I spent some time crawling around the other services to specifically identify something to watch.
MST3K is, of course, not a service - but it's a format of sorts, and this seemed like the best way to call it out, but those were watched on Amazon as well.
We only caught 11 movies in the theater this year, but given our restrictions this year, that's pretty solid, I think. And I hit four different places to see movies, between the Alamo, AMC, Regal and a special event downtown at the Long Center.
And, of course, good ol' TCM keeps being a thing I watch. I dipped a bit here this year, but will be refocusing my TCM efforts again in 2024.
First Viewings
My goal has been to watch more "new to me" movies every year than I re-watch films, and I more or less made it this year with 91 of the 172 movies seen as "New To Me". Or 52.91%. Not as good a proportion as I'd like, but I still met the goal.
New Movies
This one is a little more complicated. I counted movies that were either in theaters or hitting streaming within a few months of their theatrical debut as "New" movies.
I only saw 30 new movies this year, which is okay, I guess. And that's 17.44% of movies seen that were fairly new released. Could certainly have done better. More on that below.
PodCast
The podcast ended in October, and had been somewhat slow to come out this year. But between The Signal Watch PodCast and contributions at Superheroes Every Day, we watched 36 movies, or a whopping 21% of our movies for PodCast content.
So, that might be part of the burnout.
2023 Movies I did not see that I wanted to see
In no particular order. This is just to see if I get around to these in 2024.
- Oppenheimer
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- Poor Things
- Dream Scenario
- American Fiction
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
- Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part 1
- Blue Beetle
- American Symphony
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
- Priscilla
- Maestro
Category for 2024
I think in 2024, I am going to mark whether the movie selection was driven by me or someone else. I know this is a little weird, but I'm curious how often I'm watching a movie I selected versus what I watched because someone else selected it.
There's sure to be some interesting cross-referencing correlations in there.
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