Blindspot 2025

This is my 13th year doing a version of Blindspot, so I’m not sure my customary introduction to the concept is still necessary. But in case there are still people who haven’t heard of it: this is a challenge in which you pick twelve films you’ve never seen but feel you should have (your blindspots) and watch one per month throughout the year.

Regular readers will know that my Blindspot selection process is often tortuously complicated. I don’t just pick twelve films I feel like watching, but compile various “great films” lists and use them to concoct some kind of ranking. Not so this year. I’m still using other people’s opinions, I’ve just made it very simple: every film on the list is the most popular one I’ve not seen (according to Letterboxd) from each decade since the origin of feature films.

In chronological order, they are…


Intolerance

1910s
Intolerance

1920s
Häxan

Häxan
Freaks

1930s
Freaks

1940s
Cat People

Cat People
Rebel Without a Cause

1950s
Rebel Without a Cause

1960s
The Graduate

The Graduate
Eraserhead

1970s
Eraserhead

1980s
Kiki’s Delivery Service

Kiki's Delivery Service
Girl, Interrupted

1990s
Girl, Interrupted

2000s
The Notebook

The Notebook
Midsommar

2010s
Midsommar

2020s
Saltburn

Saltburn

Normally I close out this post with a lengthy explanation of my process, but, um, I’ve already covered that this year. I suppose I should preemptively add that, yes, I’m aware the very first feature-length film was released in 1906; but few followed until the 1910s, so I still feel fine with this basic concept.

To finish, a bit of… trivia? I don’t know. Anyway: I did consider making this year’s selection simply the all-time most popular films I’ve not seen (that’s sort of what Blindspot is, after all), but Letterboxd skews incredibly recent in that regard. I mean, if I’d taken those twelve, two-thirds would have been from 2023–2024, and the oldest would have been from 2012. That’s the kind of thing I have the 50 Unseen category for.


2 thoughts on “Blindspot 2025

  1. Kiki’s Delivery Service is wonderful, as far as I remember- my copy was on R1 DVD, which indicates the last time I watched it. At the other end of the spectrum, Midsommar was the most over-hyped piece of tripe I’d seen that year, if not that decade….

    Liked by 1 person

    • Kiki’s is one of those movies I’ve wanted to watch for years (I bought the Blu-ray in 2017, and I know I wanted to see it long before that) but has never been ‘pressing’ in a way to make me actually get round to it. (That’s exactly why I continue with Blindspot & WDYMYHS, because it gives films like that their day.)

      I thought Hereditary was excellent (in a “chilled me to my core so I doubt I’ll ever watch it again” kind of way) so Midsommar does have a lot to live up to.

      Like

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