Tag Archives: 100 Films in a Year

The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025

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For the 19th year in a row, I’m going to try to watch 100 films in a year. And for the fourth year in a row, I’ve made it much more complicated than that. I don’t know if I can still call it “new-style” at this point, but nonetheless, here I go again with the, er, more-recent-style 100 Films in a Year Challenge.

This year, I feel a renewed sense of confidence in this Challenge actually having a point, thanks to finally completing it in 2024. I mean, if I kept failing it, why keep doing it? Surely that would mean it just doesn’t work? But now I’ve done it, I’ve proved to myself I was right: it’s not an unreasonable exercise. (Talking entirely about myself, here. I’m sure the kind of people who routinely watch 300 or 400 or 500 or more films year after year would have no problem dashing this off in amongst their viewing.)

You might think that, having apparently hit upon the right formula after three years of trying, I wouldn’t make any changes to the Challenge for 2025. And… you’d sort of be right. That wasn’t my motivation, but I have got a balance of categories that I’m happy with. So, no brand-new categories this year, although I have completely changed the rules for one (and another almost got replaced — read on to find out which); plus, a couple of others have changed their specific theme, as always.

But enough of being vague — let’s get into this year’s categories and their rules.

First, the one rule that applies across all categories: a film can only count once. Sounds 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 2025’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 are discussed in a dedicated post here.

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, are discussed in a dedicated post here.

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 2024’s list as I catch up on what I missed last year, but anything from the previous 18 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, and martial arts movies. This year, it’s back to Italy for poliziotteschi.

Series Progression

x10. I considered replacing this category (not just for the sake of it — I had a specific idea), but it fills a gap the other categories don’t reach (and my replacement wouldn’t have been so unique). Besides, Letterboxd tells me I still have 33 series underway, so it’s a worthwhile cause. The rules haven’t changed: any instalment of a film series I’m already watching qualifies; if I start a new series, the first film can’t count but any further films can.

Wildcards

x10. For 2025, I’m turning the Wildcard category on its head, because it now has only one rule: films can’t have qualified in any other category. If I watch two brand-new releases in January? Sorry, that second one just doesn’t count. If I’ve filled up Series Progression and then watch an eleventh film? Nope, no doing. This is a way to capture (and encourage) my viewing of anything and everything not covered by the other categories. (With such simple qualification criteria, there’s every chance I’ll burn through these ten slots fairly quickly. I considered introducing a second rule to mitigate that, but decided to see how it goes in 2025 and maybe I’ll tighten it up for 2026, if that would be productive.)

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.

The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024

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They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Nonetheless, here I go for a third time with the new-style 100 Films in a Year Challenge, despite having failed to complete it the first two times. Hopefully, another hoary old saying will apply: third time lucky.

There are two reasons to be optimistic. First, it’s not exactly the same each year — it’s (mostly) new films, and I’ve also tweaked the categories… although not necessarily to make them easier, because of the second reason: I’ve almost got there both years so far. Okay, in 2022 I stopped pretty far short at #89, but that was because 100 became unattainable and so I didn’t keep trying to close the gap. In 2023, I stuck at it a bit longer, reaching #92. In both cases, better time management earlier in the year could have made a huge difference in terms of completing the challenge. Indeed, in both years I met my old-style challenge (“watch any 100 films I’ve never seen”) with relative ease.

I’m hoping that in 2024 I’ll finally learn from my mistakes and pull my finger out earlier in the year — though I did try to do that in 2023, with limited success, so we’ll have to see how it goes.

Now, this year’s categories and their rules.

First, the one rule that applies across all categories: a film can only count once. Sounds kinda 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 that’s general release date (i.e. not festival screenings, etc) in the UK (i.e. not in the US, nor any other country) is between 1st January 2024 and 31st December 2024. 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 2024’s Challenge). Maximum one per month (with rollovers, as above).

Blindspot

x12. Unlike most other categories, these 12 films are specifically chosen and named in advance. They’re all films I feel I should have seen, or that “great movies” lists tell me I should have seen. Designed to be watched one per month, but doesn’t have to be. You can read about this year’s 12 in their own post here.

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

x12. Similar to Blindspot, in that these are 12 specifically chosen films to be watched one per month, but my selections here are based around a theme. This year’s theme: the IMDb Top 250. Wait — 250 films?! No, don’t be silly. But it’s not exactly 12, either. For a full explanation, look here.

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 force my hand. A maximum of one per month counts, but rolls over if necessary.

50 Unseen

x10. This year’s only entirely-new category, although it’s broadly similar to “failures” in that it’s an incentive to watch films I missed — in this case, from previous years (my annual “50 Unseen” lists) rather than just the previous month.

50 Unseen replaces Physical Media. It was a nice idea to try to make me watch more DVDs that I’ve owned for decades, or 3D Blu-rays that I simply haven’t got round to, and I still support that as a goal; but, in reality, I foresaw that category in 2024 filling up with Edgar Wallace Mysteries and/or random freshly-purchased 4Ks. I wanted to find space here for my 50 Unseen, and Physical Media seemed the best category to lose for now. If I ever get my series watches in hand, hopefully I can replace Series Progression with a new version of Physical Media sometime in the future.

Genre

x10. Any films from within a specified genre. Unlike most of the above categories, these can be watched at any time — maybe I’ll spread them throughout the year; maybe I’ll binge them all back to back. Most likely it’ll be somewhere between the two. This year’s genre: martial arts.

Series Progression

x10. Any instalment in one of the many film series I’m already watching (there’s a Letterboxd list of them here). If I start a new series, the first film can’t count, but any further films can.

Wildcards

x10. Slots that can be used to add a film or films to any other category, provided the category’s own requirements have already been met (e.g. no 11th Genre film until I’ve filled the original ten, but I could use a wildcard for a second New Film in January).

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.

The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge, Mk.II

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Alright, here we go: after spending the first week of 2023 wrapping up 2022, it’s finally time to move on to the new year.

For the 17th year in a row, I’m going to attempt to watch 100 films in a year. But, for the second year in a row, that’s not just any old 100 films: following on from last year’s grand re-envisioning of the challenge, it’s 100 films that fulfil certain categories and criteria. Those categories and criteria have undergone some changes, however — hence Mk.II.

When I conceived of this new-style challenge, it was always my intention to vary the categories somewhat year by year (there was a reason last year’s goal of watching 12 film noirs came in a category called “Genre”, not “Film Noir”), but actually undertaking it for a year has thrown up a few pointers about how it could work better, or cases in which the rules needed to be clearer. Consequently, some of this year’s categories are mere refinements on what went before, while others are the same but with new contents, and a couple have been replaced wholesale for the sake of variety.

The one rule that applies across all categories: a film can only count once. Sounds kinda obvious, but the categories are not mutually exclusive — I could watch a DVD of a film in this year’s genre that’s also part of a series, and technically that could count in any one of three categories. Similarly, if I rewatch a film that I’ve already counted, the rewatch can’t count. As a separate viewing, it sort of still fulfils the criteria, but I feel it’s better to have 100 totally unique films. (It also means I can accurately track my progress in a list on Letterboxd, whereas I couldn’t if repeats were allowed.)

With that said, this year’s categories are…

New Films

x12. Any film that’s general release date (i.e. not festival screenings, etc) in the UK (i.e. not in the US, nor any other country) is between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023. 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 2023’s Challenge). Maximum one per month (with rollovers, as above).

Blindspot

x12. Films I feel I should have seen, or that “great movies” lists tell me I should have seen. Not just any old films, but 12 films specifically chosen and named in advance. Designed to be watched one per month, but doesn’t have to be. I’ll name this year’s 12 in their own post soon. Teaser: the recent publication of Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade poll has had a significant bearing on this year’s choices…

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

x12. Similar to Blindspot, in that they’re 12 specifically chosen films to be watched one per month, but these are all based around a theme. This year’s theme: film noir. “Hold up,” I hear you say, “wasn’t film noir a different category last year?” Why yes, it was 2022’s Genre. What’s different about it being 2023’s WDYMYHS theme? I’ll explain when I name the 12 specific films in their own post, soon.

Failures

x12. Every month, I list my “failures” — new releases or purchases that I failed to watch in the previous month. Sometimes, I catch up on some of them. Often, I don’t. Making it a Challenge category will hopefully force my hand. As with new films and rewatches, it’s a maximum of one per month, but rolls over if necessary.

Genre

x10. Any films from within a specified genre. Unlike most of the above categories, these can be watched at any time — maybe I’ll spread them throughout the year; maybe I’ll binge them all back to back. Most likely it’ll be somewhere between the two. This year’s genre: giallo.

Series Progression

x10. Any instalment in a film series I’m already watching (there’s a Letterboxd list of them here). If I start a new series, either by accident or choice, the first film can’t count, but any further films can. I thought about replacing this category, but while I’ve still got so many series on the go, I wanted to keep the incentive to push on with them.

Physical Media

x10. Last year, I had a whole category dedicated to DVDs, because I’ve got so many of them that I’ve never watched. Frankly, it’s a category I thought I’d change — but I have so many unwatched discs, it needs to stick around if it’s to make any serious dent in its purpose. However, I’ve widened it this year, because I also have a massive pile of unwatched 3D and UHD Blu-rays. So, not any physical media counts, just those three formats. I know that makes the category title inaccurate, but “DVDs and 3D Blu-rays and 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays” seemed unwieldy. As with genre and series films, these can be watched at any time.

Wildcards

x10. Last year, every category had 12 films, leaving an awkward four spare. My solution was to make them ‘wildcards’ that could be added to any category, thus turning a bug into a feature. That feature had the potential to be so useful that I’ve expanded it.

You see, towards the end of 2022, the Challenge was dictating my viewing more than I would like. I wanted to catch up on recent releases, and also watch some Christmassy fare, but none of those films would have qualified for the Challenge, and I still had a couple of dozen films left to complete it, so I felt forced to watch DVDs and film noirs and so on instead. Okay, that’s partly my own fault for not getting on with them earlier in the year; but this new-style Challenge was always going to be a work in progress, so I thought that, for Year Two, I’d build in a potential fix. Hence: the revised wildcard category.

As you can see, I’ve more than doubled the quotient, and I’m removing the limit of one wildcard per category (as there are only eight other categories, that wouldn’t work anyway). These ‘new’ wildcards still need to be attached to an existing category, but it can happen as often per category as I want (provided the category’s requirements have already been met, e.g. no 11th Genre film until I’ve filled the original ten). I imagine, therefore, that these will mostly get used on additional new films, perhaps rewatches and failures, but who knows? We’ll see how it goes… and change it again for 2024, if needs be.

All that make sense? If not, let me remind you that you don’t really need to worry about any of this — it’s only me who has to work it out.

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.

Abandoning the 100 Films Challenge 2022

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There are 10 days of the year left — 11 if you include this evening — and I have 11 films left to complete my 100 Films Challenge (you can see the state of things on the tracker, here). It seems almost like a match made in heaven. But it isn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Which is why I’ve decided to abandon the challenge at this point.

Why? When I’m so close and it seems so possible, why?

Well, it may look doable on paper, but it isn’t in real life. Not this particular real life, for me, here in 2022. Not for any grand or scary reason; just simple scheduling.

Here’s the problem: having to watch specific films. The old-style “any 100 films in a year”? Easy peasy. Done it already, in fact (I mentioned it in November’s review). That’s why I created the new system: to make the Challenge more of a challenge. But it’s turned out to be too challenging this year. It’s my own fault — I was too laissez-faire earlier in the year. “There’s plenty of time to catch up.” Reader, there was not plenty of time. Or if there was, I still let it run out.

With the days of the year that are left, and knowing my personal schedule (of family get togethers and whatnot), some of it is still possible. Three DVDs? Not too hard. Three ‘series’ films? Yep, could do. One more film noir? A doddle. A wildcard attached to one of those three categories? Hardly a wildly difficult task.

Here’s the rub: Yi Yi for Blindspot, and The Name of the Rose and The Transformers: The Movie for WDYMYHS. One of them? Plausible. Two of them? At a stretch, possibly. All three? Nah. And with the aforementioned categories as well? Not on your nelly. I’ve just run out of time to make them all work with the other stuff I have going on for the rest of the year.

Also: even if I could get it done, it’d be pretty unrelenting, with little or no room for ‘free viewing’. Catching up on some 2022 misses? Forget it! Christmas films? Not bloody likely! A relaxing something-and-nothing flick on a lazy holiday afternoon? Get back to it, Challenger!

By choosing to abandon the uncompleteable challenge, I give myself permission to (perhaps) watch some of those things. Might I still tick off a few more films — watch some DVDs; progress some series; maybe even allow a little more noir into the white of Christmas? Perhaps. Perhaps not. That I don’t have to doesn’t mean I won’t. But choosing to declare the completion of the Challenge dead at this point means I can just enjoy the last week-and-a-half of the year, without the constant background nagging of how many films I still have to try to squeeze in.

So, was this new experiment a failure? Well, technically, yes — obviously, because I failed it. But that’s my own damn fault. It’ll be back in 2023, in a revised form. It was always my intention to revise it year by year (there’s a reason the film noir category is called “Genre”, not “Film Noir”, for example), and hopefully 2023’s version will be a little more completable.

Plus, I must try to remember that leaving such a big chunk ’til the last minute is not a very workable plan.

Anyway, hopefully this won’t be the last you see of me in 2022 (I’d like to get a bit more caught up on reviews); and then it’ll be the start of 2023 — time to look back at 2022 (I’ve got my usual suite of year-end posts planned (yep, there are gonna be statistics!)), and to begin afresh (for my 17th year).

The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge

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As I said in my introduction to the blog’s new era, reports of 100 Films in a Year’s death may have been grossly exaggerated — because while 100 Films in a Year as it was is no more, in its place I have…

The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge!

Just like its title, this new version is similar but different. My original challenge was wholly straightforward: watch 100 films I’d never seen before every year. The only thing approaching complexity or contention was whether alternate cuts (e.g. director’s cuts) counted as a “film I’d never seen before” or not. But this brand-new version of the challenge… well, it’s going to require some explaining.

Before I do, let’s recap why this came about. As regular readers are likely aware by now, I’ve been thinking about modifying my eponymous goal for a few years, primarily because simply “watching 100 new films in a year” stopped being an actual challenge and became my de facto state. It’s almost a decade since I failed in that goal, and over the last few years my average has been closer to 200 films in a year. So, why not just double the target? Or pick another number? Maybe I would’ve just done that, were it not for a few slip-ups (i.e. months where I fell short of my minimum target) and lifestyle changes in recent years. Obviously a challenge should be challenging, not a guaranteed walk in the park, but “just watch more films” didn’t seem the right way to push myself.

That’s what ultimately led to this new challenge — or, you might argue, array of challenges. You see, rather than just watching any old 100 films, now there are a selection of categories, and films will need to fulfil criteria to qualify. Whereas the old challenge merely motivated me to watch more films, this new version is designed to encourage me to watch certain kinds of films. Plus, with some additional rules for each category, it will spread that viewing throughout the year, rather than seeing me engage in a headlong rush to #100 as quickly as I can (which has happened the past few years).

So, you could argue this is eight separate challenges that together add up to 100 films, rather than a ‘true’ 100 films challenge — whatever that might mean. And you can argue that, if you want — I don’t care. This is a personal project, not some athletic endeavour subject to outside scrutiny, and this is how I’m choosing to do it. Of course, if for some reason you wanted to join in, you’re more than welcome. Feel free to use my rules. Feel free to tweak them to suit your own goals. Feel free to ignore them entirely and come up with your own criteria. Feel free to think “you know what, I really need to play more video games” and set yourself 100 Games in a Year as a challenge. Heck, that’s how this all began: I ‘ripped off’ the Read 50 Books in a Year challenge.

As I said, there are now eight groups making up my 100-film challenge. I’ll outline them in a moment, but first there’s one general rule: a film can only count once. Sounds kinda obvious, I guess, but my categories are not so niche as to be mutually exclusive — I could watch a Blindspot pick from the 1970s on DVD and technically it could count across three categories. But if I did that, well, the final tally wouldn’t actually get to 100, which would be self defeating. When a film fulfils the criteria for multiple groups (as some surely will, especially early on), it’s up to me to allocate which category it counts towards — although there are some sub-rules that will help dictate that. (My challenge is watching films, but yours may be trying to understand why I make these things so unnecessarily complicated…)

Without further ado, the categories are…

New Films

Well, that immediately requires clarification, doesn’t it? Because in the old challenge all 100 films were “new”, as in “new to me”. Now, however, I mean “new” as in “new (to the UK)”. And the UK clarification is needed because we so often get foreign films ‘late’, especially awards-y films that play US dates the year before but aren’t released here until January, February, March… even as late as June or July sometimes. So, this category is 12 films that were released in the UK for the first time during 2022. To some people that might seem like no challenge whatsoever — and it’s not that much of a challenge to me, to be honest, because I normally far exceed it. But, on the whole, my viewing skews older (when there’s the whole of film history to explore, why just watch brand-new stuff?), so I feel it’s a worthwhile category to include. Plus, part of the point of this is to spread the challenge throughout the year. To ensure that, this category is limited to one qualifying film per month — so even if I watched two (or more) new films in a single month, only the first would count towards the challenge. However, it can rollover if necessary — for example, if I watched no new films in January, I could count two in February. That might seem to undermine the concept of spreading these throughout the year, but, without it, it would be possible for me to fail the entire year on January 31st, which would suck.

Rewatches

In arguably the biggest change of all, rewatches now count… but only 12 of them. Mirroring the “new films” requirement, this is also limited to one per month. I’m not intending to run my Rewatchathon anymore, primarily because of this, but I’d like to think I’ll still rewatch more than 12 films a year. We’ll see — maybe I’ll end up bringing it back.

Blindspot

This continues as-is: 12 specific films, chosen ‘scientifically’ from best-of lists and the like, designed to be paced one per month. Because they’re specific films, if I did decide to get ahead of myself then they could count ‘early’, but I don’t think I’ve ever done that and I don’t intend to start now. As usual, there’ll be a dedicated post sometime soon with my 12 picks.

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

After a couple of years ‘off’ (or, if you prefer, combined with Blindspot, because they’re essentially the same thing), WDYMYHS is back. The change is, whereas Blindspot is made up of “great movies” (according to other people), WDYMYHS will revolve around a theme of some kind. This year that link will be my birth year: 12 specific films from 1986 that I’m surprised I haven’t seen. Again, my 12 picks will be named in a dedicated post soon.

Decades

At least one film from every decade that feature films have existed, i.e. since the 1910s. That makes it another group of 12 — what are the odds?! It’s almost like I’m doing this deliberately… I can watch as many of these as I like within any given month, so we’ll see how long it takes me to tick them all off — recent decades will come quickly and easily, but some of the older ones might require a specific effort.

DVDs

I’ve spent years lamenting the fact that I don’t watch enough of my DVDs. Thanks to a couple of decades spent collecting, I own over 1,000 of the things, many never played, and they don’t often make it into my viewing nowadays, largely because they’re not HD. (I suspect that, statistically, I’m more likely to spend money upgrading a DVD to Blu-ray than I am to actually watch a DVD.) So, to force me to dig into that particular back catalogue, I’m making it a goal to watch at least one per month, as per the “new films” rules. And no ‘cheating’: if I don’t want to watch something from my DVD copy (because I want to get it in HD, or even UHD), that’s absolutely fine… but I can’t get it in HD and then still count that towards the DVD goal. I have to actually watch the DVD for it to count.

Genre

Like WDYMYHS, here I’m going to pick a specific genre or movement (preferably one that’s either highly specific or that I’m less au fait with, not something broad or well-worn like, say, “action”) and aim for at least one per month, i.e. 12 more films. However, this is a free-for-all: whereas WDYMYHS is 12 pre-chosen titles, this can be anything that falls within the genre; and I won’t limit myself to counting just one per month. Maybe I’ll have a marathon and complete it in one go! Maybe I’ll still spread it thin! At least having the choice provides an opportunity for some variety, right? This year’s genre will be that old favourite, film noir. I’ve had noir ‘viewing projects’ before, but there are plenty of key texts that still elude me, so maybe 2022 will right that. Or maybe I’ll just end up getting all 12 from Indicator’s 24-film Columbia Noir series. Frankly, either is good by me.

Series Progression

That’s perhaps the vaguest title of all, but let me explain (that’s the whole point of this post, after all). I have multiple different film series on the go at any one time — so many that, a couple of years ago, I started keeping a list, the Letterboxd version of which is here. Some of those series I continue to merrily work my way through; some I half-forget I have underway. So, the point of this category is to compel me to continue, across another 12 films. I could watch 12 from one series; I could watch one each from 12 different series. I could marathon them all across a weekend; I could watch them one a month throughout the year. Whatever — just so long as I keep going with series I’ve already started. (If I start a new series, either by accident or choice, the first film can’t count, but any future films can.)

I know I said there were eight categories, but if you’ve been doing the maths so far you’ll have realised we’re only at 96 films. So there must be a ninth category, right? Well, yes and no. Let me introduce you to…

Wildcards

The final four films are ‘wildcards’ that I can attach to any of the eight categories. They still have a couple of rules, though. Firstly, wildcards can only be used once the category’s own requirements are met. What that means is, I could use a wildcard to (for example) count a second new film in January, but I couldn’t use one for a film noir until I’ve watched 12 film noirs. Lastly, only one wildcard per category — so I couldn’t (for example) watch five new films in January and count them all. Make sense? If not, let me remind you that you don’t really need to worry about any of this — it’s only me who has to work it out.

I’ll be tracking my progress with the Challenge in my monthly review posts, and on a dedicated page too.

Also, while it’s no longer the ‘official’ goal of the blog, I suspect I’ll end up still counting my overall viewing, and likely post year-end stats and whatnot about it next January. I’ve been doing that count for almost my entire adult life, so it’s a well-established habit at this point. Not to mention that, actually, I enjoy it — but now primarily for my own interest, rather than as the raison d’être of this blog.

A new era begins…

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100 Films in a Year is dead.
Long live 100Films.co.uk

Welcome to my new-look blog!

Don’t worry, you’re going to find a lot of it familiar — I haven’t changed the underlying template, and all the old posts are still there, looking like they always did. Well, almost like they always did: I’ve chosen a new font for headings, so that’ll change. But, primarily, it’s a new name and a new logo, which is showcased on the front page in dozens of randomly-changing header images. (The old header and logo endured for seven years, and that was only a tweak & rearrange of the one I’d had for several years before that, so I think a redesign was about due anyway.) There are 20 new banners in total — can you catch ’em all?

More substantively, along with the revised aesthetics comes an adjusted focus.

As regular readers will know, I’ve been pondering “what to do about the blog” for a few years now, but the need for change was really brought to a head in 2021, when I spent most of the year only posting my monthly summaries. There were a couple of things going on that needed addressing. One: what to do about reviews? I wasn’t posting them regularly even before they ground to a total halt, and my ever-increasing backlog of unreviewed films — allowed to mount up over the past couple of years — numbers almost 500. Two: what to do about my eponymous challenge? Reaching 100 films every year has become a relative doddle: the last time I fell short was almost a decade ago, and in four of the last seven years I’ve reached 200 films in a year. Was that unchallenging challenge really still a fitting thing to base my blog around?

The easiest answer to the latter: move the goalposts. But to what? Another easy answer: stop doing it. But I didn’t want to give up blogging entirely. So, a new blog? Nah: a blog is a ‘brand’ (for want of a better word), and I wasn’t in the mood to start from scratch.

Ultimately, the inspiration for change came from the easiest of places. I’ve always referred to this place as 100 Films for short, including using that handle on Twitter and registering the domain 100films.co.uk — previously that just referred you on to my WordPress URL, but last week I moved the site over to it properly. (All the old WordPress URLs should still work, which is handy because otherwise I’d have a lot of link-fixing to do…) So, I could ditch “in a Year” and just go with the shorter title. But why that name? Oh, who needs a why? Though, to justify it at least somewhat, I intend to start a new occasional series about various 100-film lists — you know, like the Sight & Sound poll, or all those AFI ones. Plus, the “coming soon” page is going, to be replaced by an ever-changing list of the last 100 films I watched.

Which brings us back round to the other issue: reviews, and/or what other kinds of posts will appear. In short, my plan is to go back to the blog’s roots, with roundup posts every week or couple of weeks that review what I’ve watched in short capsule-like form. If I have more to say about a film, and the time to write it, I’ll still post separate full-length reviews. How often that will happen, only time will tell. (This “review as I go” approach is part of why the “coming soon” page is being retired.)

There are a few other ideas I have up my sleeve, but I don’t want to overwhelm with too much forward planning right now. Over the coming days, weeks, and months, the new and revised features of this fresh era will become apparent. Plus, some changes have had to wait until the ‘new’ site was live, so only now am I going to begin rethinking the menus, for example. And, to be honest, I’m still unsure of some of the details myself, so there may be aspects of the ‘old site’ that hang around for a bit before being discarded, or change and develop over time. We’ll just see how things go.

Also, there’s the small matter of wrapping up the last year of the ‘old’ blog, because I still have to post the statistics and my best (and worst) films of 2021. All that will be coming — complete with familiar graphics and imagery — over the next few days (as usual, a specific timeframe is hard to nail down. I haven’t even chosen a lot of it yet, never mind written it).

But first, later today I’ll explain how reports of 100 Films in a Year’s death may have been grossly exaggerated…

100 Films in a Year’s 2,000th film is…

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Basic maths tells us that watching 100 films in a year should mean it takes 20 years — two whole decades — to reach 2,000 films. But nowadays I watch plenty more than 100 films each year, and so after 13 years, 5 months, and 6 days of my eponymous challenge, I have viewed my 2,000th film.

And it is E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Normally this is the kind of thing I’d announce in my next monthly review, but as I made a song and dance about #1000, I thought #2000 deserved the same. It also allows room for some reminders and explanations.

Firstly, how come I’ve only just reached my 2,000th film when my reviews archive lists 2,178 feature films? Well, this is my 2,000th “film that I’ve never seen before”, as outlined on my “about” page. In the past 13-and-almost-a-half years I’ve also reviewed sundry films that I’d seen before, not to mention alternate cuts that aren’t different enough to count as ‘new’, hence why I’ve amassed 178 more reviews than new films I’ve seen.

Secondly, I’d like to point out that which film got the honour of being my 2,000th wasn’t just dumb luck. When I realised I was approaching this milestone, I set out to choose a title of enough significance to stand alongside the film I’d chosen for #1000 (Mark Cousins’s 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey), as well as some of the classics I’ve watched for my yearly #100s in the past — films like Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, City of God, and Stalker. How E.T. squares up to those is hopefully self-explanatory.

As I said, this is my 2,000th “film I’ve never seen before” — considering my age and film-viewing experience, it seems unlikely that I’ve never seen E.T., doesn’t it? Indeed, for years I struggled to decide whether I’d seen it when I was a kid or not. I certainly spent the first few years of the ’90s using TV screenings and the local video rental shop to consume a steady diet of family-friendly adventure/sci-fi/fantasy mainstream films from the preceding decade or so. I know I saw the Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Back to the Future trilogies. I remember watching both Ghostbusters, and Flash Gordon and Clash of the Titans and The NeverEnding Story and Dune and The Princess Bride and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Hook… I also saw more grown-up-minded sci-fi like Close Encounters and 2001. I even remember watching stuff like Return to Oz and Harry and the Hendersons. Sure, there were beloved films I know I missed — films like The Dark Crystal and Gremlins and The Goonies and Labyrinth and Willow — but they’re not on the scale of E.T. I mean, none of those overtook Star Wars to be the highest-grossing film of all time!

Searching my memory, there are only two things I really remember about E.T.: (1) the “E.T. phone home” catchphrase (but everyone knows that, thanks to ubiquitous references in other media); and (2) the ride at Universal Studios. I don’t recall any moments from the film itself. If I did see it, the impression it left on me was exceptionally small, which seems implausible. So I’m forced to concede that, as unlikely as it may seem, I never saw E.T.

Having come to that conclusion a while ago, it seemed right to hold it in reserve for a special occasion — and what better time to finally watch such a noteworthy film than as my 2,000th?

E.T. will be reviewed in due course.

A Special Announcement

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If you’re reading this on the web, the banner at the top of the page will have already given the game away. If you’re on a device/app/whatever that doesn’t display that banner image, here it is again:

300 Films in a Year

Imagine that materialising to the cool synthy music from the Thor: Ragnarok trailer. (Creating this is what inspired me to rewatch Thor: Ragnarok last month, as opposed to the other way round.)

Regular readers may be thinking, “but he’d only reached #247 nine days ago! No one can watch 53 films in nine days… can they?” No, you’re right, they can’t. Well, it is physically possible, but surely you’d have to be mad to attempt it (it’s almost six films a day, every day, for over a week). Possible or not, I didn’t do it. So how am I at 300? Well, allow me to explain…

Firstly: saying I’ve reached 300 is, technically, a cheat.

Secondly: it’s only a cheat according to my own rules, i.e. that only films I’ve never seen before count. If you objectively totalled up how many feature films I’ve watched in 2018, you would indeed get 300… because you’d be including my Rewatchathon. (My Letterboxd stats say the count is 336, but that’s because they include short films and some selected TV episodes too.) To be precise, my 2018 main list is currently at #254, topped up by a Rewatchathon that’s reached #46.

Still, it’s not really 300, is it? Not by the rules I’ve been using to dictate how many films I’ve seen for the past twelve years of this blog. But the thing is, I don’t really expect to ever again be in the position where I could whip out a natty “300 Films” logo, so I thought I’d take this opportunity while I had it.

Anyway, it’s not forever. The new logo will stay until my 2018 coverage is finished (i.e. sometime in early January, after all the stats and lists), and then I’ll revert to plain ol’ 100 Films, ready to attempt this all over again in 2019.

100 Favourites II — Statistics

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I couldn’t do a list like that without publishing some statistics at the end, could I? No, no I could not. By my standards this will be a relatively brisk post, though, because I didn’t thoroughly log everything I could have. Nonetheless, I had some observations…

One thing I was particularly interested to compare was the age of my picks. I know my tastes skew recent — I like “old films”, but I do watch more new(er) stuff and (as demonstrated in my 10th anniversary statistics) I tend to place newer films higher in my year-end lists too. My first 100 Favourites list certainly bore that out as well, as you can see on this graph. Have the last ten years changed that at all? Well, no. Not in the slightest. If anything, it’s worse.

That’s 49% of my selections — almost literally half — from the 2010s, a decade which at the time of writing only includes seven years. And if you add in the 2000s as well, the last 17 years account for 72%, just under three-quarters of the list. I guess if I tried this again in another ten years some of the more recent films would fall out while the older classics would endure. I must say, I’m not alone in this — it’s something I’ve observed on other public-voted great lists, like the IMDb Top 250 (well-liked new films are always jumping in and then slowly dropping out), or Empire magazine’s 500 Greatest and 300 Greatest polls. The opposite seems to happen with critics’ lists, like Sight & Sound’s famed poll, which Citizen Kane topped for, what, 50 or 60 years, and the rest of the top ten is pretty stable too. But maybe that also changes a lot further down, I don’t know.

Talking of top tens, precisely 70% of the films on this list were previously featured in one of my year-end top tens. The worst affected were 2007, 2009, and 2012, each of which lost six films. Luckiest was 2016, with all ten top-tenners making the list. 2013, 2014, and 2015 only lost one each. That’s partly thanks to a change of perspective, of course (as you may have noticed, many of the films have shifted around in their ranking), but it’s also simply the case that some years had more films I liked than others. In terms of total numbers in this 100, the worst hit were 2009 and 2012, which only feature four films each. If you want to rank them thoroughly, 2009 definitely fared worse: only one of its films is in the top 50, while 2012 has three in the top 50, including two in the top 20, and one of those in the top 10.

Conversely, the most successful years were the last four (the ones with the most top-tenners that made it, unsurprisingly). Highest of all was 2015 with 18. I suppose that’s helped by the fact I watched 200 films that year, though 2014 is second with 16 and I ‘only’ watched 136 then. Indeed, rendered as a percentage, 2014 fares best of all, with 11.76% of the films I watched that year making my top 100. Second is shared by 2011 and 2013, each with exactly 10%, while 2015 only comes fourth, with exactly 9%. At the bottom end, the fact 2009 and 2012 were my least successful years in numerical terms (the only two times I failed to make 100) doesn’t help them at all, coming out at 4.26% and 4.12% respectively.

Here’s a pair of graphs, comparing the years in flat numerical terms and as a percentage of their own year’s total.

Compared to their previous positions in my year-end top tens, the biggest riser was The Story of Film: An Odyssey, shooting up 13 places from being 2015’s 21st to its 8th now. (I know #21 is not in the top ten, but I did a top 20 that year and noted The Story of Film was 21st, so…) The biggest faller within the chart was Stoker, also from my 2015 viewing, which dropped seven places from 7th to 14th. The worst-affected film not on the list was 2010’s #3, Inception, which isn’t among the nine 2010 films on the list. The #3 films from 2007 (Mean Creek) and 2012 (Master and Commander) also aren’t here, but (as we’ve seen) their respective years don’t feature as many films on the list so they’ve theoretically dropped less far.

Lastly, directors. There were 82 of them across the 100 films, of which 13 had two or more entries on the list. Top of the pile with four was, of all people, Matthew Vaughn. His films ranged from Kick-Ass in 8th up to Kingsman in 83rd, via X-Men: First Class at #16 and Stardust at #41. Sharing second place, each with three films, were David Fincher (Zodiac at #3, The Social Network at #11, Gone Girl at #66), George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead at #62, Dawn of the Dead at #63, Land of the Dead at #89), and Steven Spielberg (The Adventures of Tintin at #9, War Horse at #86, Lincoln at #95). Finally, the remaining nine directors with two films apiece were Wes Anderson, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, George Miller, Hayao Miyazaki, Chan-wook Park, Zack Snyder, Quentin Tarantino, and Denis Villeneuve.

And now I’m done.

Should you wish to revisit the excitement, all 200 of my 100 favourites can be found linked from their dedicated page here.

100 Favourites II — The Top 10

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And so I reach the pinnacle of my list — my most favourite films I’ve seen for the first time in the past ten years. (Well, if we’re being precise, in the past ten years and three months, but not counting anything from the last three months. But that’s less snappy.)

Over three previous posts I’ve counted down #100 to #11, but here’s the perfectly rounded number everyone loves for a list: the top ten.

#10
Dark City

4th from 2008
(previously 3rd | original review)

Before The Matrix there was Dark City, which tackles some of the same philosophical issues as the Wachowskis’ trilogy, only in a less opaque and verbose fashion — and, as I said, did so first. Of course, it lacks the groundbreaking action sequences that made The Matrix such a hit, but as a thoughtful piece of stylish sci-fi noir it probably bests its better-known thematic cousins. I also reckon it’s still a bit underrated… including by me, really, because it’s nine years since I first watched it and I still haven’t got round to seeing the Director’s Cut. (Note to self: fix that.)

#9
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

1st from 2014
(previously 2nd | original review)

Calling on the same skill set that produced the Indiana Jones movies, Steven Spielberg created an adventure movie that perfectly balances plot, action, and humour. Despite the freedom afforded by crafting the entire thing in CGI (rendered with stunning realism by Weta), Spielberg knows when to hold back and maintain a level of realism, only to cut loose when warranted. The top end of this list definitely skews blockbustery-y — well, it is “favourite” rather than some kind of “objective best” (not that that’d be strictly possible anyway) — but, nonetheless, I think Tintin is a very fine and underrated example of the form.

#8
Kick-Ass

1st from 2010
(previously 1st | original review)

As Watchmen was to superhero comics, so Kick-Ass is to superhero films: taking familiar building blocks from other films and TV series, it deconstructs the genre through a “what if someone tried to be a superhero for real” storyline, asking questions about the glorification of violence and the sexualisation of its characters — all while being a funny and exciting action-comedy. Perhaps it’s having its cake and eating it, and that leads some people to miss the point (some by enjoying it a bit too much, some by thinking it has nothing to say), but I don’t think that stops it being one of the best and most thoughtful superhero movies yet made.

#7
Let the Right One In

1st from 2011
(previously 3rd | original review)

It’s felt like you can’t escape vampires in film and TV for the last couple of decades, but trust a European movie to give them a unique spin, right? So it’s both a coming-of-age-y arthouse-y movie about two 12-year-olds and first love, and a scary horror movie about violent supernatural creatures. It works by not shortchanging either aspect, instead combining them to transcend genre boundaries. So it’s a genuinely touching, emotional and relatable drama, as well as a creepy and horrific fantasy thriller.

#6
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

1st from 2015
(previously 1st | original review)

There’s always been a bit of a ‘wannabe’ air to the Mission: Impossible films, like maybe someone thought it could fill the void left by Bond disappearing post-Dalton, only it took so long to make it to the screen that Bond himself got there first in the shape of Pierce Brosnan. Nonetheless, the series has trundled along… though I don’t want to sound like I’m doing it down too much because I’ve always enjoyed it — the second one made my first 100 Favourites list, even. But Rogue Nation is where M:I finally out-Bonds Bond. Mixing action thrills and a genuine sense of jeopardy with just-ahead-of-reality gadgets, a knowing sense of humour, and a cast full of likeable characters, it’s superb blockbuster entertainment.

#5
Seven Samurai

1st from 2013
(previously 1st | original review)

A phrase like “three-and-a-half-hour subtitled black-and-white movie” is going to conjure up a certain experience in the minds of most viewers. That experience is most probably nothing like Seven Samurai — although it is, of course, a three-and-a-half-hour subtitled black-and-white movie. On the surface it’s about a bunch of warriors protecting a small impoverished village that can’t defend itself, and it has a lengthy action-packed climax to deliver on such promise, but it rises above that thanks to its reflective attitude towards its characters and their very existence. No, wait, I said it’s not your typical three-and-a-half-hour subtitled black-and-white movie!

#4
Rashomon

3rd from 2008
(previously 5th | original review)

I’d wager most would rank Seven Samurai higher in the Akira Kurosawa canon, but I give Rashomon the edge because the form of its storytelling appeals to me. It retells the events surrounding a murder from the subjective viewpoint of each of the characters who were there, and of course their accounts differ. Its title has become a byword for such narratives, but there’s more here than just trendsetting plot construction — it’s a fantastically made film, exquisitely shot and magnificently performed.

#3
Zodiac

2nd from 2008
(previously 2nd | original review)

David Fincher’s meticulous true crime thriller may be his best movie — and when we’re talking about the man who made Se7en and Fight Club, that’s certainly saying a lot. It may look like it’s a murder thriller — it is about the hunt for a serial killer, after all — but in many respects it’s more about obsession and addiction, and how such things can come to take over your life. But if you don’t want to ponder that kind of thing, there’s always chills like the basement scene to keep you viscerally engaged. (The slightly-different Director’s Cut is the better version of the film and, if we’re being specific, would be my pick here; but I watched that a couple of years later, so it was the theatrical cut that figured in 2008’s top ten.)

#2
Skyfall

1st from 2012
(previously 1st | original review)

The James Bond films have always been action blockbusters, and more often than not immensely popular and successful ones. Skyfall changed the game though: by hiring Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes it was instantly booted into Prestige Picture territory — and still managed to deliver the most financially successful film in the series’ long history, the first billion-dollar Bond. But box office success is not why Skyfall is #2 on my list. It’s the beautiful cinematography; the way it adds thematic weight to the character without breaking the formula; the sense of Bond’s history without over-explicit reverence — and the way those aspects makes it both familiar and fresh at the same time. Plus it delivers on the action, larger-than-life villain, and one-liners just like a Bond film should. Its artistic success may be a case of the stars aligning and lightning striking (the lacking-by-comparison follow-up Spectre proved that), but Bond has rarely been better.

#1
The Dark Knight

1st from 2008
(previously 1st | original review)

Eight years and three months ago, when I named The Dark Knight my #1 film of 2008, I wrote that “I’m unashamedly one of those who believe The Dark Knight isn’t just one of the best films of 2008, it’s one of the best films ever.” It’s nice to be able to stand by such a brazen assertion. And, having thought long and hard about what I would declare as my most favouritest movie from the 1,283 new ones that I’ve seen in the last decade, I clearly do stand by it. I love superhero movies, I love crime thrillers, and I love epics, so it’s no surprise that a movie which combines all three — and does them all well — would top a list of my favourite movies.

Now: what’s a good list without some statistics?