I used Letterboxd's 'Pro' feature to get a statistical analysis of every film I've seen in the last six years.
I recently logged my 1000th movie in my Letterboxd diary (It was maybe the coolest movie of all time: Ocean’s Eleven. Disagree? Sorry, you're wrong).
In case you’re unfamiliar, Letterboxd is, essentially, a social media platform for tracking the movies you’ve seen. There are no threads or posts or mindless scrolling—just film reviews and the ability to follow other people to see what films they’re logging.
I’ve been using the platform since 2018 (don’t you dare tell me that was six years ago. Don’t you dare), and I have to say that it’s probably my favourite app on my phone. There’s just something so satisfying about logging a movie, creating themed Lists, and discovering films to add to my Watchlist.
Letterboxd is completely free, but seeing as how good the app has been to me over the years, I decided to upgrade to its ‘Pro’ version in celebration of my 1000th diary entry. Although, my main reason for doing this is that ‘Pro’ gives the user a statistical breakdown of all the films they’ve watched, and damn, if that didn’t make me curious.
So, let’s take a look at some of my more interesting and embarrassing film stats.
(To The Tune of "I'm Gonna Be" by The Proclaimers:) I Will Watch One-Thousand Films
First up—what’s this? Only 872 films? Yes, well, it appears that 128 of the last 1000 films I’ve watched have been rewatches. We’ll be taking a look at what those were later. The first stat of note is, I think, the fact that I’ve watched 1,725 hours of film. That’s nearly 72 straight days.
Honestly, that seems low to me! Only 72 days out of the last 2,000-ish?
There's a bit of pressure as a reviewer to be seen as all-knowing about films. I met a guy once who logged maybe four or five movies a day. This is insane. Turning film-watching into a numbers game threatens to kill the joy of it, but I do think that that I can up my game a little for the next thousand.
Film Debuff
Next up: exposing my recency bias. Look at that. Shameful. I don’t avoid older films on purpose; I just go to the cinema a lot, which means I mostly watch newer flicks. Plus, older films aren’t as readily available on either streaming or as physical media as more recent films are.
I’ve always been a bit embarrassed about my lack of film history knowledge and seeing this bar chart has confirmed that I need to start going out of my way to track some older movies down. (If anybody knows of any sites that stream older movies let me know!)
Now, what movie collections have I completed?
Yes, well…
I had Covid at the time, and…
Please, let’s move on…
Spider-Fan, Spider-Fan, Watches Everything Spider-Man...
I’ve only seen two movies four times since starting my Letterboxd diary, and both of them are Spider-Man movies? I knew I liked Spider-Man, but I didn’t realise I liked him this much.
No Way Home was a pretty big deal for me, though. The return of Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe as Doc Ock and Green Goblin was spectacular, but really it was Charlie Cox making his big-screen appearance as Matt Murdock years after the cancellation of Daredevil that I couldn’t get enough of.
As I’ve spoken about many times before, Daredevil is my favourite superhero (not Spider-Man!), so when Cox appeared in No Way Home, I slightly lost my mind.
As for Into the Spider-Verse, I mean, can you blame me? You don’t need me to tell you how near-perfect that film is.
As for my various ‘3 times’ watches, you’ve got a few classics: Ocean’s Eleven, Tenet (Great movie! Fight me!), The Terminator, Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight… uh, Venom, for some reason. Of course, I love most of these movies, but Whiplash and Unbreakable have a special place in my heart.
I’ve seen both a lot more than three times, but that was before I knew about Letterboxd. Whiplash was one of the first movies that I became properly obsessed with (the very first was Inception) and I have fond memories of renting and watching Unbreakable with my dad many years ago.
I've also seen Barbie three times, one of the many films my girlfriend has influenced me to watch over the years. Of course, I wouldn't have seen it three times if I didn't enjoy it immensely myself...
Now, onto my most-watched actors!
A Trip To The Serkis
Jackson, Damon, and Pitt have naturally been in several of the best movies of recent decades, so no surprise there, really. Serkis is interesting, though: between the Rings movies, the Apes movies, a few Star Warses, and a couple of Marvels for good measure, he’s been popping up consistently for me. Good for him! I didn't realise I was such a fan.
On the other hand, I have no clue what Seth Rogan is doing here. Of the 18 movies that I’ve seen him in, the only ones I really like are the ones where he’s doing a voice for a supporting character in an animated movie. I don't hate the guy, but it's wild that he somehow wound up in the same league as the rest of those chaps.
My ‘Most Watched Directors’ list is, frankly, where I feel most embarrassed.
I’m obviously not ashamed to be a Spielberg fan, or a Nolan fan, or a Shyamalan fan, but out of my top 20 most-watched directors, not a single one is a woman. Obviously, female directors face a tougher uphill battle when it comes to getting popularised and viewed as auteurs. Greta Gerwig, Sofia Coppola, and the Wachowski sisters are the closest that come to mind, but even then, there are clearly huge gaps in how much of their filmography I’ve viewed.
Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola, is literally one of my favourite films, so it’s more than a little embarrassing that I apparently couldn’t have been bothered in seeking out the rest of her filmography (although I have seen Marie Antoinette, On The Rocks, and Priscilla—one more and she’d have made the list!)
But for as good as Letterboxd is at pointing out my gaps and biases, it’s also equally invested in getting me up to speed with what I’ve missed. This list of the Top 250 Women-Directed movies (of which I have only seen 15…) is exactly what I was looking for, and for my next 1000 movies, I’m aiming to include as many of these as I can.
Super-Zero
Perhaps the most telling thing about my Letterboxd statistics are my top themes and nanogenres.
Look, I enjoy a nice, well-written, character driven drama, but my 'way in' to cinema was the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I like to think I've used Marvel films as a springboard to explore more subversive, less populist cinema over the years, but the numbers don't lie—I'm a pretty hardcore comic-book movie fan.
While I'm not planning on changing who I am in order to seem like I have a more discerning taste and look like a 'real' film critic, I'm curious about how these stats will change over the next few years. I've logged every single MCU film over the last few years; some multiple times.
But as Marvel struggle to find direction post Endgame and DC attempt to reboot their film franchise, I wonder if my tastes and interests will change enough to meaningfully alter these statistics. I kind of hope they do! I'll still be seeing every MCU film on day one, but will I be rewatching them as often as I used to?
I don't think so. Superhero stories will always be meaningful to me, but as I strive to fill in the gaps in my film-viewing history with older films and women-directed films (only 4 of the MCU's 34 films have been directed by women), I'm hoping that my tastes change a little to reflect a broader scope of cinema.
And I Will Watch One-Thousand More
Anyways! Finally, we came to my last statistic. This one is less of a stat, I suppose, and more of a ‘I scrolled through my diary for twenty minutes and made a list of every movie that I have no recollection of ever watching.’
Now, I did see these films. I wouldn’t have logged them otherwise. I just can’t remember why, where, or how I watched them (and in many cases, can’t tell you a single thing about them).
They are:
50/50 (2011). I know this is the one where Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets cancer, but I didn’t realise that I knew that because I’d seen the movie!
I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore (2017). Nope. Nothing. No clue. What is this?
The Crossing (2018). Again, nothing. What on Earth is this? I know I could just look it up, but I like a bit of mystery.
Ed Wood (1994). Oh, I know this one! Tim Burton! I think it’s about a movie director. That’s only because I heard the guys on Blank Check talk about it recently, though. ‘Sounds good!’ I thought. ‘Adding that to my Watchlist!’ I didn’t realise that I’d already seen it.
Keanu (2016). I saw Key and Peele on the poster with a cat. I think the cat is called Keanu? Feels more like something out of a fever dream than a real film.
Invictus (2009). I am stumped. I’ve seen the Rugby × Nelson Mandela crossover film? News to me.
Well, that's it! Be sure to set a reminder for 2030 so you can check back in with me for my 2000th film! (And if you want to follow me on that journey, here's my Letterboxd profile)
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