Since 2016 I have been tracking all the movies, documentaries, and television shows I’ve watched. In 2023 I had a total of 85 entries. In 2021, I had a whopping 168.

In 2024, my list has a paltry 22 entries. What happened?

Well, two things. First, it is true that I watched significantly fewer movies, documentaries, and seasons of television shows in 2024. This past year I dove into YouTube and spent a lot of time both watching and making videos. Watching videos on YouTube isn’t the same as watching a movie, but it fills the same time slot. I used to put on a movie in the morning while writing blog posts or sipping my coffee, and now I watch YouTube videos. I also spent a ton of time making YouTube videos, podcasts, and doing live streams. All that requires focused computer time which doesn’t allow for movies to be playing.

The other problem is that I’ve grown tired of the method I use to track what I’ve watched. I’ve been using a Google Spreadsheet which requires me to be at the computer to use. It’s slightly cumbersome on the computer and nearly impossible on the phone. I know there are online systems that could make this easier and I may look into them for next year. At a minimum, I’m going to streamline my spreadsheet to make things simpler to track. Because of my current system, a lot of the things I watched simply didn’t get recorded.

Because of that, this year’s summary will seem a bit sparce and chintzy. I’ll do better in 2025.

MOVIES

There weren’t a lot of new movies that made an impression on me in 2024. We saw Joker: Folie a Deux which, despite getting globally negative reviews, I kind of liked. I suspect the less you know or care about “Batman canon”, the more likely you were to enjoy (perhaps “appreciate” is a better word) the film. We watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in the theater which was enjoyable. I also enjoyed Adam Sandler’s Spaceman, which I wasn’t sure I would. Susan and I watched Wonka and… it wasn’t for us. The oldest film I watched in 2024 was 1922’s Nosferatu. I’ve yet to see the new one, but plan to soon. The movie I was looking forward to the most last year was The Wild Robot, which didn’t meet my expectations.

The first movie I saw in 2024 was Dream Sequence, a strange movie starring Nicolas Cage. The last one I saw was Dear Santa, a film in which a young boy with dyslexia accidentally addresses his Christmas letter to Satan instead of Santa. A great premise wasted on a dumb film.

In 2024 I tried watching a few films from the 80s that I had never seen before, including St. Elmo’s Fire (1984) and Fright Night (1985). One of my favorite discoveries was The Man from Hong Kong, an Australian/Hong Kong film that was more fun to watch than many of 2024’s Hollywood blockbusters.

TELEVISION

In 2024 I only watched a couple of television shows. Susan and I discovered and binged Ted Lasso, which we loved. I also watched The Acolyte and boy, was it bad. My buddy Sean talked me into waching Fallout and despite never playing the game, really enjoyed the show.

In a large lot of DVDs I acquired the entire run of the 1970s show, Emergency! I had never heard of the show before and while I didn’t come close to watching all seven seasons, I watched multiple episodes and will watch more of it in the 2025. Through a different venture I (re)discovered the old Thunderbirds television show and again while I did not watch the entire series, I watched several episodes and liked it.

As always, I watched lots of Unsolved Mysteries and random shows related to tiny houses.

DOCUMENTARIES

I always have and always will enjoy watching documentaries. This year I watched Will and Harper, which I found very touching. The documentary I was looking forward to more than any other was BRATS, Andrew McCarthy’s documentary about the brat pack which was okay but seemed to be digging for some sort of emotional baggage that the rest of the world simply never saw. The surprise hit of the year was 2023’s They Called Him Mostly Harmless which I highly recommend and would never spoil for anyone.

I watched a couple of docuseries this year. One was This is the Zodiac Speaking, which… I mean I’ll watch anything regarding the Zodiac Killer, and this was interesting, but it really lacked a smoking gun (no pun intended). I also watched Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV which was the Dan Schneider/Nickelodeon documentary. Somehow it was more depressing than the docuseries about a serial killer.

SUMMARY

Multiple writing professors I’ve had in the past spoke of “refilling the well” — that is, consuming content in order to help us create more content. I was so busy in 2024 creating content that I didn’t set aside enough time to consume as much as I would like. In 2025 I plan to watch at least two movies a week to achieve 100 movies in 2024. There are so, so many classic films I’ve yet to see and my list is constantly growing.

Here is a link to the entire list.