We’re one-third of the way through 2026, but my film viewing hasn’t even reached the one-quarter mark of my Challenge. Oh dear.

Still, April was the strongest month of the year so far, and the goal isn’t out of reach yet. More about the exact numbers behind those observations in my viewing notes; first, the films I did watch:

#13 Breakout (1959) — Series Progression #3
#14 Ordeal by Innocence (1984) — Wildcard #2
#15 One Battle After Another (2025) — Failure #4
#16 Nonnas (2025) — Wildcard #3
#17 3-D Rarities (2015) — Genre #1
#18 Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) — Blindspot #2
#19 Conclave (2024) — 50 Unseen #2
#20 Hope Gap (2019) — Wildcard #4
#21 A Wednesday (2008) — WDYMYHS #2

• I watched nine feature films I’d never seen before in April.
• That makes this the best month of 2026 to date by some margin, although it still falls short of my ten-film target.
• All nine counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, but no rewatches this month.
• The target for the end of April is #33, so I’m still 12 films behind.
• With 79 films to go in the next eight months, that’s a required average of 9.88 Challenge films per month — slightly up from 9.78 after March. Still some work to be done to stand a chance of catching up, then.
• 3-D Rarities is my first Genre film for 2026, making that the last category to get underway.
• This month’s Blindspot film was French New Wave drama Hiroshima Mon Amour.
• This month’s WDYMYHS film was Indian antiterrorism thriller A Wednesday.
• From last month’s “failures” I watched only One Battle After Another.

Favourite Film of the Month
It was the most recent Best Picture winner and a Paul Thomas Anderson film — two things that some people (not necessarily the same people) would take as an unimpeachable mark of quality, but which are very much “wait and see” indicators for me. But as it turns out, they were right, and I thought One Battle After Another was fantastic.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I imagine that, back when it was released in 2008, A Wednesday felt timely and relevant. Nowadays, it’s dated both stylistically (its camerawork and editing is heavily indebted to other early-21st-century works in the genre) and politically (its chosen antiterrorism angle feels ickily far right in light of the present-day landscape).

I’ve got a very busy May coming up — I wouldn’t be surprised if progress gets knocked back again. And I can state with a high degree of confidence that, if I’m ever going to turn things around and re-start publishing reviews, it won’t happen next month.