Tag Archives: 100 Films in a Year Challenge

The Dragonborn Monthly Review of November 2025

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Another month, another title that doesn’t actually refer to my film viewing.

I point you in the direction of my September review, where I reported my good fortune in winning a Steam Deck. Well, in November I installed a little game called The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I’d bought it on sale at some point due to its reputation, but actually started it up this month on a whim, half expecting to wander around a little bit, get said whim out of my system, and move on to something else.

Over 58 hours of playtime later — during which I’ve only progressed the main plot about as far as I have to* (i.e. getting out of the tutorial, plus a tiny bit more) — and, yeah, I think I’m in this for the long haul. For perspective: according to HowLongToBeat, if you do focus on the main story, the average completion time is about 27 hours; but there’s so much else to do in the game that there are recorded playtimes over 700 hours; and even the “all play styles” average is 130 hours. Even after 58 hours, I still feel like I’m very much just getting started.

* (Somewhat ironically, I haven’t actually got to the point where the adjective I’ve chosen for this post’s title comes into play; but I didn’t have any other decent ideas for references, so it is what it is.)

I certainly didn’t spend that many hours watching films this month, let me tell you. Although I didn’t shirk either, as you can learn in the viewing notes…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#88 Hedda (2025) — New Film #11
#89 Midsommar (2019) — Blindspot #11
#90 Superman (2025) — Failure #11
#91 Street Law (1974) — Genre #9
#92 Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953) — Rewatch #10
#93 Le Samouraï (1967) — WDYMYHS #11
#94 Top Hat (1935) — Rewatch #11


  • I watched 12 feature films I’d never seen before in November.
  • Five of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
  • The first-time-watches tally ties with June for the highest in 2025 (so far), but add in the rewatches and the total of 14 makes November the year’s largest month overall.
  • And one of those 12 was my 100th first-time watch of the year — that may not be my ‘official’ challenge anymore, but it still feels nice to hit that marker.
  • All the many Blu-rays and 4Ks I own and streamers I’m already subscribed to full of stuff I’ve been meaning to rewatch, sometimes for decades… and yet I signed back up to MUBI (albeit with a free trial) just to watch Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, a film I didn’t even like when I watched it 20-odd years ago. Big sigh. But that was the point of me rewatching it, of course — to reassess — and sometimes the itch you get is the one you’ve got to scratch, y’know?
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Ari Aster’s folk horror Midsommar, watched right near the start of the month so it still kinda tied in with Halloween.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was the one that inspired the category’s theme this year, Le Samouraï. For that reason, I’d been intending to save it ’til last; but, for various other reasons I shan’t bore you with, it felt like it made more sense to watch it now and leave the other outstanding film for December.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Superman.



The 126th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Looking back over this month’s first-time watches — both the five listed above and the other seven (nowadays the best place to see my whole month-by-month viewing is Letterboxd) — and there’s a lot I liked, a lot I have down as 4 stars, but not a lot I loved. Perhaps the closest to nudging up an extra half-star was Le Samouraï, which had the misfortune of coming with high expectations. It didn’t completely fail to live up to them, but perhaps the burden was still unfairly great.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This is, unfortunately, a little easier. Clocking in as the biggest disappointment of the month was the new Red Sonja. Now, given its production and release history (i.e. incredibly low-key and minor), I was expecting it to be poor. But I enjoyed the ’80s movie (even if, yeah, it’s not actually good either) and I’ve been vaguely following the existence of this remake/re-do for years (and it has been in the offing for years), hoping it would wind up with some talent behind it and manage to fill the gap between the previous version’s potential and its actual achievements. Even when it became clear that it didn’t have the backing for that to happen, I hoped it might at least be another flawed-but-fun run at the material. But no, it’s simply not very good, sadly. There are ways it could have been even worse, and there are ways it’s not bad, but that really is damning with faint praise, isn’t it?


Last year I entered December on #93 and went on to complete my Challenge for the first time since I rejigged it in 2022. This year, I go in on #94… but complacency breeds failure, so I’m still going to try and get those final six films crossed off with relative haste. In 2024 I got to #100 on the 21st, and while I’m not aiming to beat that just for the sake of beating it, getting there even earlier wouldn’t hurt.

The Aramánian Monthly Review of October 2025

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The much-anticipated (if you move in circles that anticipate such things) fourth Critical Role campaign started this month, with a quartet of ‘overture’ episodes that set the scene for a different-feeling but hopefully-epic new adventure — or set of adventures, with three groups in play. It felt like watching the start of something like The Wire or Game of Thrones, in the best possible way. If you’ve ever been curious but never started, it’s a great time to dive in… so long as you can find 18 hours a month for it, that is.

Despite all of that (including staying up overnight twice to watch episodes as they premiered), I still found time for enough films to keep my Challenge on track. Indeed, I head into November the furthest ahead I’ve ever been in the new-style Challenge era…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#81 The Tough Ones (1976) — Genre #7
#82 The Woman in Cabin 10 (2025) — New Film #10
#83 Bride of Frankenstein (1935) — Rewatch #9
#84 Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage (1989) — Failure #10
#85 Slap the Monster on Page One (1972) — Genre #8
#86 Tenebrae (1982) — WDYMYHS #10
#87 Häxan (1922) — Blindspot #10


  • I watched ten feature films I’d never seen before in October.
  • That’s the sixth month this year to land on exactly ten new films, but the first since May.
  • Six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • This month’s Blindspot and WDYMYHS films — silent witchcraft documentary Häxan and Dario Argento giallo Tenebrae, respectively — were ones I’ve been saving most of the year to watch around Halloween. They didn’t make the lists for that reason, but it was a fortunate side effect. In the end, my schedule meant I watched them as a double-bill on the night itself — kinda perfect, really
  • I’ve also been saving Midsommar for the same reason. At one point I was aiming to watch all three in the run-up to Halloween, sacrificing the intended ‘one per month’ structure for seasonal appropriateness; but then I realised that, with Halloween falling on a Friday, the first weekend of November is also Halloween-y — so I could both watch one a month, as intended, and watch them all at Halloween. Now I just need to make sure I actually do that today or tomorrow…
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage.



The 125th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Widely regarded as one of Dario Argento’s best, Tenebrae mostly lives up to that hype. I’m not convinced the plot entirely hangs together, but the sheer abundance of gorgeous style is enough to carry it.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
While I didn’t outright dislike it, The Woman in Cabin 10 is a by-the-numbers holiday-paperback of a thriller.


2025 races toward its conclusion! There are 13 films remaining to complete my Challenge, which should feel surmountable (the end felt comfortable last year, and I had 15 left at this point), but so much of this year has raced by, and the state of my calendar makes it feel like Christmas is the day after tomorrow… Well, I can but try.

The Steamy Monthly Review of September 2025

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Ooh, saucy…

Nah, actually. The title was inspired by this turn of events: I recently won a Steam Deck (yep, won — lucky me!), and have consequently spent a disproportionate amount of my free time playing around with it, and generally getting back into gaming along with it. I imagine at some point the shine of newness will wear off, though hopefully not entirely because I’ve gone a bit crazy with buying stuff to play. Brand-new high-profile titles are insanely expensive nowadays, as the gaming media will often harp on about, but older games and indie titles regularly go for insanely low prices — which is great if you’re catching up on the past 20-ish years of the medium… though it does lead to your library bulging pretty quickly. Or it does if you’re me.

Anyway, naturally there was a knock-on effect on my film viewing. Not disastrous, but it does mean I failed to achieve ten first-time watches for the second time this year. Well, next month is always a fresh chance to start a new run.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#73 7 Women and a Murder (2021) — Rewatch #8
#74 KPop Demon Hunters (2025) — New Film #9
#75 An Aleutian Adventure (1920s) — Failure #9
#76 The Italian Connection (1972) — Genre #6
#77 Rebel Without a Cause (1977) — Blindspot #9
#78 9 (2009) — 50 Unseen #9
#79 The City of Lost Children (1995) — WDYMYHS #9
#80 Drive-Away Dolls (2025) — 50 Unseen #10


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in September.
  • Seven of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I remain ahead of pace for the year (to be at pace, September would end on #74), though the “whole month ahead” lead I had back in March, May and June is definitively over for the year (I would’ve needed to get to #83 to achieve it this month).
  • I say “definitively” because of the limitations on certain categories: there are five that should feature every month, meaning the highest point I could end October is #90, and pace for the end of November is #91.
  • Of course, as I mentioned in the intro, I didn’t hit my monthly target of ten first-time watches, so it’s not all sunshine and roses.
  • The Italian Connection is the second film in director Fernando Di Leo’s Milieu trilogy. Its predecessor, Milano Calibro 9, was the first film I watched for this year’s Genre category. I’ll give you one guess which film I’ve got earmarked to include among the remaining four Genre films…
  • I’d owned 9 on Blu-ray for 15 years, never played, before I finally watched it this month. I’m ridiculous like that — 9 is far from alone in suffering such a fate. And it might have stayed unplayed and mostly forgotten (as I’m sure many other things are, especially titles on DVD), were it not for it being on one of my 50 Unseen lists, which means it gets brought to mind every now and then, whenever I peruse that catalogue of failures for something to belatedly watch. I don’t watch as many of those as I’d like nowadays, but they’re still a useful reminder.
  • Talking of 50 Unseen, I finished that category this month. The final tally sees half of the films coming from last year and half from years before that. Seems like a pretty good balance to me.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was ’50s teen classic Rebel Without a Cause.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was dark steampunk fairytale The City of Lost Children.
  • When I decided to watch The City of Lost Children, I thought how it was nice that for once I was watching a disc I’d only bought relatively recently. Then I looked it up and discovered I purchased it 2½ years ago. Oh well.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched An Aleutian Adventure and KPop Demon Hunters.



The 124th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Last weekend came in swinging here: September had been an above-adequate (no bad films) but unexceptional month (like much of 2025 has been — my 5-star list is looking very thin), but then I watched a trio of films that impressed me mightily. Of those, my pick is probably Rebel Without a Cause. I thought I knew what it was going to be, and it wasn’t; not exactly. Also, James Dean really was very good.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This feels harsh — as this category sometimes does by its very nature (I’m not going to go out of my way to watch one certified-awful film every month just to guarantee a ‘winner’) — because 9 actually has some very strong points… it just drops the ball on some of the fundamentals underpinning those, and thus is the least-good film I watched this month.


It’s creepy and it’s kooky, mysterious and spooky, it’s all together ooky… and yet it’s all just because of one day right at the end. Any excuse, I guess. Certainly, I’ve got a few horror and horror-adjacent films lined up to try to watch in October, and maybe I’ll focus on finding some more too.

The August Monthly Review Club

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August has been a funny old month. On one hand, it’s felt like there’s been no time to get anything done — just like every month nowadays, really. But on the other, it seemed very long — it feels like ages since I wrote the July monthly review.

In a similar vein, whereas I struggled (and ultimately failed) to hit my viewing targets in July, I made it past ten new films this month without even particularly trying. Considering I’ve both been extra busy at work and had a host of other options and distractions taking up my free time — some of them excitingly new, as well as the old favourites — it’s a minor miracle. Indeed, I’d basically written off getting to ten films this month (once you’ve failed once, what does failing again the month after matter, eh?), only to succeed regardless. Wonders will literally never cease.

As for how this month’s viewing translates specifically to my Challenge… read on.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#65 Candidate for Murder (1962) — Series Progression #9
#66 The Power of the Dog (2021) — 50 Unseen #7
#67 Gwen and the Book of Sand (1985) — Failure #8
#68 Girl, Interrupted (1999) — Blindspot #8
#69 The Road to Hong Kong (1962) — Series Progression #10
#70 The Thursday Murder Club (2025) — New Film #8
#71 Project A (1983) — WDYMYHS #8
#72 The Wild Robot (2024) — 50 Unseen #8


  • I watched 11 feature films I’d never seen before in August.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • No rewatches this month, which is a shame as I’m meant to get in at least one a month. Still, it’s not the first time I’ve had to catch up on them this year, so, y’know, these things happen. (Should I be injecting more fake jeopardy into my commentary when I fail like this?)
  • I needed to get to #74 to be a whole month ahead of pace again. Obviously that didn’t happen, but I’m still six films in the clear, which is a nice buffer.
  • Part of that included finishing off the Series Progression category for 2025. 40% of the qualifying films this year came from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series of British crime B-movies, which is perhaps more than I’d’ve liked (I’ve got so many series on the go, I’d appreciate the incentive to progress some others). That said, it was almost worse: it was set to be 50%, but then I watched something else that counted…
  • To wit: I finally finished the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope ‘Road To’ series. I watched my first of those back in 2007 — this blog’s very first year. And that’s why I like (or need) a tangible incentive to get on with these things.
  • Speaking of tangible incentives, this month’s Blindspot film was the gender-bent remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (okay, that’s a tad harsh, and it’s not literally that… but it certainly feels like it in places), Girl, Interrupted.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Jackie Chan’s piratical actioner Project A.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Gwen and the Book of Sand.



The 123rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m struggling for standout films this year — it’s been one of those years where you begin to think, “have I just seen all the great films already?” The closest I’ve come to having my faith restored is this month’s favourite pick, cosy sci-fi animation The Wild Robot.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Greatness may be in short supply, but there’s also nothing terrible this month — although there was plenty of mediocrity. I don’t know if it was the outright worst film I saw, but the biggest letdown was The Thursday Murder Club. So much potential, and it got some of it right, but some poor adaptation decision scuppered the overall effect.


The year’s final third begins. It’ll be Christmas before we know it…

Live Like a Month, Die Like the Review of July 2025

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If you’re wondering what the hell that title is supposed to mean, the only explanation I can offer is to see #61 below. Other than that, yeah, it’s meaningless. Such is life sometimes, my friends.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#59 Heads of State (2025) — New Film #7
#60 The Invisible Swordsman (1970) — Failure #7
#61 Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976) — Genre #5
#62 Stargate (1994) — Rewatch #7
#63 The Wolf Man (1941) — WDYMYHS #7
#64 The Notebook (2004) — Blindspot #7


  • I watched six feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • That’s the first time I’ve failed to reach my minimum monthly target of ten films since November 2023 (at least back then I had a Doctor Who-shaped excuse). Sadly, that means this ends a run of 10+ months that isn’t even my second-longest (this time I reached 19 months, but I hit 21 in 2020/2021, and my record is 60 from 2014–2019). I’m doubtful August will go too well either, but we’ll see.
  • Five of those six counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • That’s slightly above my minimum monthly requirement of five, but behind the average need to reach 100 (which is eight). Of course, thanks to bumper months earlier in the year, I’m still well ahead of target overall — to stay on pace, I only need to reach #58 by the end of July, and I got there last month.
  • I watched the extended cut of Stargate, which I’ve never seen before, but the additions are minor enough that it isn’t worth counting as ‘new’; especially as I haven’t seen it for the best part of 30 years, so I didn’t notice any changes myself, only read about them online.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Nicholas Sparks-based romantic weepy The Notebook.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was classic Universal horror The Wolf Man.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Invisible Swordsman and finally rewatched Stargate.



The 122nd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing spectacular this month; indeed, the highest star rating I gave on Letterboxd to a first-time watch was 3½ — hardly a ringing endorsement. I handed that out to two films, both of which were underwhelming or flawed in some ways, but entertaining in others — the latter elevating them above 3 stars, but the former preventing them from hitting the giddy heights of 4 stars. It’s basically a coin toss which I preferred, so because it has a much cooler title I’ll pick Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man. (The other was Heads of State, by-the-way.)

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I felt disappointed by two films in particular this month, so the question is: which was worse? That’s got to be The Wolf Man, which I’ve been meaning to watch for many years and hoped would be up to the high standards of the other classic Universal monster movies, but I found it to be riddled with faults. Shame. (The other was The Invisible Swordsman, which I’d never heard of before Arrow announced their Blu-ray earlier this year, so it was much less long-awaited.)


As I said earlier, I suspect August will turn out to be another below-par month — but you never know. Still, I’m glad I’ve built up a significant lead on my Challenge, because it means even if I just watch the ‘required’ five films (new film, rewatch, failure, Blindspot, and WDYMYHS), I’ll still end the month ahead of target pace.

The Unseasonably Hot Monthly Review of June 2025

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“It’s summer, of course it’s hot,” cry certain people. Yeah, but yesterday was 10–12°C hotter than the average for this time of year, so all the “it’s just summer” people can F off. And let’s not start on the “oh we have those kinds of temperatures all the time” foreigners.

Also, I prefer the cold, so even “regular summer” is a pain in the arse.

Anyway, enough about UK weather (it’s due to break tomorrow anyway, hooray) — here’s what I’ve been watching over the past month…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#51 Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) — New Film #6
#52 The Untouchables (1987) — WDYMYHS #6
#53 Shoot First, Die Later (1974) — Genre #4
#54 Hardware (1990) — Failure #6
#55 28 Days Later (2002) — Rewatch #6
#56 28 Weeks Later (2007) — 50 Unseen #5
#57 Saltburn (2023) — Blindspot #6
#58 Paddington in Peru (2024) — 50 Unseen #6


  • I watched 12 feature films I’d never seen before in June.
  • That’s the first time this year I’ve reached above my minimum target of 10.
  • Seven of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • That’s enough to keep me a whole month ahead of target. In fact, I’ve been doing so well at that, I now only need to average seven Challenge films per month for the rest of the year (normally it’s 8.5 for the back half of the year).
  • A fair chunk of my viewing this month was taken up with the favourite films of work colleagues. My team discussed our favourite-ever movies early in the month, and of the 18 picks, I’d not seen five — so I caught up on them all immediately. The only one that qualified for my Challenge was The Untouchables, because it was already on my WDYMYHS list (the team’s other picks didn’t conveniently slot into one of my incomplete categories — how inconsiderate!)
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Emerald Fennell’s kinda-kinky reimagining of Brideshead Revisited, Saltburn.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Brian De Palma’s stylish but, uh, not exactly historically accurate retelling of the mission to arrest Al Capone, The Untouchables.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Hardware, Paddington in Peru, and Shoot First, Die Later.



The 121st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m not sure if it’s a “great movie” in its entirety, but The Untouchables has style to spare, plus one of the greatest shootouts in cinema history.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I feel mean picking one of my colleagues’ favourite films here… but hey, there’s no way they read this blog, so why not? It’s not that Save the Last Dance is necessarily terrible for what it is, it’s just that what it is isn’t exactly my kind of movie. That said, nearly a quarter of a century on from its release, it does feel rather dated.


Summer, summer, summertime. Whether the “good” weather stays or not, you can feel that summer season hitting the big screen, with the likes of Superman and a new Jurassic World on the horizon. Are either enough to tempt me out to the cinema? I’m currently unsure. (Find out next month!)

The Finally Deadly Reckoned Monthly Review of May 2025

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Has Tom Cruise reckoned his final impossible mission? Time will tell. I sort of hope not, even if it might be time to change up how they make those movies to bring a little more focus back to story and character instead of just extravagant stunt sequences.

They are really, really good stunt sequences, though…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#41 How to Train Your Dragon 3D (2010) — Rewatch #4
#42 Trancers (1984) — Failure #5
#43 I Saw the TV Glow (2024) — 50 Unseen #4
#44 Illustrious Corpses (1976) — Genre #3
#45 Spartacus (1960) — WDYMYHS #5
#46 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) — Rewatch #5
#47 Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) — New Film #5
#48 The Graduate (1967) — Blindspot #5
#49 Funeral in Berlin (1966) — Series Progression #7
#50 Backfire! (1962) — Series Progression #8


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in May.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
  • I finished March a whole month ahead, April one film behind being a month ahead, and for May… I’m a month and one film ahead! The end of June might seem like it’s halfway through the year, but it isn’t in terms of days — so, the target date for #50 is actually a couple of days into July.
  • This “month ahead” business will inevitably slow down at some point — not just because of my usual tardiness, but because some films are ‘locked’ to certain months. There are five categories limited in that way, which means the last point I can still be “a month ahead” is the end of September. But that’s something to aim for, eh?
  • This month’s Blindspot film was only the third movie to take over $100 million at the US box office, The Graduate. (Surprising fact, huh?)
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus.
  • It’s not much of a Stanley Kubrick film (in the sense that, while he did direct it, he later disowned it), but Spartacus is the first Stanley Kubrick film I’ve watched since 2022. I went through a period (about a decade ago now) where I was watching an unseen Kubrick every year. Although that regularity has tailed off, I now have only two of his features left to see (Fear and Desire and Lolita). I own both, so perhaps I’ll try to complete the set sometime soon.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Graduate, Illustrious Corpses, and Trancers.



The 120th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m not coming across many five-star films this year (in fact, the total so far might be none), but a couple have come very close, and I Saw the TV Glow is one of those. It’s hard to describe what it is without seeing it, though I saw someone say it’s the 2020s answer to Donnie Darko and that feels very on point.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
There have been numerous screen adaptations of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and I’ve seen a few of them now. 1989’s Ten Little Indians is probably the worst, although I didn’t dislike it as much as its poor reputation would suggest. That said, it’s only worth watching for people who have exhausted other, better Christie adaptations.


Halfway through the year. I mean, not for me — I’ve already done that. But for, y’know, time.

The Painful Monthly Review of April 2025

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Parts two and three of the Kizumonogatari trilogy are, allegedly, two of the 100 greatest animated films of all time. The third was, for a time, one of the 250 greatest films of all time. Having consequently watched them (no, I hadn’t heard of them before that either), I can say that, in my opinion, they most certainly are not. But hey, it’s always good to discover new things.

They’re part of a wider long-running anime franchise that fans call the “Monogatari series”. For those who don’t know, “monogatari” means “story” — hence much more famous films like Tokyo monogatari and Ugetsu monogatari and Zatoichi monogatari and Kaguya-hime no monogatari. Imagine calling your series the “Story series” and, like, it not being Toy Story.

Anyway, “kizu” means “scratch” or “wound” according to Google Translate, along with a bunch of variants about scars and hurt. Basically, it’s a painful story. Yeah, checks out. Seemed like a reasonable adjective for this review too, as I did sit through three of those things.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#34 A Real Pain (2024) — New Film #3
#35 The Black Watch (1929) — Failure #4
#36 Kizumonogatari Part 2: Nekketsu (2016) — Series Progression #5
#37 Kizumonogatari Part 3: Reiketsu (2017) — Series Progression #6
#38 Havoc (2025) — New Film #4
#39 Cat People (1942) — Blindspot #4
#40 Saboteur (1942) — WDYMYHS #4


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in April.
  • Seven of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • Having ended March a full month ahead of schedule, in April that lead slipped slightly… but only by one film. And that’s still better than February, which was two films behind being a month ahead (you follow?) Being almost a month ahead might not be as good as being a whole month ahead, but it’s not too shabby.
  • I can pinpoint the specific category where I failed, because I didn’t manage any rewatches this month. It’s always a shame not to hit my monthly goals, but it also feels like a particularly easy one to catch up.
  • Of the ten films I did watch, half of their titles begin with the letter K. The last time I watched a film that’s title began with the letter K was July 2024, nine months ago. What does this signify? Absolutely nothing, I just happened to notice it.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Val Lewton’s first horror production for RKO, Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was, for the second month in a row, a Hitchcock thriller, although one not as significant: wartime ‘wrong man’ adventure Saboteur.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Black Watch and Knight Chills.



The 119th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
While calling the whole month “painful” might be a bit of a stretch, nothing really stood out as incredible either. There’s some films I’ll comfortably give four stars, but nothing I loved. The nearest was probably Cecil B. DeMille’s silent epic about Jesus, The King of Kings — not my typical fare, what with not being religious, but if you ignore all the worship-y stuff, it’s a pretty good story, well-told here.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Anyone who read my introduction can make a reasonable guess at what’s coming here. The trilogy does improve as it goes on, to some degree, leaving Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu as the weak link to be overcome to reach the dubious highs to follow. (They’re not that high.)


Next month’s New Film is already locked in, because I’ve booked my ticket to see Tom Cruise once again take on his greatest enemy: his own mortality — possibly for the last time — in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

Final? Final?! Let’s hope not.

The ⅓ Monthly Review of March 2025

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I tried to find an elegant way to use the title to express the concept “I’ve watched a third of my Challenge, even though we’re only a quarter of the way through the year”, but somehow I couldn’t condense that into just a word or two, and so I’ve resorted to echoing August 2016’s title — although then it was just bluntly factual, lacking even the trace of irony present in using ⅓ at the ¼ point. Shame on you, past me, for your lack of… eh, it’s pretension, really.

So enough of that, let’s get on with the films…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#23 Never Back Losers (1961) — Series Progression #3
#24 Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) — Wildcard #7
#25 Hooray for Hollywood (1982) — Wildcard #8
#26 The Sinister Man (1961) — Series Progression #4
#27 Lifeforce (1985) — Failure #3
#28 Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) — Wildcard #9
#29 The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) — WDYMYHS #3
#30 Revolver (1973) — Genre #2
#31 Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) — Blindspot #3
#32 The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) — Rewatch #3
#33 Mobile Suit Gundam (1981) — Wildcard #10


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in March.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • But most significantly, getting to #33 means I’m a whole month ahead of target.
  • I think it’s the new-style Wildcards that have really made a difference — rather than rear-loading them to help me across the finish line (a plan that only worked once out of three attempts), they’ve now helped give me a healthy head start. It’s no coincidence it’s become my first completed category of the year. In my introduction I mentioned the possibility of adding a mitigating rule so that I didn’t burn through those ten slots too quickly. The fact it took me three months to get here makes me think the current, simple rules are more-or-less ok — it doesn’t need to be forced to drag further into the year just for the sake of taking longer.
  • Conversely, I failed to watch a New Film in March. As someone who doesn’t get to the cinema much, it’s always harder to add to that category early in the year, but I still had options. Considering how far ahead I am overall, it doesn’t worry me — it’s an easy one to catch up later. It’s a shame not to hit the goal every month as planned, but it’s not something I’m going to lose sleep over.
  • The Man with the Golden Gun could also have counted for Series Progression, because it’s part of my chronological rewatch of the Bond films (which has, ridiculously, been going since 2012), but it served a stronger purpose counting for Rewatch this month.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was D.W. Griffith’s insanely-expensive anthology epic Intolerance, aka Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (I feel like it used to commonly go by the short title and now commonly goes by the long one, and there’s a reasonable argument either way).
  • Not that it matters, but I bought Intolerance on Blu-ray ten years ago this month, but only just put those discs in my player. And I’m sure that’s not even close to the oldest unplayed title I own.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was — to quote Hitch himself — “the first true Hitchcock picture”, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Lifeforce.



The 118th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
It’s sort of ridiculous and clearly more of a “cult classic” than a genuinely great film, but I really enjoyed Lifeforce. It’s a film that’s not afraid to go big and barmy, despite its limitations, and I admire that ambition. And, yeah, Mathilda May doesn’t hurt either. As I wrote on Letterboxd, “this is exactly the sort of stuff stereotypical 13-year-old boys should want to watch, not more Marvel slop.”

Least Favourite Film of the Month
It feels somewhat like punching down to pick on films from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries for this award — they’re somewhere between a ‘quota quickie’ and an anthology TV series, after all, and I’m sure no one involved thought they were making Great Art that would still be watched over 60 years later. Nonetheless, many of them are perfectly fine entertainment, so it’s still noteworthy when they fall short; and, to be honest, I didn’t watch anything else that bad this month. Of the two Edgar Wallaces I watched in March, particular dishonour goes to The Sinister Man for being casually racist — not maliciously so; more through ignorance, a lack of accurate information, and therefore poorly engaging with its own themes and content; but still, watching today, even at its best its somewhat laughable.


I got through ‘April’ in March — will I get through ‘May’ in April? Even if I don’t, I hope I don’t throw away this nice lead I’ve built up.

The Belated Monthly Review of February 2025

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A belated ‘hello’ from me for this month’s look back at last month. Don’t take this post’s delayed appearance as a worrying sign of me slipping further away from the blog — I simply had a busy end to February, meaning I couldn’t get a head start on this, and then an occupied weekend (mainly Oscar-focused), which combined meant I was only able to crack on with this post today. Similarly, I wouldn’t bank on seeing the “failures” before Thursday.

(Related side note: across 116 adjective-led monthly reviews, can you believe I’ve never used “belated”? This certainly isn’t the first late edition! Maybe I previously thought it was too obvious. Well, I’ve burnt that usage now.)

A separate issue: no new film reviews yet this year. I now ‘owe’ at least three, to fulfil my commitment of reviewing the previous month’s favourite: The Good, the Bad, the Weird from December, Milano Calibro 9 from January, and whatever this month’s winner is (see below to find out!) I’m hoping to begin that catch-up in March, but we’ll see what else life throws my way.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#12 Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) — 50 Unseen #3
#13 Macbeth (2025) — New Film #2
#14 Vendetta for the Saint (1969) — Wildcard #3
#15 Silver Blaze (1937) — Series Progression #2
#16 Long Story Short (2021) — Wildcard #4
#17 Róise & Frank (2022) — Failure #2
#18 Snake Eyes (1998) — Rewatch #2
#19 Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) — WDYMYHS #2
#20 Freaks (1932) — Blindspot #2
#21 Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) — Wildcard #5
#22 Marty (1955) — Wildcard #6


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in February.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • #22 is the furthest I’ve reached by the end of February since my new-style Challenge began in 2022 — my target for this point is only #16, so I easily cleared that. (I would have had to get all the way to #24 to be a whole month ahead.)
  • Watching Silver Blaze means I’ve finally finished the Arthur Wontner Sherlock Holmes films (what survives of them, anyway: there were five; one is lost), which is the first time in quite a while* I’ve been able to remove a series from my “in the middle of” list. (* The last was Song of the Thin Man, completing my Thin Man rewatch, back in May 2024 — nine months ago.)
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Tod Browning’s enduringly-controversial carnival drama Freaks.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr — it’s the one where the house falls around him.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Róise & Frank and rewatched Snake Eyes.



The 117th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m borderline on whether this even counts as a “a film”, because it’s a filmed stage production — that’s the kind of thing I’ve gone either way on in the past. The deciding factor, really, was that I saw it in a cinema — not only because “what you see in cinemas is films”, but because if I didn’t count it, I wouldn’t be able to count it towards my stats at the end of the year, which could potentially lead me to write something like “I made no trips to the cinema this year” when I had, in fact, made one. Also, the fact I’m now saying it’s the best feature-length filmed thing I watched this month is another reason it seems worthy of inclusion. Anyway, it’s the David Tennant and Cush Jumbo-starring version of Macbeth, which seems to have been so popular they’ve scheduled multiple encore screenings and even a proper re-release — so if you missed it and are interested, keep your eye on local listings.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
No disasters this month, which leaves me with the always-slightly-awkward task of lambasting something I fundamentally enjoyed, just not as much as everything else. If you were to look at my Letterboxd diary, you might think this an easy decision: there’s only one film there I’ve graded 3 stars, so it’s that one… right? But I don’t feel like Silver Blaze was that bad. But then, what was? So, any pick is a bit harsh, but I’ve still settled on <strongLong Story Short, which I think I may have slightly overrated because its concluding message hit me particularly hard, for whatever reason.


Reviews? Maybe! Films? Definitely. And, launching off the success of this month, there’s a very real chance I’ll be a whole month ahead of target on my Challenge by the end of March. No guarantees, though — you’ll just have to come back in 31 29 days to find out.