Movies are a relatively new area of interest for me. I started watching a lot of movies partway through last year and now I’m completely in love with film. Since I haven’t seen much beyond the big blockbusters over the years, I have lots of catching up to do and I hope to make some real progress in 2023. I’m not going to make an exact list of movies that I want to watch in 2023 because, honestly, what I want to specifically watch often depends heavily on what is available on streaming services and my personal mood. Instead, I’m going to discuss a few categories of movies that I am interested in making progress in and see how far I get throughout the year.
Remaining Disney films
I have been watching through the entirety of the Disney and Pixar catalog throughout 2022 in chronological order. Currently, I am on Tarzan, so I have made some good progress so far. Still, I would like to finish this watch-through in 2023. First of all, I want to be able to write my definitive rankings of all of these movies, and secondly, I want to have time to work on other movie-watching projects, so I cannot continue to drag this out.
Watch as Many A24 Films as I Can
I don’t love every A24 film that I watch, but I do know that I’m in for an interesting experience when I see their logo, even if I hate the end product. Ultimately, similarly to my Disney watch-through, I want to watch every A24 film eventually. While I don’t think I can get them all done in a single year, I’d like to make some good progress throughout 2023 to hopefully be up to date with the company’s releases by 2024.
Watch the entirety of at least three director’s filmographies
I had this idea recently that I would really like to watch through some famous director’s filmographies in their entirety and then rank the movies and discuss what I did and didn’t like about each entry. This is hardly a unique idea, and I know social media is filled with lists like this, but it seems like a lot of fun and I want to get involved, as well. While I have a few ideas for specific directors that I am interested in watching, I don’t want to put down names at this time and instead see where my movie-watching adventures take me throughout 2023.
Make Progress on the Letterboxd stat lists
I am a Letterboxd pro user, which means that I have a stat page that shows me the progress that I have made on a variety of different lists that the website deems are important. Instead of picking a specific list and trying to watch from it, I’ve decided that I just want to generally make progress on the lists as a whole and see how it goes. At this moment, I still don’t feel like I know enough about what I do and don’t like in film to limit myself to one individual list and instead want to spend 2023 using all of these lists to explore my own interests, and perhaps narrow down to targeting individual lists in 2024. For my own records, here is a list of my stats thus far:
Letterboxd top 250 – 16/250
Oscar Best Picture Winners – 0/94
IMDb Top 250 – 12/250
Box Office Mojo All Time 100 – 10/100
Sight & Sound Top 100 – 3/100
AFI 100 Years 100 Movies – 2/100
Edgar Wright’s 1000 Favorites – 4/1000
1001 To See Before You Die – 14/1001
Top 250 Documentaries – 0/250
Top 250 Horror – 5/250
Top 250 Women-Directed – 4/250
Top 100 Animation – 29/100
As can be seen above, I have a lot of work to do in order to get these numbers up, but at least by tackling all these lists at once instead of just choosing one, I have a lot of variety to choose from and don’t force myself to watch things I have no interest in just to make a number go up. I want to, in particular, focus in on trying to watch some movies from before the 1990s, because outside of Disney, I don’t have a lot of experience with older movies at this point.
Watch at Least 15 Foreign Films (Films Not in English)
Finally, outside of the occasional anime film, I have not watched a lot of foreign films at this point and I would like to change this. I know that only watching English-speaking films is going to limit myself in the long run, as so many wonderful movies exist in other languages. I just need to try some and get a feel for what I enjoy. I hope to watch far more than fifteen, but I know that all of my other goals have already amounted to dozens of movies that I need to watch in the span of the year, so I don’t want to stress myself out too much.
That’s my goals for the year! Of course, in addition to completing all of these goals, I also intend to keep up with the 2023 releases as much as possible because I love to be able to participate in award season discussions, so look forward to prediction posts throughout the year, as well. As a relative newcomer to film, I am always looking for recommendations of good things to watch, so feel free to leave things that I might enjoy or should just watch to gain a further appreciation of the art form in the comments!
The Hannie Corner 