Tag: three sentence movies

Letterboxd (it’s like Goodreads for films) sends a yearly summary to all their subscribers. Here are highlights from mine.

My films logged is 158, but at least 15 of those are the Oscar-nominated shorts. So I’m guessing my actual number of feature-length films is around 143.

It’s not surprising that Josh O’Connor is the most-watched actor; he was in a ton of stuff this year. And I’m glad that Agnés Varda is my most-watched director, but that means I’m not doing my quarterly director’s project evenly.

This lists is called Most Watched Films. But I think this means films that were logged on Letterboxd. I’m not really sure of the order.

I only had 3 weeks where I did not watch a film. The big outlier in February is the aforementioned Oscar-nominated shorts

This list is always fun. What five films did I see Josh O’Connor in??? La Chimera, that was the first one; the Mastermind; Wake Up Dead Man; and what? [checks IMDB] Oh yes, the History of Sound, plus he had a tiny part in the Mixtape. I saw Wendell Pierce in four films, and I think most of them were superhero films.

Joseph Cotton is thanks to the Filmspotting’s Filmspotting Madness: 1940s. But he was great in Shadow of a Doubt, which is my new favorite Hitchcock film.

My quarterly director’s project is to watch at least one film every quarter by Agnés Varda, Howard Hawks, Akira Kurosawa, and Spike Lee. Between that and the Filmspotting Madness 1940s list I’ve been working through, you can see how that affected this list.

I found it interesting that Jingle Bell Rocks was the most obscure. The Venn Diagram of Kanopy fans and Letterboxd users must not be as big as I thought. I can heartily recommend the shortest film, which was one of the short films nominated for a live-action Oscar. I also like that my viewing years spanned 1926 (thanks, Howard Hawks) to 2025.

Here’s the whole list from finish to start:

This is my movies I recommend list, sorted from shortest film to longest film.

I didn’t do a great job with directed by women, only 25. The quarterly directors and 1940s bit into that. Here’s to more in 2026.

I like this list the best, I think. Because I like to list the theaters I visit. This year I managed three in Boise (on a three-day visit) (Meridian counts).

We shall see what the 2026 movie landscape brings.

70mm films cost extra, but they often come with fun perks, like this handout for the Brutalist. It contained a sleeve, a brochure highlighting the architect’s works, and a postcard. A24 did a great job of promoting this film and sustaining the idea that László Tóth was a real architect.

Letterboxd is like Goodreads for movies, but not owned by Amazon. If you like to keep track of movies you watch, and see your friends’ reviews, check out Letterboxd.

I’m a paying member (It’s like $20/year), so I get stuff, one of which is an expanded year in review.

Here are screenshots from mine:

While I logged 209 films, some of those are short films. I’ve tallied the feature-length films watched in 2024 and the number is 190. As you will see below, July was the biggest month with 25 films (thanks, Covid) and October was the lowest month, with 8 (thanks 50th birthday party).

You can see the influence of both the Hollywood Movie Musical project where I attempted to watch as many movie musicals during my unemployment, starting with the Jazz Singer. That’s how I got five Janette McDonald features. William Wyler being the most-seen director is due to the Filmspotting marathon in the first half of the year.

My biggest week was the week in July I had Covid, when I watched 15 movies. (15!) The movie musicals project really took a great leap forward then. Those high numbers in early February are the Oscar-nominated shorts program, which always throw off the count early in the year. There was only one week I didn’t watch a film, and that (ironically) was the week of my birthday, when I was neck deep in party prep.

I’m glad that my first and last movies of 2024 were both directed by women. I kept track of women-directed films watched, and the total was 57. I’m glad my past goal to watch 52 movies by women in a year has become routine enough that this year I just tracked movies directed by women, rather than written by or directed by women. I think this reflects a slight upswing in directing jobs for women, but probably more my habits and my ability to find movies directed by women.

The Diary Milestones section was interesting, including one movie I watched and had no idea it was a rewatch (Gurnesy), a movie I remembered too late that I barely tolerated one of the actors (Babes), one of my favorite films (Good One) and one of my favorite theater experiences (Outliers and Outlaws).

The other fun thing in this screenshot is the most watched theme: Moving relationship stories (yep, 37 films including Challengers, Nowhere Special, A Real Pain, and Take This Waltz) and the nanogenre weird, dream, journey. That one I had too look up, but yep. Things like Barbie, Turtles All the Way Down, and Nightbitch.

This is always the fun quiz part. Can I remember the films I saw these actors in? We’ve covered Janette MacDonald, but Mr. Chalamet? A Complete Unknown. And what else? Did I watch Call Me By Your Name again?

[Checks]. Ah. I rewatched Lady Bird, plus rewatched Dune, in preparation for Dune: Part Two. So four. No rewatch of Call Me By Your Name.

I am not very good at this game.

I know Catherine O’Hara was in both Beetlejuices, but what about the other two films I saw her in? Apparently she did voice work in Elemental and the Wild Robot. Interestingly, my Zendaya streak is also due to the Dunes, plus Challengers.

Of this list, I think it’s fun that Luca Guadagnino had both one of my favorite films this year (Challengers) and one film that I really did not like (Queer).

Also included in this stat: Longest: Ben Hur (222 minutes, and I watched it over two days). Shortest: I’m Hip (4 minutes, which was an add-on to the Oscar Nominated Short Films Animated Program.

For posterity, here is an alphabetical list of the movies I rated five stars (as of 1/20/25):

• Blitz
• Challengers
• The Fall Guy
• Good One
• Mean Girls
• We Grown Now
• Woman of the Hour

And here are the films I rated four stars (as of 1/20/25)

• Civil War
• Conclave
• The Greatest Night in Pop
• Hard Truths
• Lee
• Love Lies Bleeding
• My Old Ass
• National Anthem
• Outliers and Outlaws
• The Piano Lesson
• A Real Pain
• Rebel Ridge
• Thank you, Goodnight—The Bon Jovi Story
• Tuesday
• Turtles All the Way Down
• Will & Harper

As always, I look at those lists and think, eh, some of those can be adjusted. My Old Ass? Probably should be in the 5-star crowd. Mean Girls? Maybe actually a four-star movie that I watched very early in the year. But the adjusting can go on forever. I really liked all of these movies.

Letterboxd hooked me up with a free ticket to see Didi, a film I was planning on prioritizing. I got to the theater early as directed in the email. It was a little chaotic because the people with the list were nowhere to be found. It turns out they were at the Lloyd Center theater and had to make their way from Northeast Portland to Northwest Portland and then find parking in Northwest Portland.*

*There is off-street parking for Cinema 21 after hours, but people have to know to look it up on the website. Most don’t, and they circle endlessly looking for a spot.

But they got to the right place and we got to see a fine film about the summer before high school. The woman playing the grandmother looked familiar to me, and it turns out the director of Didi, Sean Wang, was also the director of the short film Nai Nai & Wài Pó, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary short for the 2024 awards. The grandmother was Wang’s own grandmother (Nai Nai, in the short film).

Thanks, Letterboxd and Cinema 21 for this good movie outing.