A Signal Watch Movie Year in Review: by the numbers
Each year we tally the number of movies watched and blogged, and then we break down what we watched into a few categories. There's no real reason for this - no one gets a prize. But let me do my little OCD companion piece to actually blogging all of these movies.
Let's Get Started
In 2025, we watched 255 movies. Last year we counted 253 movies, so... basically the same.
By clicking here, you can see the spreadsheet from which this data (these data?) are derived.
Here's a weird one - because we repeat-viewed so many movies (I even watched Jaws twice this year) we only watched 246 unique movies in 2025. However, we're considering each movie watched where a post appeared as "a movie", so it's 255... them's the rules.
Categories
- First Viewing - am I just re-watching movies I've seen previously, or taking in new-to-me movies?
- Was it a New movie? - I am always happy to watch a movie I haven't seen from any year, so am I making sure to see newer selections, wherever they may appear?
- Genre - by far my least favorite category. So many movies defy categorization and should be seen as more than just one thing. But for our purposes, it's kind of interesting? Maybe?
- Decade - Always interesting (to me) to see if I'm keeping up with movies newer and older
- Date of Viewing - How many movies did I watch in a given month?
- Format - What are my movie-watching habits in any given year? And what outlets provided the best value?
- Did the movie contain Lacey Chabert in any way? - probably unique for 2025, but as I said, Ms. Chabert had a huge influence on my movie-watching this year, so we need to check that out.
Caveats
- If I watched a movie only in part, it did not count. I had to watch the entirety of the movie from beginning to end, even if over two or more viewings.
- I did not review some things we had on if I was doing other things. I did not consider my attention on the movie enough to include it as something viewed.
- I include duplicate movie viewings - so if I saw Superman 5 times, it is on the list 5 times. More detail below.
- As streaming has kind of destroyed the notion of what is a movie and what is television, I'm going with my own definitions. There's some docs on here I'd consider either or both a movie and/or television, but they wound up on the list, so... if you don't like it, make your own list
Super Caveat: A Very Chabert Pre-Amble
Well, this was a year unlike those previous, and one factor above all others impacted the number of movies, what types of movies, etc... that were watched. At the center of this year of movie watching, the gravitational impact of "ChabertQuest 2025" utterly upset and overturned my normal viewing habits.
For those of you not in the know, at the end of 2024 or start of 2025, after watching several Lacey Chabert-starring Holiday movies, pal RandyT said "you should watch every single Lacey Chabert movie" and, thinking "that would be quite the journey", I gave it the ol' college try.
Y'all, it was a *journey*. You can read all about the initial conclusion of ChabertQuest 2025 at an earlier post.
It is true that ChabertQuest continued through the year beyond that big 'ol post. But, at the time of our first wrap-up, we got some details wrong, we later found additional movies that hadn't been available, and, thus, came careening into the end of the year still racking up Chabert films.
First Viewing
This year I watched 172 new-to-me movies. Of 255 movies, that's 67.45%. Good, but not as good as last year's 71%.
Now, I did re-watch Superman five times, so four of those were not new-to-me. Fantastic Four was seen 3 times. And I rewatched a few Lacey Chabert movies to correct mistakes during ChabertQuest.
It's a lower percentage of new-to-me movies than what I would have liked, but... I'll live.
New Release
We watched 38 movies that had just been released, whether that was a debut at the theater, streaming or on a disc. This did not include a movie that had been in the theater arriving on streaming despite the ever-shrinking window between the two. If we caught the movie in a secondary window like discs or streaming, we treated the viewing as a "not new release" - but would have made an exception for Netflix's weirdo "two weeks in theaters and then streaming a week later" policy. But it didn't come up.
But, yes, we somehow saw 38 "new" movies.
A novel category I added here is "still new, but I went to see it again".
We had four different movies here which we saw more than once in theaters during initial release. For some extra juice, we saw Superman three times in the theater. I'm counting that one twice as a "new release repeat". So, four or five, depending on what you're counting.
ChabertQuest
We did, indeed, watch 75 movies in which Lacey Chabert appeared.
It is tempting to do a more thorough breakdown of these numbers specifically for Chabert. And if that's your need, enjoy.
There is one small cheat, and that is that Lacey Chabert only appears in the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story in archival footage from a movie Reeve directed, but she was sure in there and it is *I* who makes the rules.
Genre
As I said, I don't like Genre as a category, because it feels unfair to many movies. Is a movie Action, or Adventure? And does it matter? Can a Western by a Musical, or a Musical a Western? Sure.
So, we did our best.
This year, in a few areas we did a sort of composite. We merged Action, Adventure and Superhero movies into an adjusted number, and combined Noir and Neo-Noir. We considered adding "Thrillers" to that list, but didn't.
A Holiday movie is wildly undescriptive, as is a Western. But that's what we did.
I will never not be surprised by how many horror movies I watched in any given year.
Some of the other areas that seem higher from last year. Comedy was up from 31 to 52, and Drama jumped from 28 to 41. Of course our numbers were heavily impacted by ChabertQuest. And she's in a lot of comedies and light dramas.
Decade
I don't think this means anything interesting, but here you go.
Month Watched
No real notes here. I'm very used to the summer-slump of not watching many movies while I catch up on television, baseball and other sports on TV. I don't know if my spike in the fall would have been so high this year if I hadn't broken my foot and landed myself on the sofa for about 3 months.
Format
I saw 21 movies in the theater this year, which is a complete surprise to me. But there you have it. It would have been 22 if the dorks in the theater at Black Bag had shut the @#$% up. But three of those 2025 screenings were some of the most joyful theater-going evenings I've ever had. So, not bad!
Also, this was a big year for physical media at my house with 35 movies watched on disc. Last year was only 25. And I know Jamie watched her Thunderbolts 4k once or twice when I wasn't around to get the bonus features.
Right at the end of December, I discovered my Kanopy access worked on my Chrome, so expect more of that next year. Kanopy is a service free through your local library, btw.
And, yes, we watched 43 movies on Hallmark this year, which is not-bad investment, I guess. But as I doubt we'll repeat the ChabertQuest exercise in 2026 with Autumn Reeser, we'll likely be saying good-bye to the service.
We kicked Paramount+ to the curb this year, and if you see some lower-usage rates on other services, we were often using trial periods to check out some movies for said ChabertQuest. I also had to use Fawesome and Tubi, which are definitely ways to watch movies.
I would dump Apple+ as we don't use it, but it's free through my T-Mobile benefits. (Yes, I know your high end shows are on there, and whoop-dee-doo for you.)
And, so....
I don't know. You tell me. For me this is just a fun exercise at the end of the year to see what we were up to. All along, I knew I was messing with my numbers via ChabertQuest. And I might do something this year with a similar strategy, but focusing on other things. Example: I am seriously considering watching every Robert Wise directed movie in order.
Also, I am legitimately concerned about winding up on an FBI list if I keep talking about Ms. Chabert.
But I don't see much changing based on what I see here. Maybe I should seek more stuff out from the 1960's? The 1930's? Watch more sci-fi so it's a genre category again? Y'all tell me.
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