Category Archives: 2026

Reviews and editorials from the blog’s twentieth year.

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen All the Best* Sci-fi, Action, Adventure, Mystery, and Thriller Films?

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* According to IMDb Voters

What started out as my version of Blindspot (before someone else coined and popularised the term), I nowadays use as a secondary set of twelve films to watch in a year. Whereas Blindspot is focused on some version of quality and/or popularity, WDYMYHS (for short) has some kind of theme.

This year, I was rather coming up short for what that should be. Via some series of connections or other, I ended up at iCheckMovies, which, for those who don’t know it, was sort of like Letterboxd before Letterboxd came along and did a similar thing but better. iCM is still going, for whatever that’s worth, and I still look at it from time to time to see how I’m progressing on various lists. That’s where the inspiration for this year’s grab bag-type WDYMYHS selection came from: a few of my favourite IMDb genre lists that I haven’t yet completed. When combined, the number of films I haven’t seen on the lists for Sci-fi, Action, Adventure, Mystery, and Thriller (which is the order I looked at them in) comes out at exactly… eleven. But one of those is a two-part film that everyone else lists as two films, which brings us to exactly the number I need for WDYMYHS.

I’m happy to admit it’s not my best theme ever, but it’ll do.

So, in alphabetical order, this year’s films are…

The Cremator

The Cremator

Dersu Uzala

 Dersu Uzala
Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 1

Gangs of Wasseypur
Part 1

Gangs of Wasseypur
Part 2

 Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 2
The Great Escape

The Great Escape

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
The Handmaiden

The Handmaiden

Infernal Affairs

 Infernal Affairs
PK

PK

A Wednesday!

 A Wednesday!
White Heat

White Heat

Woman in the Dunes

 Woman in the Dunes

A couple of motes of trivia to end on. Both The Great Escape and The Handmaiden were possible films for WDYMYHS 2024, also thanks to IMDb user-voted lists (I was aiming to finish the Top 250, which meant I had 19 films for the 12 slots. I didn’t finish the Top 250, but I did watch 12 films — not including those two, obviously).

There’s also a WDYMYHS repeat in this year’s Blindspot selection: The Royal Tenenbaums was supposed to be watched in 2019, but I fell short that year. There were quite a few films I failed to watch from that set (I listed them in 2020’s Blindspot post), but this is the only one still outstanding. Hopefully, I won’t say the same in 2027…

Blindspot 2026

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This is my 14th year doing a version of Blindspot, so perhaps my customary introduction to the concept is totally unnecessary… but just 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.

In chronological order, this year’s films are…

Different from the Others

1910s
Anders als die Andern

1920s
The Phantom Carriage

 The Phantom Carriage
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1930s
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1940s
Suspicion

 Suspicion
Hiroshima Mon Amour

1950s
Hiroshima Mon Amour

1960s
Belle de Jour

 Belle de Jour
Sorcerer

1970s
Sorcerer

1980s
Poltergeist

 Poltergeist
The Prince of Egypt

1990s
The Prince of Egypt

2000s
The Royal Tenenbaums

 The Royal Tenenbaums
The Great Gatsby

2010s
The Great Gatsby

2020s
Poor Things

 Poor Things

For many of the previous 13 years, my Blindspot selection process has been tortuously complicated. I don’t think I’ve ever simply picked twelve films I feel like watching (which is how I’ve seen other people make their selection — perfectly reasonably). Instead, I usually compile various “great films” lists, rank and weight them in various imaginative ways, and thus concoct some kind of ranking-of-rankings to generate 12 new picks. I long ago ruled out relying on the same methodology every year, because that way it’s never surprising and never refreshed — I’d just be working down a very long list, year by year.

Last year, I made things a lot simpler: I looked on Letterboxd for the most popular film I’d not seen from each decade since the origin of feature films, and there was my list. I enjoyed that ‘history of cinema’ approach so much, I decided to repeat it this year. But, as I said, I don’t like to just take the next film on any given list, so I mixed it up slightly. By default, the decade search on Letterboxd displays 18 films (three rows of six). So, having filtered it to the ones I’d not seen, I randomised the selection by rolling a d20 (because rolling dice is fun).

If you’re curious, the rolls were as follows…

Decade Roll
1910s 11
1920s 3
1930s 12
1940s 6
1950s 20
1960s 8
1970s 14
1980s 5
1990s 14
2000s 4
2010s 4
2020s 5

“But, hold on a minute,” you might say, “a d20 has 20 sides, and your selection lists only had 18 films — what happened on a 19 or 20?” A perfectly reasonable and well-observed question. And, as you can see, a 20 was indeed rolled. Of course, I’d thought of a solution in advance, because it was likely the situation would arise (there being a 1-in-10 chance of rolling 19 or 20 on a d20, and there being 12 rolls). The solution was… more dice rolls (because rolling dice is fun).

Or, rather, one more roll, as it only happened once. As a 19 or 20 is a high success, I limited it to the top row (i.e. the six most popular films) and rolled a d6*… and on that, I got a 1 — meaning the 1950s is the only decade for which I’m watching the most popular unseen film, i.e. the one I would’ve watched if I had just picked the next film on the list. Which is fine — the point of randomising the choice wasn’t to stop it ever being the next film on the list, just prevent it being definitively and only that.

* (I appreciate that this system would make no sense in a game (why is 1–6 the optimal result but 19 or 20 results in another 1–6?!), but this isn’t a game, it’s a random number generator, so it’s fine.)

The 20th 100 Films in a Year Challenge

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For the 20th year in a row, I’m going to attempt to watch 100 films in a year.

Except, as regular readers will know, it’s a bit more complicated than that nowadays. Just watching any old 100 films each year became a matter of course — the “challenge” aspect died off entirely when I was regularly reaching 200+ films for a few years. So, a few years ago, I reimagined it into what is, effectively, a series of smaller, more specific film-watching challenges, which altogether add up to 100 films in a year.

(Alongside this, I also aim to watch ten new films a month, for a total of 120 a year. My lifestyle and habits have changed in the past few years, so that’s also more of a challenge than it once would have been. Indeed, I failed to do it last year. And I’m about 90% sure I’m going to immediately fail it for 2026 by not getting there in January. At least it’ll take any pressure off for the rest of the year.)

This is the fifth iteration of my new-style Challenge, and each year so far I’ve made some changes — removed and added categories; modified the qualification rules within a category; etc. That was part of my conception of this new version: that it wouldn’t stand still; it wouldn’t become something I could learn ‘how’ to do and repeat ad infinitum. However, I’ve settled on a category lineup that I’m so happy with I don’t want to change it… so I’m not going to. That said, there are certain categories (three of the nine, to be precise) that change their theme or makeup every year anyway, meaning an element of changeability does persist.

So, let’s see what that the 100 Films in a Year Challenge involves for its 20th edition…

First, the one rule that applies across all categories: a film can only count once. That might sound obvious, but the categories are not mutually exclusive: I could rewatch a film from a series I’m halfway through that’s in this year’s genre, and thus it could qualify in three categories — but it can only be counted in one of them.

New Films

x12. Any film with a general release date (i.e. not festival screenings, etc) in the UK (i.e. not in the US, nor any other country) between 1st January 2025 and 31st December 2025. Maximum one per month (but rolls over if I fail to watch one).

Rewatches

x12. Any film I’ve seen before (unless it’s already been counted in 2026’s Challenge). Maximum one per month (with rollovers, as above).

Blindspot

x12. Twelve films, specifically chosen and named in advance, that I should have already seen. Meant to be watched one per month, but I typically fail at that and have to play catch up. This year’s twelve will be revealed in a dedicated post tomorrow.

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

x12. Similar to Blindspot, these are twelve specifically chosen films meant to be watched one per month, but here my selections are based around a theme. This year’s theme, and the twelve films selected, will be revealed in a dedicated post tomorrow.

Failures

x12. Every month, I list my “failures”: brand-new releases, additions to streamers, and disc purchases that I failed to watch in the previous month. Sometimes I catch up on some of them the next month; often I don’t. Making them a Challenge category helps with this. A maximum of one per month counts. If I miss one, I catch up on that specific month later.

50 Unseen

x10. Any unwatched film from one of my year-end ’50 Unseen’ lists. It’s likely to be dominated by films from 2025’s list as I catch up on what I missed last year, but anything from the previous 19 years is eligible. (If you’re interested, there’s a complete list of candidates here.)

Genre

x10. Any films from within a specified genre — or, arguably, a sub-genre: I’m not focusing on anything broad like “Action” or “Comedy” here, but something relatively specific. Previous choices have included film noir, gialli, poliziotteschi, and martial arts movies. This year, it’s classic 3D — by which I mean, any film originally released in 3D before the current Avatar-initiated era. (Okay, it’s not really a “genre”, but then neither is film noir if you want to get picky about it.)

Series Progression

x10. Any instalment of a film series I’m already watching. If I start a new series, the first film can’t count but any further films can. (If you’re curious, there’s a list of film series I’m in the middle of here. At time of writing, there’s 36.)

Wildcards

x10. Any film that can’t have qualified in another category at any point. For example, I couldn’t watch two brand-new releases in January and count the second one here, or watch ten classic 3D films and then count an eleventh here.

As the year goes on, you can follow my progress on the Challenge Tracker page, and also via my monthly reviews; or there’s always my Letterboxd for the guaranteed most up-to-date status of my film logging.