How to Keep Track of Every Movie You Watch

Film buffs have a bevy of resources when it comes to organizing their film collections. Most use online platforms to keep track of all the films they watch, including IMDb, Flixster, Rotten Tomatoes, ICheckMovies.com, SeenThat, and Letterboxd. Each of these methods have their own pros and cons. Some of the sites don’t feature the more obscure films a film buff tends to watch, or the site doesn’t include a social media aspect, so you can’t connect to other movie lovers. One of the main pros of keeping your films organized in this way, is that you can find trends in directors or writers you like, or like me, you want to remember what you saw so you can later review it. While these are great systems, the one fatal flaw that maligns them is that they are all online systems. If something were to happen to the site, you would have no access to the hundreds of titles you’ve undoubtedly seen, and all the time you put into cultivating your list would be wasted. Looking at Flixster as an example, it has changed drastically in the last several years from a full-on social media platform, with profiles, lists, quizzes, and Super Reviewer badges, to a video storage and movie show times venue.

If you’re going to keep a complete list, you should set up some rules for yourself, or else it will be very difficult to actually know how many films you watch. Sometimes this can hinder you, or lend to guilt over watching one thing rather than another, yet the pros vastly outweigh the cons. Here are some rules I have for my own list:

· The film must be at least one hour in length, or else it is considered a short film and does not count.

· If a film is foreign, either the foreign or English title must be followed with either the foreign or English translation in parenthesis.

· No assistant directors are allowed in the director’s column, and all multiple directors are separated by commas.

· The star rating is always out of five, like on Rotten Tomatoes.

· The year listed must be the generally agreed upon release date.

While some of these rules may seem strange or arbitrary, they lend to an easier organizational system. You can have your own rules for your list, which could include the exclusion of television movies, or the inclusion of television shows, shorts, or mini-series. I do all of this in Excel, as well in Google Sheets, and keep it organized by specific categories for each line. These specifications include: the numbered order the film was watched in, the full name of the film, the year it was released, the director(s), and a rating out of five. Now, if you want to be more technical or add categories, know that it’s very difficult to see all that information in the same list, at the same time. Categories that you can add include: The screenwriter(s), genre, when or where you saw it and who with, whether you used an online streaming service, or if it won any major awards. I keep my list simple and uncluttered. If you already use IMDb to keep track of all your films, there is an option to download the list into Excel and that works for many people who don’t want to implement a new system.

I have kept track of every first time watch for the past six years, and honestly it has only been a benefit to my life as a reviewer and movie watcher in general. There were so many aspects to filmmaking that I was unaware of before I started keeping this organized list, and I have discovered many trends, directors, and genres from analyzing my spreadsheets. If you’re serious about film criticism, the film business in general, or just want to be better cultured in the medium of film, this is a great system to implement. Just know that sometimes it can lend to neurotic behavior. Sometimes I don’t watch two particular films in a row, because they have the same director, or were made in the same year, and that will show up in the spreadsheet. Every year I watch a film from every letter of the alphabet, even the letter X. I also make it a point to put the entire list in numerical order by year, and try to make the bottom number place around the 1960s, to ensure I am watching enough old movies.

Again, this system lends to a lot of guilt, and it is not always understood by those without the same histrionics we creatives often exhibit. Honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way, because if this is the worst obsession I have, it’s a good one at that.