In 2009 I learned about my friend's habit of logging every movie he watched into an annual list. Starting mid-year, I took up this task and recorded every feature-length film I viewed. Not long after that, I was introduced to Steven Soderbergh's "media diet," which inspired me to expand my list and include novels and TV series. In addition are the stats on most-viewed directors, as well as my lists for top releases of the year, top new discoveries, and least favorite overall.
Only full viewings are included.
KEY:
Asterisk*: Repeat viewings
Bold: TV series (season)
Underline: books
January
1. Nostalghia (Tarkovsky, 1983)
2. Minding the Gap (Liu, 2018)
3. Science Fair (Costantini, 2018)
4. Uncut Gems (Safdie, 2019)
*5. Under the Silver Lake (Mitchell, 2018)
6. The Death of Dick Long (Scheinert, 2019)
7. 1917 (Mendes, 2019)
8. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Abrams, 2019)
9. The Edge of Democracy (Costa, 2019)
10. Wizards (Bakshi, 1977)
11. Weathering With You (Makoto Shinkai, 2019)
12. Little Women (Gerwig, 2019)
Monty Python’s Flying Circus SE1 (Chapman, 1969)
13. The Cave (Fayyad, 2019)
14. Tekkonkinkreet (Arias, 2006)
15. Blood Cells (Bull, 2014)
February
16. Honeyland (Kotevska, 2019)
17. Summer With Monika (Bergman, 1953)
18. Touchez Pas au Grisbi (Becker, 1954)
19. My Night at Maud’s (Rohmer, 1969)
20. Diamonds of the Night (Nemec, 1964)
21. The Limits of Control (Jarmusch, 2009)
22. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly, 2019)
Atlanta SE1 (Glover, 2016)
23. Jellyfish Eyes (Takashi Murakami, 2013)
24. In The Aisles (Stuber, 2018)
25. Insignificance (Roeg, 1985)
26. Matewan (Sayles, 1987)
27. Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964)
28. Mary Poppins Returns (Marshall, 2018)
29. The Stunt Man (Rush, 1980)
30. Jabberwocky (Gilliam, 1977)
31. The Assistant (Green, 2019)
32. Raising Cain (De Palma, 1992)
Bojack Horseman SE6 (Bob-Waksberg, 2020)
March
33. Even the Rain (Bollaín, 2010)
*34. Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaki, 2000)
35. The Lone Ranger (Verbinski, 2013)
36. The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)
37. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019)
38. Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982)
39. Onward (Scanlon, 2020)
40. Wendy (Zeitlin, 2020)
41. The Parallax View (Pakula, 1974)
42. System Crasher (Fingscheidt, 2019)
43. Toni Erdmann (Ade, 2016)
44. The Field (Bunker, 2019)
45. Children Who Chase Lost Voices (Makoto Shinkai, 2011)
46. The Executioner (Berlanga, 1963)
47. King of New York (Ferrara, 1990)
48. The Place Promised In Our Early Days (Makoto Shinkai, 2004)
Watchmen SE1 (Lindelof, 2019)
49. Third Person (Haggis, 2013)
50. Toy Story 4 (Cooley, 2019)
51. The Bad News Bears (Ritchie, 1976)
52. Le Notti Biache (Visconti, 1957)
53. The Other Side of Hope (Kaurismäki, 2017)
Kingdom SE2 (Kim Eun-hee, 2020)
54. Willow (Howard, 1988)
55. Fritz the Cat (Bakshi, 1972)
56. The Belko Experiment (McLean, 2016)
April
57. Born on the Fourth of July (Stone, 1989)
58. A Bucket of Blood (Corman, 1959)
59. Pineapple Express (Gordon Green, 2008)
60. Glass (Shyamalan, 2019)
61. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Heckerling, 1982)
Monty Python’s Flying Circus SE2 (Chapman, 1970)
*62. Before Sunrise (Linklater, 1995)
63. Before Sunset (Linklater, 2004)
64. Before Midnight (Linklater, 2013)
65. La Notte (Antonioni, 1961)
66. Angel’s Egg (Mamoru Oshii, 1985)
67. Explorers (Dante, 1985)
68. The Man With A Shotgun (Seijun Suzuki, 1961)
69. Strike (Eisenstein, 1925)
70. I Want To Eat Your Pancreas (Shin’ichirô Ushijima, 2018)
71. Adventures in Babysitting (Columbus, 1987)
72. Four Weddings and a Funeral (Newell, 1994)
73. Suicide Kings (O’Fallon, 1997)
74. Greener Grass (DeBoer, 2019)
75. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (Herek, 1989)
76. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (Hewitt, 1991)
77. The Wayward Cloud (Tsai Ming-liang, 2005)
78. The Stranger (Ray, 1991)
79. The Big City (Ray, 1963)
80. Presumed Innocent (Pakula, 1990)
81. Charulata (Ray, 1964)
82. Frozen (Buck, 2013)
83. Dear Coward on the Moon (Brandt, 2017)
84. We The Coyotes/Anywhere With You (Ladoul, 2018)
85. Under the Tree (Gunnar Sigurrðson, 2017)
86. The Comedy (Alverson, 2012)
87. Entertainment (Alverson, 2015)
99. Sorry We Missed You (Loach, 2019)
100. The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)
101. Last Action Hero (McTiernan, 1993)
102. The Secret of NIMH (Bluth, 1982)
103. Say Anything (Crowe, 1989)
May
104. My Left Foot (Sheridan, 1989)
105. Ghare-Baire/The Home and the World (Ray, 1984)
106. The Wild Pear Tree (Bilge Ceylan, 2018)
107. Young and Innocent (Hitchcock, 1937)
108. The Cow (Mehrjui, 1969)
Devs (Garland, 2020)
109. Cloak and Dagger (Lang, 1946)
110. The Zoo (Ray, 1967)
111. The Organizer (Monicelli, 1963)
112. Rocco and His Brothers (Visconti, 1960)
113. Short Cuts (Altman, 1993)
114. Equinox Flower (Yasujirô Ozu, 1958)
115. Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes (Szulkin, 1986)
116. Divorce Italian Style (Germi, 1961)
117. City of Women (Fellini, 1980)
118. The Cat Returns (Hiroyuki Morita, 2002)
119. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Schaffer, 2016)
120. Images (Altman, 1972)
121. Platform (Zhangke Jia, 2000)
122. Close-Up (Kiarostami, 1990)
123. The Virgin Suicide (Coppola, 1999)
124. Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondô, 1995)
125. Bad Boys 2 (Bay, 2003)
126. Krull (Yates, 1983)
127. Kick-Ass 2 (Wadlow, 2013)
128. You Are My Sunshine (Jin-pyo Park, 2005)
129. Dog Soldiers (Marshall, 2002)
130. Miracle in Milan (De Sica, 1951)
*131. A Night in Casablanca (Mayo, 1946)
132. Barefoot Gen (Mori Masaki, 1983)
133. The Music Lovers (Russell, 1971)
June
134. Commando (Lester, 1985)
135. Ashik Kerib (Parajanov, 1988)
136. The Legend of Suram Fortress (Parajanov, 1985)
137. The Hitcher (Harmon, 1986)
Rick and Morty SE4 (Harmon, 2020)
138. Within Our Gates (Michaeux, 1920)
139. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Parajanov, 1965)
140. The SuperVips (Bozzetto, 1968)
141. Eating Raoul (Bartel, 1982)
142. Scarlet Street (Lang, 1945)
143. West and Soda (Bozzetto, 1965)
*144. Vivre Sa Vie (Godard, 1962)
145. Bacurau (Dornelles, 2019)
146. Nazarin (Buñuel, 1959)
147. Zero for Conduct (Vigo, 1933)
148. Zare (Bek-nazaryan, 1927)
149. This Happy Breed (Lean, 1944)
150. Zulu Dawn (Hickox, 1979)
151. Da 5 Bloods (Lee, 2020)
152. Memories of Matsuko (Tetsuya Nakashima, 2006)
153. Human Desire (Lang, 1954)
154. Profound Desires of the Gods (Shôhei Imamura, 1968)
155. The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder, 1979)
156. Shirley (Decker, 2020)
157. Color Out of Space (Stanley, 2019)
156. Pirosmani (Shengelaia, 1969)
July
157. The Blood Is at the Doorstep (Ljung, 2017)
158. A Scene at the Sea (Takeshi Kitano, 1991)
159. A Silent Voice (Naoko Yamada, 2016)
160. The Witches (Roeg, 1990)
161. The Painter and the Thief (Ree, 2020)
162. Repentance (Abuladze, 1984)
163. The Green Hornet (Gondry, 2011)
164. Pirates (Polanski, 1986)
165. Ashes of Time (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994)
166. Haywire (Soderbergh, 2011)
167. The Night Stalker (Moxey, 1972)
168. The Unfaithful Wife (Chabrol, 1969)
169. The Vast of Night (Patterson, 2019)
170. Guns Akimbo (Howden, 2019)
171. Beanpole (Balagov, 2019)
172. Special Bulletin (Zwick, 1983)
173. Bloodsport (Arnold, 1988)
174. The Little American (DeMille, 1917)
175. The Southerner (Renoir, 1945)
176. Time of Eve (Yasuhiro Yoshiura, 2010)
177. First Cow (Reichardt, 2019)
178. Vampires (Carpenter, 1998)
179. The Third Generation (Fassbinder, 1979)
180. Little Dieter Needs To Fly (Herzog, 1997)
181. The Story of the Fox (Starewicz, 1937)
182. The Gospel According to Matthew (Pasolini, 1964)
August
183. Even Dwarfs Started Small (Herzog, 2970)
184. Blow the Man Down (Krudy, 2019)
185. Zieram (Keita Amemiya, 1991)
186. Nobody Knows I’m Here (Antillo, 2020)
187. Frankenhooker (Henenlotter, 1990)
188. The Aerial/La Antena (Sapir, 2007)
189. Herdsmen of the Sun (Herzog, 1989)
190. Dark Star (Carpenter, 1974)
191. Where the Green Ants Dream (Herzog, 1984)
192. Tales From Earthsea (Gorô Miyazaki, 2006)
193. Vivarium (Finnegan, 2019)
194. CJ7 (Chow, 2008)
Brave New World (Huxley, 1932)
195. Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994)
*196. Murder by Death (Moore, 1976)
*197. Faust (Svankmajer, 1994)
198. Tank Girl (Talalay, 1995)
199. Love & Pop (Hideaki Anno, 1998)
200. The Night Strangler (Curtis, 1973)
201. Night of the Living Dead (Savini, 1990)
202. The Naked Island (Kaneto Shindô, 1960)
203. Son of the White Mare (Jancovics, 1981)
204. Yor, the Hunter from the Future (Margheriti, 1983)
205. Time Masters (Laloux, 1982)
206. A Canterbury Tale (Powell, 1944)
September
207. Vampire Hunter D (Toyoo Ashida, 1985)
208. Foam Bath (Kovásznai, 1980)
209. The Lady with the Dog (Kheifits, 1960)
210. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Kaufman, 2020)
*211. Uncut Gems (Safdie, 2019)
212. Tenet (Nolan, 2020)
*213. In the Mouth of Madness (Carpenter, 1995)
*214. The Serpent’s Egg (Bergman, 1977)
215. Teorema (Pasolini, 1968)
*216. Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980)
*217. Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981)
*218. Friday the 13th Part III (Miner, 1982)
*219. The Fog (Carpenter, 1980)
220. House of Dark Shadows (Curtis, 1970)
221. Dead Man’s Shoes (Meadows, 2004)
222. The Devil All The Time (Campos, 2020)
*223. The Crow (Proyas, 1994)
224. Cairo Station (Chahine, 1958)
225. High Plains Drifter (Eastwood, 1973)
226. Canoa: A Shameful Memory (Cazals, 1976)
*227. Creepshow (Romero, 1982)
*228. The Ring (Verbinskis, 2002)
*229. Hollow Man (Verhoeven, 2000)
230. #Alive (Il Cho, 2020)
*231. The Evil Dead (Raimi, 1981)
October.
232. Kajillionaire (July, 2020)
233. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984)
*234. The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, 1935)
235. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985)
236. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (McLoughlin, 1986)
237. Horrors of Malformed Men (Teruo Ishii, 1969)
Channel Zero SE3: Butcher’s Block (Antosca, 2018)
238. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (Chiodo, 1988)
239. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (Buechler, 1988)
240. What Keeps You Alive (Minihan, 2018)
*241. Boy & the World (Abreu, 2013)
242. Dead & Buried (Sherman, 1981)
243. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Rob Hedden, 1989)
244. Ringolevio (Kaszubowski, 2020)
*245. Altered States (Russell, 1980)
246. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Sorkin, 2020)
247. Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932)
248. Rawhead Rex (Pavlou, 1986)
*249. The Lure (Smoczynska, 2015)
250. About Endlessness (Andersson,
251. The Phantom Carriage (Sjöström, 1921)
*252. The Exorcist III (Blatty, 1990)
253. Motel Hell (Connor, 1980)
254. Firestarter (Lester, 1984)
255. GYO: Tokyo Fish Attack (Takayuki Hirao, 2012)
256. Tomio (Junji Ito, 2011)
*257. Zombi 2 (Fulci, 1979)
*258. The Howling (Dante, 1981)
*259. Night of the Creeps (Dekker, 1986)
November
260. The Wolf of Snow Hollow (Cummings, 2020)
261. Messiah of Evil (Huyck, 1973)
262. Possessor (Cronenberg, 2020)
263. Q (Cohen, 1982)
Books of Blood, Volume II (Barker, 1984)
264. Battle Angel (Hiroshi Fukutomi, 1993)
265. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (De Bello, 1978)
266. The Misandrists (La Bruce, 2017)
267. His House (Weekes, 2020)
277. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Woliner, 2020)
278. Freaky (Landon, 2020)
279. Star 80 (Fosse, 1983)
280. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Marcus, 1993)
281. I’m No Longer Here (Frias, 2019)
*282. Daisies (Chytilová, 1966)
*283. The Seventh Continent (Haneke, 1989)
284. The Nest (Durkin, 2020)
285. Fast Color (Hart, 2018)
286. Feels Good Man (Jones, 2020)
287. Song of the Miraculous Hind (Jankovics, 2002)
288. I Was at Home, But . . . (Schanelec, 2019)
289. True History of the Kelly Gang (Kurzel, 2019)
290. Eternal Beauty (Roberts, 2019)
291. Emma. (de Wilde, 2020)
292. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Barron, 1990)
293. Tesla (Almereyda, 2020)
December
294. Klaus (Pablos, 2019)
295. The Painted Bird (Marhoul, 2019)
296. The Coward (Ray, 1965)
297. The Watermelon Woman (Dunye, 1996)
299. The Wolf House (Cociña, 2018)
*300. Happiness of the Katakuris (Takashi Miike, 2001)
301. Jungleland (Winkler, 2019)
302. P2 (Khalfoun, 2007)
303. Black Test Car (Yasuzô Masumura, 1962)
304. The Wild Goose Lake (Yi’nan Diao, 2019)
305. Zombi Child (Bonello, 2019)
*306. Black Christmas (Clark, 1974)
307. After Midnight (Gardner, 2019)
*308. Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick, 1999)
309. Bill & Ted Face the Music (Parisot, 2020)
310. Corpus Christi (Komasa, 2019)
311. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Ross, 2020)
312. Exit Plan (Arnby, 2019)
313. Santa’s Slay (Steiman, 2005)
314. Hunter Hunter (Linden, 2020)
315. A White, White Day (Palmason, 2019)
316. The Twentieth Century (Rankin, 2019)
317. The Hater (Komasa, 2020)
318. The Social Dilemma (Orlowski, 2020)
319. My Octopus Teacher (Ehrlich, 2020)
320. Conan the Barbarian (Milius, 1982)
321. Sound of Metal (Marder, 2019)
322. Ernest Saves Christmas (Cherry III, 1988)
323. The Quarry (Teems, 2020)
324. A Sun (Mong-Hong Chung, 2019)
FIVE FAVORITE NEW RELEASES (in alphabetical order)
The Wolf House - Hypnotizing within the opening minutes, this harrowing reminiscence of real life horror dances through space and time dressed as macabre animation, meticulous miniatures, and poetically haunting narration.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Feels Good Man
Possessor
Sorry We Missed You
Sound of Metal
Weathering With You
FIVE FAVORITE NEW DISCOVERIES (in alphabetical order)
The Phantom Carriage/Vampyr - With revolutionary technical feats elevating these otherworldly stories of grand scope, actors and actions are illuminated in the starkly emotional shadows of cinema rich with experimentation.
Pirosmani - Compositions blending Takovsky's spaces and Sarajanov's performances, exploring the heartache and humility of a soul impassioned with artistic pursuit.
The Story of the Fox - Mind-blowing stop motion masterwork utilizing inventive techniques for sharp comedy, grand adventure, and elaborate musical numbers.
Son of the White Mare - Blazing with fierce colors and forms, this incomparable animation style enriches psychedelic folktales with satirical imagery.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The Big City
Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes
Images
The Naked Island
Nostalghia
The Third Generation
Special Bulletin
The SuperVips
Whispers of the Heart
FIVE LEAST FAVORITE (in alphabetical order)
CJ7 - With more cringe than comedy, parental abuse and school bullying are sporadically assembled into an ill-shaped puzzle while any sense of logic is left in the box.
We the Coyotes/Anywhere With You - An affectionless hipster couple treads redundantly obnoxious stereotypes between aimless montages and whining improv.
What Keeps You Alive - An endurance test repetitively beaten out, blindly seeking payoff from inconsistent characters and irritating stylistic failures.
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Fast Color
The Green Hornet
STATS:
Movies: 324Satyajit Ray: 6
Werner Herzog: 4
Makoto Shinkai: 3
Sergei Parajanov: 3
Fritz Lang: 3
