Well, another year has wrapped up, and it’s time to take a look at my movie-viewing. In 2016, I made some goals regarding movie watching, and the results were largely underwhelming. So, in 2017, I tried again.
Here’s the complete list of every movie I saw for the first time in 2017.
The first thing to notice is that there’s a grand total of 186 movies on the list. This is an average of more than one every other day. This is probably a record for me, even outdoing my teenage years, and is certainly better than 2016, when I saw merely 55. In fact, I am certain I watched over 200 films this year, but the linked list does not include movies that I had already seen. For one thing, Owen and I watched the first three Harry Potter films together (but I’d seen them before). We also watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and E.T. together, and my younger kids frequently rewatched movies at random times…so a lot of rewatches this year, too.
Beside simply tracking the movies I saw, I also made a goal of seeing at least one film from each decade since the 1910s, and seeing at least one film with a title from each letter of the alphabet.
In both cases, I succeed. I saw 2 movies from the 1910s, in fact, including L’Inferno, which now holds the record for the oldest full-length film I’ve seen (it’s from 1911). The year from which I saw the most movies was 2016, which makes sense since it is the most recent completed year. The youngest movie I’ve seen, incidentally, is Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
I also saw at least one film beginning with each letter of the alphabet. I saw a single movie beginning with the letter X: X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I saw at least two movies beginning with the other 25 letters. The most represented letter was, of course, S. I saw 22 movies with titles beginning with the letter S. The longest holdout was N. I didn’t see a movie starting with an N until October 1st, when I finished watching Night Train to Munich. I also saw four movies with titles that begin with numbers.
My pacing was pretty even, though I went nine full days without watching a single movie from May 15th-May 23rd. But, come on, I had my youngest kid’s birthday, a final paper due in college, and my own college graduation to think about during that time. At the other extreme, from October 6th-12th, I saw one movie each day all seven days, which was the longest such streak. The months in which I saw the most movies were January and October (20 each), both narrowly surpassing July’s total of 19. The month in which I saw the least number of movies was May, with only 8. Second lowest was September, with 10.
I saw six movies at the theater, watched one for school, and saw six while riding in an airplane. I also watched movies in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Massachusetts, and Florida.
My least favorite movie I saw was Carnosaur. The second-worst was Beetlejuice. Only slightly better than these two pieces of garbage was Ghost in the Shell.
Here are the five best movies I saw this year:
2. The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years