I watched 53 movies in December. Thirty of them were made before I was born. I had seen fifteen of them at least once before. The theme for December was movies made in 2023 as I wanted to make a best-of list before the year was over. I watched 14 movies from that year, most of which were watched in the first couple of weeks. After that, I got bored and started watching old movies again.
Since it is now 2024 and we’ve seen the end of 2023 this will serve not only as a journal of December but for the entire year.
I watched 529 movies in 2023 which blows last year’s record of 452 movies out of the water. I really thought that after Covid settled down and I was getting out of the house more my movie watching would slow down, but in fact, it continues to increase.
I’ve really gotten my movie-watching down to a science. It has become an obsession. Every spare moment I slip upstairs and put on a movie. Maybe I should get a life. Until then, here are some more stats.
I averaged watching 44 movies per month, 10 per week. My most watched genres were Thrillers, Dramas, Horror, Crime and Mysteries. I mostly watched movies in English, but I did watch some movies in other languages, including 39 films from Italy, 36 from France, 20 from Hong Kong and 16 from Japan.
445 of the 529 movies I watched were new to me.
In the most watched actors category, Cary Grant snuck in this month to tie Ku Feng in first place with eleven films watched. The wife and I decided to make it a Merry Cary (Grant) Christmas this year and watched a bunch of his films over the last couple of weeks.
There wasn’t a lot of change in the directors category. I will admit I watched a Hitchcock film last night (The Lady Vanishes) because I knew it would push him into the lead for the year.
I continued my tradition of watching horror movies at the start of the weekend and writing about them in my Friday Night Horror Movie column. When I didn’t forget, I wrote a weekly column about the upcoming Blu-ray releases entitled My Pick of the Week. I once again wrote reviews for Noirvember, Foreign Film February, and 31 Days of Horror. But I also created new themes this year including Great British Cinema in September, The Awesome 80s in April, and Westerns in March. I really enjoyed doing those theme months so you can look forward to more themes in 2024.
Overall it was a very good year for me and the cinema. I watched a lot of great movies. Some of my favorite first-watches were The Story of Temple Drake (1933), Past Lives (2023), Oppenheimer (2023), Brighton Rock (1948), Man on the Run (1949), Night and the City (1950), Cottage to Let (1941), The Warriors (1979), Red River (1948), Hotel Du Nord (1938), Nostalgia (1983), Decision to Leave (2022), and many more.
You can see all the films I watched by looking at my film diary on Letterboxd.
I know movies aren’t the thing anyone comes to this site for. But I enjoy writing about them and I hope a few of you enjoy reading about them.
As always I will continue posting music too.
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