In 2018, I watched 49 movies, two more than in 2017, and slightly less than the average of 51 movies per year that I’ve averaged over the past 10 years. Yes, I track my movie-watching (and my book-reading, calories, sleep, travel, and other things), I enjoy doing it, and I refer back to it often.
Here are some stats from my year in movie watching (view previous years’ here)
2018’s New Movies
Of the 49 movies I watched in 2018, 14 of them — or 29% — were released in 2018, which is the lowest “new movie” total I’ve seen in a year since all the way back in 2012.
That means my 2018 top 10 list isn’t as confident as previous’ years when I had more movies to pick from- that said, I’m happy with this list overall:
- A Star Is Born
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse
- Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Game Night
- Blockers
- A Quiet Place
- Ant-Man and The Wasp
- Tomb Raider (2018 version)
How and What I Watched
Formats
I watched most (nearly 60%) of movies on a digital format such as Amazon Prime, Plex (my personal media library), Netflix, HBO Now, and iTunes. 30% of my viewing came from theaters, and the rest (just 4 movies) on DVD.
This is a big drop from just 5 years ago, when nearly 25% of my viewing was on DVD/Blu-ray, and only 30% on digital platforms.
Genres
This year, I spent most of my time — roughly 52 hours, or an hour a week — watching action movies, my top genre, beating out comedy without much of a battle. Next was drama, documentary, and thriller with two entries (Get Out and A Quiet Place).
The action genre was boosted not only by my regular November – December rewatches of several Bond movies; it was also enhanced by my watch of the entire five-movie Dirty Harry series, plus 6 of the 14 movies I saw in theaters this year.
Takeaways
- Clearly, I need to get back into the new movie scene in 2019. I saw 30% fewer new movies in 2018 than my recent yearly average, due in part to a number of personal and professional happenings, and to a lesser extent, decreased interest in what was out there in terms of movies.
- My Watchlist – (obviously) a running tally of the movies I want to watch – is at an all-time high, and I should either purge that list, or watch some movies from it, or both.
- I should probably branch out beyond cheesy action movies and catch a few more dramas.
- On a related note, I feel like the classic romantic comedy needs to come back around in a big way.
