There’s never been a larger concentration of movies available. Paradoxically, it’s often hard to actually find something you want to watch. The enshittification of streaming is the most prominent obstacle; movies disappear without notice, price hikes occur regularly, and engagement tactics prioritize the bottom line over your satisfaction.
One of the best ways to navigate such a challenging landscape is a bit of introspection. Spend a few minutes to capture why you liked a movie, and you’ll likely find the long term quality of what you watch next will improve.
While introspective notetaking at first glance sounds like lightweight film criticism, it’s actually about saving you time and money. Five minutes now could save you two hours and twenty bucks later. Practically anyone, from home theater cineastes to casual watchers, will benefit by the practice.
Start by settling on a consistent place to capture your film notes. It might be a physical notebook, on a Google Doc, an entry on Letterboxd, or any other place that’s easy to access and suits your workflow. After you finish a movie, while it’s fresh in your mind, find a space to add a new entry. Write down the name of the movie and any other identifying features (e.g., year, genre, director) that are helpful for later reference.
Reflect and write down the parts of the movie you liked. You can capture anything you like, but several areas tend to be good starting points:
Be brief, no more than a few bullet points or a sentence in total. The entire process should take no more than three to five minutes tops. Here’s an example entry for two different movies I saw at this year at TIFF:
Heretic: Hugh Grant, inventive camera usage (zooms), funny screenplay (first half)
The End: Tilda Swinton, costuming
I’d recommend this note taking workflow for not just movies you like, but ones you dislike as well; even low quality movies often have an element or two you can appreciate.
In its basic form, your notes provide an additional filter among your usual starting place for selecting what to watch next. For many, if not most, that starting place is the home page of various streaming services. For others it might be a Letterboxd feed, a list of recent awards nominees, or recommendations from a trusted entertainment or news source like The New York Times that frequently feature “what’s new to streaming” articles.
Wherever you start your search from, glance at your notes before making a selection. Look for commonalities in actors or genres when considering your options. For example, if you’re looking at a list of ten movies in a “new to streaming” article, and your notes show appreciation for a variety of horror movies, look for something in the same genre. Furthermore, if your starting place has search capabilities (e.g., any streaming service), you can always look up an actor you’ve liked, a director (for a movie that had many elements work), or a genre.
But personal notes, given their independence from any single streaming service, are best for expansive, open ended searches. Use your computer, tablet, or phone to bring up IMDB and Letterboxd. Start with a single jumping off point (e.g., crew member, genre) and then use that associated filmography to find new movies to watch.
For movies in your notes that had many strong elements that made the overall watching experience strong, look up the director. For films in your notes where you cited elements of the story, look up the movie’s screenwriter. For standout actors, look up their acting history. For movies with exceptional camera work or visuals, look up the cinematographer. If your notes repeatedly mention a specific genre, I’d recommend opening up that movie in Letterboxd, and jump to the “genres” tab. While you can just select a genre and see a huge number of movies ordered by popularity, I find selecting a specific theme (e.g., “Underdog Fighting and Boxing Stories”) yields more interesting results.
Regardless of your starting point, you’ll now have a list of movies associated with a crew member, actor, genre, or theme. I’d recommend opening a few options from the list in new tabs. Scan through several, and look for a plot synopsis that looks interesting. While viewer consensus isn’t everything, a glance at the average IMDB rating or Letterboxd score can be instructive. I find IMDB averages lower than 7 out of 10 or Letterboxd averages below 3.3 to be a potential warning sign.
As you start finding potential movies to catch up with later, capture them in a watchlist. Capture more rather than less, given film availability can be spotty and to have more movies on hand to match different moods.
While it’s an optional step, I also like to run a quick search on JustWatch for movies I add to the watchlist to find a film’s availability on various digital platforms. When the film in question is streaming on a service I already subscribe to, I’ll make a note. Services like JustWatch and Letterboxd also allow you to bookmark favorites and filter availability by streaming and digital storefronts.
Yes, such a capture system can sound a little wonkish. But building a habit of reflection and an accompanying watchlist is notable for its deviation from streaming and social media norms. You’re building a better understanding of your personal taste, as opposed to the inertia of autoplay and what an algorithm is pushing. Furthermore, streaming services’ back catalogs are almost always vastly more impressive than what’s trending on the home page. By relying on more independent searches and watchlists, you can more easily tap into an often vast movie archive largely untouched by most watchers.
I’d also suggest introspection adds value back to the movies themselves, encouraging us to see them as meaningful rather than disposable “content”. Not every film will be high art or even enjoyable, but watching mindfully lets us appreciate each choice a little more deeply.