In 2013, I started making a list. I started tracking each film I watched. Before that, at the end of each year, I wondered just how all these friends and writers managed to note what their favorite films of the past 12 months were – I could barely remember what I had for dinner last week, let alone all the movies I’d seen.
So I started to keep track, and with Google Drive to help, I was able to track on the go, accessing my list from anywhere. Imagine my surprise when that first year my list topped out at over 120 films new to me! In 2014, I hit a personal best of over 130.
The spreadsheet served me well, and I plan to keep it up in 2015 – I’ve even added columns to track what country the films are from and the format I see them in, data I’m curious about reviewing at the end of the year. Because I’m a nerd.
But for this next round of tracking, I’ve added another new tool: Letterboxd. A movie-lovers social platform that came into its own recently (you can find many legit critics using the site as a personal record, too), it’s built to do exactly what I’ve been using spreadsheets to do, only with a bit more flair.
I’d signed up for the site months ago, then fell off from using it to track films. So in 2015, I resolve to actually use the site (no matter how embarrassing my film selections might be). With room to add a review and rating for each film, tools that track the date I saw it and add tags for easy sorting, using the site to its fullest this year is a no-brainer.
You can find me on Letterboxd here; are you on the site? Follow me to see what I’m seeing! Or don’t – I have a feeling it won’t be the only place I talk about movies this year.
