I’ve never been interested in New Year’s resolutions.
While I think the idea of having a resolution to start the year off is a solid one, I often see resolutions fixated on one narrow mindset, or too broad to really be achievable. A few year ago, I decided to start making my resolutions measurable and concrete: two years ago, I decided I wanted to write something every week—this went hand-in-hand with journaling almost every night before bed. Before that, I wanted to design and sew two costumes in a year (but then COVID hit, and that got left by the wayside). Two years ago, I aimed to exercise for 30 minutes at least twice a week, with one of those times being strength training specifically. When I graduated college, I resolved to floss my teeth every night before bed.
My focus was, instead of having a nebulous goal like “lose weight” (an objective that is resoundingly unhelpful as a goal for a multitude of reasons), about developing myself by either creating good habits or by expanding my boundaries. Journaling and flossing my teeth are part of my nightly routine, and I continue to keep up my exercise regimen to this day.
So for 2024, I wanted to think of a fun and interesting goal to set for myself.
While I was pondering, I came across an interaction between Hideo Kojima, one of my favorite video game designers, and Edgar Wright, one of my favorite directors, on Twitter at the end of 2023. Edgar Wright shared that he had once again set out to watch 365 movies in a year, but had fallen short at 351. Kojima commented that Edgar had beaten his movie total for the year.
Something clicked; this was the perfect goal.
In 2024, I would watch 365 movies.
It was a leap year, so I gave myself the grace of an extra day, just in case. Even if I didn’t meet my goal, I would end up expanding my film horizons, exposing myself to movies I wouldn’t necessarily watch otherwise.
I privately recorded each movie I watched, including the month I watched it in, the year the movie was released, the director, and the two primary genres (according to Google).
An aside on Google’s assigned genres: these are wild. Sometimes they make sense, especially with romcoms (usually Romance/Comedy or visa versa), but other times only one of the genres feels right, and the other feels pulled out of thin air. For example, The Skin I Live In is labeled as a “Horror,” which tracks, but is also categorized as “Sci-Fi,” which is not remotely accurate. I would have labeled it a thriller, mystery, drama, or even erotic before I’d ever thought to apply “Sci-Fi.” But the Google assigned genres were the easiest way to populate a list that I was actively compiling in the month of December.
Next year, I may consider using Letterboxd to at least log the movies I watch, but I have some hesitancy using a social media platform that feels predicated on witty one line reviews and a mere 5 stars to summarize my usually complex feelings on what I’ve watched.
An aside on directors: while directors are not necessarily the people who write the movie’s story, they are an easy shortcut single name. A director is indicative of specific styles and attitudes on how a movie may be approached. While I am anti-auteur (no movie is made by a single person), I find including the director is an easy way to connect like works together. Consider it a shorthand.
An aside on terminology: I will be using the terms “movie” and “film” interchangeably. There is a dialogue to be had about whether that’s a good thing to do, but it’s my blog, so I’m going to use the word that feels right to me in the moment.
To cut to the chase, in 2024, I watched (at time of writing): 383 movies.
I smashed my goal, and I had fun doing it, too.
Of these 383, I only rewatched 4 movies:
- Deadpool & Wolverine (watched the second time with a friend who hadn’t seen it)
- Inside Out 2 (both times I watched with the same friend, the second time she wanted to show a third friend)
- Clusterfunke Christmas (watched the second time with friends who hadn’t seen it)
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (watched the second time with family while on a holiday trip)
I also watched 2 short films, Paul Berry’s 1991 The Sandman and the 2024 Valentina Vee and Abigail Thorn’s short Dracula’s Ex-Girlfriend.
Excluding those 6, I still watched 377 movies overall.
A lot of movies were, admittedly, watched passively, during work projects (I work best with video noise), nights with friends, or lazy Sunday afternoons, but I worked hard to consciously put my phone down and pay attention when I could.
The oldest movie I watched was It Happened One Night (1934). The most recently released movie was Robert Egger’s Nosferatu (2024), which I saw on Christmas day.
Of the genres assigned by Google, I watched 197 movies that were categorized as Comedies, with my second highest genre being Horror (133).
I watched the most movies in the month of October, 41, which means I watched more than one movie per day. I watched the least movies in the month of December at only 23 (June, July, and September all had 26 movies watched in those months). All of the months that I watched the least movies involved a fair amount of travel, which accounts for the lack of movies.
The director I watched the most this year was: David Fincher (Zodiac, The Game, Panic Room, Fight Club, Alien 3). Overall, I think Fincher has astounding style, but often gets too caught up in visual grandiosity, and the endings of his films can suffer for it. Hands down, Alien 3 was his worst movie that I watched this year, but I found The Game to have a frustratingly tidy ending that didn’t serve its narrative. Fight Club is probably my favorite Fincher movie, but I think most of his work is worth revisiting, in spite of, or maybe because of, his flaws.
I watched 3 movies from the following directors:
- Ari Aster (Beau is Afraid, Hereditary, Midsommar)—I would recommend Midsommar. A devastating look into how easy it is to fall prey to cults that invites the audience to view the world from the perspective of getting charmed by the cult.
- George A Romero (Martin, Night of the Living Dead, Creepshow)—I would recommend Martin. Fairly early in Romero’s filmography, but right around that time that he had settled into a directorial style. A really unsettling take on vampire mythos.
- Oz Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Longlegs, I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House)—I would recommend Longlegs. It captures a perfect Silence of the Lambs-cum-Giallo vibe that suits it perfectly. Don’t go in thinking it’s a true horror film, it’s much more a suspense/crime story.
- Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, Nosferatu)—I would recommend Nosferatu, but that could be recency bias. Truly, every Eggers film I’ve watched has been pretty spectacular, but I also image they are a pretty acquired taste. The Witch is likely the most accessible.
- Sofia Coppola (Priscilla, The Bling Ring, Lost in Translation)—I would recommend Priscilla. Quiet and searing, it feels like one of the best bio-pics in recent memory, delivered in a way that only Sofia Coppola could.
- Ti West (Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, The Sacrament, Maxxxine)—I would recommend The Sacrament. The X series hasn’t particularly impressed me and Cabin Fever 2 is working with the deck already stacked against it (I deeply dislike Eli Roth as a director), but I found The Sacrament to be a fairly thoughtful and well-executed found footage-style film, with an intense slowness that I appreciated.
- Tim Burton (Big Fish, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice)—I would recommend Beetlejucie. It is quintessential Burton, for better or worse, and has some wonderful lighting, sets, and general 90s charm.
Billy Wilder was one of my favorite “classic” directors, I watched Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment.
Gregg Araki (Smiley Face) is a director whose work I plan to watch more of in 2025.
Biggest director surprise for me: Rob Reiner directed both This is Spinal Tap and Misery. Talk about range!
Of the actors-turned-directors that I watched in 2024, Chris Pine was by far the worst, with Poolman. Feeling like a twice baked, under-edited version of Under the Silver Lake, with plodding direction, uninspired shots, and a bad story. I also watched Charlie Day’s incredibly poorly reviewed Fool’s Paradise in 2024, so this should be indicative of how much I disliked Poolman. Anna Kendrick’s Woman of the Hour was probably the best actor-director movie for its non-linear narrative and the respectful and (unfortunately) unique way it handled the stories of real victims of a serial killer.
My biggest disappointment were:
- Shampoo. I watched this as I was reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. The book builds up Hal Ashby as a great talent and Shampoo as a conceptual novelty, doing something wholly new in film with gay characters. I found the film extremely un-nuanced in presentations of gender, gender roles, and sexuality. Blacula, which I also watched in 2024, was released 3 years earlier prior to Shampoo and had a much more complex and nuanced view of gay characters.
- Last Picture Show. A similar situation to Shampoo, Peter Bogdanovich was praised as a true auteur in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, with the Last Picture Show being called “revolutionary.” It could be because of hindsight, but the movie felt slow, plodding, and almost pointless.
- Cotton Club. I imagine (although I have yet to see it yet), that Megalopolis is like an even worse version of Cotton Club. It’s Francis Ford Coppola at his worst, spending too much money on a story that really only he understands or particularly values.
Movies that stuck with me, and will probably stay with me in 2025:
- SLC Punk (1998)—This was one of the first movies I watched in 2024. In a way, it’s a somber meditation about aging and death, coming to terms with compromising your morals, and can be a hard watch. It feels prescient to the modern day, and is worth watching in your 30s.
- Under the Silver Lake (2018)—This scratches my itch for immersive theater and ARGs (alternate reality games); everything is a conspiracy, layers hidden upon layers in this nerdy neo noir. One of my favorite Andrew Garfield roles, and a top fiction song in Turning Teeth by Jesus & the Brides of Dracula.
- Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)—Sharp and funny, with a kind heart and an astounding cast. Another good take on a story told non-linearly, plus an implicit gay romance in the early 90s, which reads as much more textual in the modern era. The cannibal twist shocked and delighted me.
- Oldboy (2003)—Heavy. Dark. Inescapable. A work of art, not for the faint of heart.
- The Graduate (1967)—Despite my better wishes, I really enjoyed The Garduate. Unlike other films mentioned in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, The Graduate feels to me like it truly earned its reputation from being really, really good. The direction is stellar, the writing is sharp, and it is much more than popular culture has boiled it down to.
- The Contestant (2023)—A documentary about a Japanese reality show, Susunu! Denpa Shonen, that challenged a man to stay alone, naked in an apartment for weeks, applying to magazine and radio contests to get food, clothing, and eventually 1 million Yen. The story keeps escalating from there, unbelievable and true.
- Tangerine (2015)—I also saw Anora this year, and both movies show some wonderful, thoughtful, researched writing to develop their sex worker characters. Where Anora makes a hard turn to drama, Tangerine stays a bit more comedic in its tragicomedy, delivering some beautiful performances, laughs, and tears. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez delivered an astounding performance, even more so when you realize she had no acting experience prior to being cast.
- I Need You Dead! (2020)—An indie surrealist horror movie I discovered on Tubi. It was made on a budget of $30k, and while it’s not the most focused story, I appreciate how small and guerilla the film feels, how punk-y and fourth wall breaking it gets, and how it tries to say something, even if it doesn’t fully succeed. I also absolutely love how wet the puppet is.
- I Saw the TV Glow (2024)—Probably my favorite movie of 2024, and one that makes me tear up when I think of it. I Saw the TV Glow feels like what it’s like for me to look back on my childhood, growing up with a best friend and a TV show that you’re both emotionally attached to. There is something dreamy, warm, and nostalgic, but also desperately sad, empty, and wanting. No matter what, it’s not too late.
So, what did I learn?
I learned that I really love movies. I love watching movies, I love talking about movies, I love engaging with movies on their terms. I watched movies intended for all sorts of audiences, and tried to meet them on their level. Sometimes I didn’t succeed, and when that happened, the best part about it was talking to someone about why I didn’t connect with or like the movie. And when I loved a movie? I immediately wanted to share it with someone else so I could talk about it.
Movies can help offer us insights into worlds not our own, help us understand cultures and viewpoints we don’t have. Movies give us something to connect to, emotionally, or something that helps us escape from the world for a few hours. Movies help us bond with others, make us think about what art is and how others approach art.
This journey saw me watching films from every decade since the 1930s, films with a variety of budgets, from different countries, directed and acted by people of different genders, races, and sexual orientations. I feel that I am better because of all the movies I watched. I am more connected and engaged as a person, and I am more curious, interested, and inspired.
Will I do it again next year? I have no idea. I’ll just have to see what inspires me next.
Ellie Hillis 