Wow, I watched a lot more movies than I thought this year. I shifted a lot of my ‘hang out on the couch and relax time’ from watching tv shows to watching movies. And honestly, it’s the right move for me. They're shorter and more digestable. Less fluff.
Laura and I changed what we watched depending on the season. Perhaps we were inspired from our friends Corey and Lauren who watched a movie all 31 days during October. We wound up doing something similar. This year, fall was perfect. We went apple picking, we cooked good soups, had some pumpking spice lattes, went to the Renaissance Faire and capped most of our nights with classic halloween movies. It made me appreciate the season. I never really considered the mood-setting capabilities of film before this year. It felt exclusive to Christmas movies to me in the past.
| 73 Movies Total |
Drama Top Genre |
16 Rewatches |
16 Rewatches |
| # | Title | Status | Genre | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avatar: Way of the Water James Cameron (2022) |
new |  Fantasy |
 3.0  |
| All stars for the incredible animation. Absolutely mind-blowing textures, lighting, hyper-real colors. Beautiful. It’s amazing how far we have come with facial animation. I haven’t seen something like this in a while. The story was forgettable but just like the first movie—the best part was seeing the world and how the creatures within it act. | ||||
| 2 | White Noise Noah Baumbach (2022) |
rewatch |  Comedy |
 2.0 |
| Admittedly, I was fucking around on the computer during the start of this but I’m not sure my full attention would have changed my opinion. Adam Driver is fun to watch in any situation and he was wonderful as a shlubby dad. However, the ideas of the movie didn’t feel concrete to me. It was challenging to understand the through-line between sections. It didn’t feel absurd enough to be absurd. It didn’t feel serious enough to be serious. So it was caught in between a weird gray place of trying to say something and not saying anything at all. Also, love Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha but it feels like she’s just playing Frances again but with a wig on. Very bizarre. Anyway, the LCD Soundsystem song at the end rules. | ||||
| 3 | Frances Ha Noah Baumbach (2012) |
new | Comedy |
 5.0 |
| I love this movie. This is my third time watching it. The first, I barely understood the New Yorkiness of it, which is a massive part of Frances’s struggles. The pain of paying rent is much different here than when I first watched this movie in Lancaster. So many jokes about the artist boys that went over my head. The second time, I understood the New Yorkiness and loved the movie. And now, I can finally watch it in its fullness and appreciate the entire thing. Frances and Greta’s performance is so genuine, awkward, childish. The direction is wonderful. There are so many quiet shots just showing you small pieces of her life. Their sum is deeply intimate. There are some incredibly millennial references and jokes that feel incredibly cringe now but, it’s okay. It’s a little portal into time. This is a comfort movie for me at this point and is among my favorites. | ||||
| 4 | The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker Colette Camden (2023) |
new |  Documentary |
3.0 |
| A strange story following a strange character. Sad on many levels. Had it on as something in the background. | ||||
| 5 | The Banshees of Inisherin Martin McDonagh (2022) |
new | Comedy |
 4.5 |
| Very funny, very dark, very strange. I’ve never seen a movie quite like this. The performances were fantastic. The clothing and cinematography were beautiful. I thought the pacing was great too. I enjoyed the entire thing and really would like to see more of Martin McDonagh’s work. I don’t know what else to say. | ||||
| 6 | Norwegian Wood Tran Anh Hung (2012) |
new |  Drama |
3.0 |
| We watched it because of finishing the book recently. The movie differed in a few ways that made the characters feel different than what I had imagined. Reiko is barely in it. Midori was much more outgoing and sarcastic in my mind. They address the mental illness of Naoko differently as well. Characters were less detailed. The shots were very slow. There is one moment where all of a sudden the soundtrack is like a full-on horror score. It was pretty abstract and felt out of place but was also one of my favorite scenes in the movie. It was pretty wild. Anyway, it’s very slow. I didn’t love it. But some of the weirdness actually made me appreciate it more. | ||||
| 7 | Almost Famous Cameron Crowe (2000) |
new | Comedy |
 4.0 |
| Very cute movie. Great performances by the whole cast. Frances McDormand steals the show as a wonderfully uptight mom. I think that it’s a fun and interesting look into a small subculture of the music world. It feels like it’s based on someone’s real experiences. It does a good job of being an interesting story about a boy and his first love while also being a story about a band and their rise and fall. The writing was great. The characters were real. Also, the soundtrack was fantastic. | ||||
| 8 | Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck Brett Morgen (2015) |
new | Documentary |
3.0 |
| A decent documentary looking into the life of Kurt Cobain. The early-life interviews are really the most interesting but I didn’t find much else of it to be all that different than other Nirvana content I’ve watched in the past. Almost the last 3rd of the film are home movies of Kurt and Courtney and they are disturbing to watch. They’re like some of the most personal and intimate films of people who are clearly not doing okay. It feels too private and intrusive. I knew that they were a mess and honestly it would have been better if we didn’t see it. It’ not necessary. There was some interesting use of rotoscoped animation throughout that I thought was cool. The illustrations coming to life and musical interludes were nice and on theme too. | ||||
| 9 | Meet Me in the Bathroom Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern (2022) |
new | Documentary |
4.5 |
| Pretty solid documentary about New York bands in the 2000s. It mostly followed The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and LCD Soundsystem. All bands who I’m not really that into and never identified with growing up. It was a totally different scene than what I had discovered and I really didn’t know anything about it. I can’t imagine living in a New York like the one that they were in. The Williamsburg that they existed, even then, seemed to only have lasted for just a little bit. People moved over the bridge, they started making music, people caught on, the rent went up, the scene died out. It’s pretty sad to see. However, I do feel like it documented the scene fairly well. I would have loved to have heard about even more bands, especially those that may have been local heroes that weren’t as popular. It might have been interesting to see how those artists influenced the music of today. While it showed that the city had changed by the end, it didn’t really talk about the bands that followed them. I guess they just said that the bands in Williamsburg dried up. I’m not sure. Regardless, I enjoyed it. It made me think about music. I like that. | ||||
| 10 | Helvetica Gary Hustwit (2007) |
rewatch | Documentary |
4.5 |
| This is such a guilty pleasure for me. I love this documentary. It’s the nerdiest thing I consistently return to, probably. It’s dry as heck but also captivating. I love the shots of Helvetica all over the world. The perspectives are varied. And it being made at the edge of the newest technological revolution has it grounded in a pre-iPhone era. I imagine the documentary would be very, very different today. It’s a different class of graphic design. Old heads doing their thing. But it’s still interesting, I don’t know. I could watch again and again. And I will. | ||||
| 11 | Birdman Alejandro González Iñárritu (2014) |
new | Drama |
4.5 |
| Very fun movie to watch with some incredible actors. I thought all of the performances were fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Quick. Funny. Imposing. | ||||
| 12 | Everything Everywhere All At Once Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (2022) |
rewatch | Drama |
5.0 |
| One of my favorite movies in a long time. I love this fucking film. | ||||
| 13 | Roma Alfonso Cuarón (2018) |
new | Drama |
5.0 |
| Absolutely beautiful film. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so transported into a time and place before. It was so refreshing seeing a film that appeared to have had no CG. I’m sure there was some here and there but the amount of extras, details of the cars, uniforms, technology. Like, there were some massive scenes with 100s of people in the background living their lives. It was so entertaining to watch because of that. It was almost like a Wes Anderson film in that regard but if the scope was much larger. There were a handful of really strange surreal elements every once in a while too. The man who was training the men who stands on one foot with his eyes clothes. Cleo could do it too. Or the brief clips of the movies that the family watches. The spacemen. It was a glimpse into the lives of a family and a very turbulent part of their lives. I don’t know for what it was I think it may have been perfection. There were a few times when I just said “wow” to myself. Beautiful. Sad. Real. Hopeful. Tough. | ||||
| 14 | Bananaz Ceri Levy (2008) |
new | Documentary |
 3.5 |
| Fun to see the origins of the band. Really enjoyed it. | ||||
| 15 | John Mulaney: Baby J Alex Timbers (2023) |
new | Comedy |
4.0 |
| Pretty good. For a set so full of grim content, it was quite entertaining. Not every joke was perfect and I might like some of his older work better, but it was good. | ||||
| 16 | The End of Evangelion Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki (1997) |
rewatch | Fantasy |
4.0 |
| I don't know how I feel about Evangelion as a whole. I was compelled to watch it twice, so I must like it to some degree. The animation of EoE is really, really good. The fights are wild. They feel heavy and impactful. The colors are vibrant. Honestly, I think it's pretty unrivaled compared to a lot of 2-D animation I've seen. It's unencumbered by any clunky 3D. It's really cool. The story is insane. It kind of clears up what happens in Evangelion. It's dark. It's interesting. Idk what's going on most of the time without doing additional research, but it was fun to watch. So... 4 stars? It was captivating in a way that I cannot explain. | ||||
| 17 | Evangelion 1.11 Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki (2008) |
new | Fantasy |
3.0 |
| Essentially a retelling of the first couple of episodes of the show. The English voice acting is terrible. The voice of Shinji is awful. Totally unbearable. It sounds nothing like what a teenager, even a young one, sounds like. It's so clearly an older guy trying to do a teen's voice and it's just totally, totally terrible. The updated animation is cool. The 3D models are fun for a little bit, but I think it starts to lose its charm quickly. Bad 3D looks a lot worse than bad 2D. | ||||
| 18 | Digimon: The Movie Mamoru Hosoda, Yamauchi Shigeyasu (2000) |
rewatch | Fantasy |
3.0 |
| It's so hard to rank anything that I have deep nostalgia for like this. The middle segment of the movie has such an awesome 90s depiction of the internet. I love how clunky it all is. I love how connected to phone lines it is. I love the drama between the kids and how Tai is lusting after Sora. It really feels like being a pre-teen. I love the slice of life mix of stuff that is thrown in. I think that the jokes are still so stupid but really funny. The ska punk soundtrack? It's all such a strange encapsulation of the 2000s. I think it's wonderful. I'd watch the middle portion over and over again just to feel a simpler time for the internet, to be honest. Email is your best tool, you know? | ||||
| 19 | Don’t Go Gentle: A Film About Idles Mark Archer (2020) |
new | Documentary |
3.5 |
| Documentary about IDLES. I enjoy any media about some of my favorite bands, so it’s hard for me to dislike something like this. There was a lot of footage of their early career that I thought was fun to see. | ||||
| 20 | Evangelion 2.22 Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki (2011) |
new | Fantasy |
3.0 |
| Continuation of the new EVA movies. It's fun. I don't have much else to say. Some of the changes they've made are kind of weird, but I'm hopeful to see where they go. | ||||
| 21 | Evangelion 3.33 Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Mahiro Maeda, Masayuki (2014) |
new | Fantasy |
2.0 |
| Most of the creative changes they made here I think are for the worse. Some of my favorite iconic scenes now feel so much less impactful. The new characters don't add anything. The 3D fights aren't as good as End of Evangelion which came out like a decade prior. The story isn't any more coherent. Really grating. | ||||
| 22 | Evangelion 1.0 + 3.0 Thrice Upon a Time Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Mahiro Maeda, Katsuichi Nakayama (2021) |
new | Fantasy |
3.5 |
| This is the first one of the new series that feels fun to watch, and I will say it's all because of the slice-of-life moments in the beginning. The time skip is kind of interesting. Rei experiencing life moments for the first time is unbearably sweet. The rest is just alright. Character motivations don't always make sense. The story is completely wild and ridiculous. The first half is great. | ||||
| 23 | Tár Todd Field (2022) |
new | Drama |
3.5 |
| Tár is really good. But also a little hard to watch. I think primarily its length is tough. The acting is amazing. The cancel culture themes are a little heavy-handed at times, but I do like it. I do like how nothing is really ever truly said outright about her until way later into the film. I think the cinematography is quite captivating. But ultimately, it's just a little boring due to its length and slow pace. | ||||
| 24 | Asteroid City Wes Anderson (2023) |
new | Drama |
4.0 |
| Not my favorite Wes Anderson film, but it was a good one. The story is subtle and didn't really make me feel deeply in any particular way. However, the film itself even addresses that. At one point, Jason Schwartzman's character says to us and the director of the 'play', 'but what's the meaning of it all?' and the response is essentially: does it matter? It exists because it exists. Take it for what it is. And that's exactly how I feel about this movie. It's a little story. It's not complicated. It's entertaining. Take it for what it is. There are two wonderful things about it. Obviously, one is Wes's visual style. Unmatched. Always such joy to watch. Every single scene is beautiful. That's pretty hard to pull off. Every scene could be a post-card and stand on its own as one singular visual image. It's pretty incredible. The second thing: the story-within-a-story-within-a-story idea is really fun. I love seeing the 'actors' play themselves as well as their 'play' counterparts. It creates a fun dynamic where we get multi-faces of these fictional characters. I'd actually really like to watch it again and try to really focus on the nuances of each of their character's 'real' selves and 'play' selves to see if there's anything interesting there. Anyway, I thought the movie was just pretty decent when we left BUT I did have some aesthetic experience stuff going on when we left. The world felt more detailed. I was experiencing it in wide-screen. I wonder if it was primarily his visual style that did that to my brain. I don't know but that means something. | ||||
| 25 | Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Eric Appel (2022) |
new | Comedy |
3.0 |
| The entire joke of this movie is that it is hilarious that it even exists. It is by no means a good movie, but every 10 minutes or so, the joke of ‘this is about Weird Al’ makes it better again. Totally insane. Totally silly. It was a fun movie to watch on the plane. Glad I could see that everyone involved had a good time with it. Laura at one point looked over at the screen and said, ‘did he really date Madonna?’ And THAT is the true joke of this entire film. Because Weird Al is just obscure enough, he could make up anything about his past and it just might be believable. And that’s hilarious. | ||||
| 26 | The Hobbit Arthur Rankin, Jr., Jules Bass (1977) |
new | Fantasy |
4.0 |
| Very cute animation. The spirit of it is enjoyable. The humor is simple. The story is fantastical. I enjoyed myself the whole time. | ||||
| 27 | Mistaken for Strangers Tom Berninger (2014) |
new | Documentary |
4.0 |
| One of the better music documentaries I’ve seen this year. Very cute. | ||||
| 28 | Barbie Greta Gerwig (2023) |
new | Comedy |
3.5 |
| 29 | Lost in Translation Sofia Coppola (2003) |
new | Drama |
4.0 |
| 30 | Surf’s Up! Chris Buck, Henry Yu, Ash Brannon (2007) |
new | Comedy |
 2.5 |
| Honestly, the first few scenes of this movie are hilarious. I love the documentary concept. It’s so fucking silly and good. The rest of the film is too formulaic for me to care. Great opening. | ||||
| 31 | Marie Antoinette Sofia Coppola (2006) |
new | Drama |
2.5 |
| 32 | Father of the Bride Charles Shyer (1991) |
new | Comedy |
3.0 |
| 33 | Princess Mononoke Hayao Miyazaki (1997) |
new | Fantasy |
3.0 |
| 34 | Arrietty Hiromasa Yonebayashi (2010) |
new | Fantasy |
3.5 |
| 35 | Kids Larry Clark (1995) |
new | Drama |
4.0 |
| 36 | No Distance Left to Run: Blur Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace (2010) |
new | Documentary |
3.0 |
| 37 | Into the Inferno Werner Herzog (2016) |
new | Documentary |
2.5 |
| 38 | Fallen Angels Wong Kar-wai (1995) |
new | Drama |
4.0 |
| 39 | Ex Machina Alex Garland (2014) |
rewatch |  Sci-Fi |
4.5 |
| 40 | 2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick (1968) |
new | Sci-Fi |
5.0 |
| 41 | Prometheus Ridley Scott (2012) |
new |  Horror |
3.5 |
| 42 | Carrie Brian De Palma (1976) |
new | Horror |
2.5 |
| 43 | The Shining Stanley Kubrick (1980) |
rewatch | Horror |
4.5 |
| 44 | Ex Machina Alex Garland (2014) |
rewatch | Sci-Fi |
5.0 |
| 45 | Parasite Bong Joon-ho (2019) |
rewatch | Horror |
5.0 |
| 46 | Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton (1999) |
new | Horror |
3.0 |
| 47 | Rear Window Alfred Hitchcock (1954) |
new | Horror |
3.0 |
| 48 | Superbad Greg Mottola (2007) |
rewatch | Comedy |
4.5 |
| 49 | Casper Brad Silberling (1995) |
new | Comedy |
3.5 |
| 50 | We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen Tim Irwin (2012) |
new | Documentary |
3.5 |
| 51 | Halloween John Carpenter (1978) |
new | Horror |
3.0 |
| 52 | Airplane! David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker (1980) |
new | Comedy |
3.0 |
| 53 | Twilight Catherine Hardwicke (2008) |
rewatch | Fantasy |
3.5 |
| 54 | New Moon Chris Weitz (2009) |
rewatch | Fantasy |
2.5 |
| 55 | Eclipse David Slade (2010) |
new | Fantasy |
 0.5 |
| 56 | Breaking Dawn Part 1 Bill Condon (2011) |
new | Fantasy |
 1.0 |
| 57 | Breaking Dawn Part 2 Bill Condon (2012) |
new | Fantasy |
2.0 |
| 58 | Shallow Grave Danny Boyle (1994) |
new | Horror |
3.5 |
| 59 | Trainspotting Danny Boyle (1996) |
rewatch | Comedy |
5.0 |
| 60 | A Life Less Ordinary Danny Boyle (1997) |
new | Comedy |
3.0 |
| 61 | The Holdovers Alexander Payne (2023) |
new | Drama |
4.0 |
| 62 | The Beach Danny Boyle (2000) |
new | Drama |
2.0 |
| 63 | Millions Danny Boyle (2005) |
new | Comedy |
2.5 |
| 64 | Sunshine Danny Boyle (2007) |
new | Sci-Fi |
4.0 |
| 65 | Trance Danny Boyle (2013) |
new | Drama |
2.5 |
| 66 | Bottle Rocket Wes Anderson (1996) |
new | Comedy |
3.5 |
| 67 | May December Todd Haynes (2023) |
new | Comedy |
3.0 |
| 68 | Elf Jon Favreau (2003) |
rewatch | Comedy |
3.5 |
| 69 | Gremlins Joe Dante (1984) |
rewatch | Comedy |
3.5 |
| So much fun. So much slime. | ||||
| 70 | Family Switch McG (2023) |
new | Comedy |
3.0 |
| Cute movie we had on on Christmas. It's always a good reminder to watch a low-stakes silly film from time to time. Nothing crazy happened but sometimes its okay to just have something simple the whole family can get a laugh at. | ||||
| 71 | Oppenheimer Christopher Nolan (2023) |
new | Drama |
3.5 |
| I feel like I'm too stupid for this movie. There was a lot that was flying around over my head. This thing is fucking dense. I can acknowledge the actors were all incredible. I feel like I need to watch it again to capture the nuance and details of the plot but because of its length, I don't really want to. Love my man Cillian, always. | ||||
| 72 | Poor Things Yorgos Lanthimos (2023) |
new | Drama |
4.5 |
| 73 | Interstellar Christopher Nolan (2014) |
rewatch | Sci-Fi |
4.0 |
| The first 1/3 of this movie is fantastic. The second half starts to feel less urgent and I find the overarching 'love' concept to be a bit corny. Very entertaining overall. Love hard sci-fi. Mr. Matthew kills it as well. | ||||