As written about previously, I set for myself a number of film watching challenges every year. For the last three years, myself and two mates have drafted 52 movies to watch “together” every year. This has complimented the spooky seasonal challenge I’ve taken on since 2020 by incorporating the tastes of my closest film-watching friends. This year I decided 83 pre-determined movies wasn’t quite enough and pushed myself a little further.
The idea of a subscription to the Criterion Channel had been rattling in my head for a while and, after watching a bunch of Criterion releases last year through the aforementioned challenges, I was ready to jump into another one observed by Letterboxd’s community.
Starting in 2021, Letterboxd user benvsthemovies has drafted a list of categories and challenged others to fill out the list with movies from the Criterion Collection and watch them over the course of the year.
The rules are simple: Between 1/1 and 12/31 of 2024, watch 52 movies from the Criterion Collection (or otherwise available on the Criterion Channel). The pace doesn't matter, but you have to finish by year's end. It’s recommended that all picks are first time watches.
Stats
My picks were intentionally varied and were not watched in order. Many I’d heard of, some I hadn’t. They spanned 21 countries of origin and 15 languages. Letterboxd now offers in depth statistics on lists, but I’ll list some of the more interesting ones here.
As it relates to this challenge, I watched 4 films by Ingmar Bergman and 2 by Richard Linklater, Céline Sciamma, Charlie Chaplin, Wong Kar-Wai, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Abbas Kiarostami. I caught additional films by Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Kiarostami outside of it as well.
My most-selected decades were the 1960s-1980s. Most of my picks were dramas. Behind English films produced in the US, France and Japan were my most common countries of origin. I watched 100.9 hours of film for this challenge.
Of the 52 films selected, the rating breakdown looked like this:
- 5 films were rated 5 (masterpieces, perfect in my eyes)
- 16 were rated 4.5 (must-see)
- 12 rated 4 (excellent)
- 11 rated 3.5 (very good)
- 5 rated 3 (good)
- 2 rated 2.5 (okay)
- 1 rated 2 (disappointing)
Takeaways & Favorites
When I think back on the challenge, there are a few experiences that stand out. Although I didn’t rate it as highly as some others, Pather Panchali might have had the biggest impact. After watching it, I couldn’t wait for another year to draft its equally heartbreaking sequels. So I watched them all within a week. I felt similarly about Where Is The Friend’s House?, but have not yet watched the rest of the Koker “trilogy.” I love the pace and tenderness of these movies. They show the human condition perfectly in my opinion and, often times, reflected my memory of myself as a youth. Ray and Kiarostami have instilled in me an affinity and hunger for south asian film I probably would not have found otherwise.
Solaris and Alphaville are probably the two biggest letdowns of the bunch. As a science fiction fan, I anticipated liking these a lot more than I did. It’s possible mood had a part to play, but I don’t see myself revisiting either of them anytime soon.
I gave Where Is The Friend’s House? a perfect score. 5 stars went also to 12 Angry Men, Tampopo, Ran, & Petite Maman. It feels right to briefly explain why I found them without flaw.
12 Angry Men
This was one of my earliest watches. Perfect script. Incredibly compelling. Lightning performances in a bottled room.
There’s almost no diversity in this room whatsoever, but there’s just enough for this story to work exactly right. The interplay and relationships between any two of these characters is so vivid. Lumet’s masterpiece can only ever improve with age because discussion and reason such as this will only become rarer in time.
Flicks like this make me miss theatre really bad. Masterful stuff. Should be required watching for any American citizen. If only the racists of today were capable of exhausting themselves to the point of self-reflection and sham.
Tampopo
I love ramen. I don’t really cook, so I don’t make it myself. But I have a deep interest in watching those that do. There isn’t a documentary on ramen I haven’t seen and yet this movie has eluded me. How? I’m not sure. It’s totally in my zone. Gosh, I loved it.
Tampopo is many things. A western, a romance, a National Lampoon, and a very passionate single mom. I laughed so hard at the gourmet homeless guys, the waitress vacuuming the old man, and so many small and considerate moments from start to finish. This movie is a lot of things but at the heart of it all is good food and quality people. It goes down like a warm bowl; very comforting and I’m eager for seconds.
Ran
“My God, this is a good-looking movie.” – me during the opening credits and every 5 minutes after
I don’t have a lot of things to say about the plot or characters. I’m not a Shakespeare guy, so I can’t draw insightful comparisons there either. I just hope I have the juice to create anything a fraction as majestic as this when I’m 75 years old.
Petite Maman
I haven’t been this emotionally assaulted since A Ghost Story.
Before the plot really kicked off, I paused and wrote out a story idea based on the sheer potential for this. Half of it played out exactly as I pictured it. The other half was far more satisfying and gut-wrecking than the horror twist I chucked in. Catharsis is a beautiful thing.
So much of this hits. The grief, the understanding, building forts in the woods with the kid that lives on the other side. Céline Sciamma you have this quiet, reflective kid’s number. I’m so inspired. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Where Is The Friend’s House?
I didn’t publish a review for this at the time. I was too overwhelmed by the tenderness of it to write anything. But I did take some notes.
In a stand-alone scene in the middle of this picture, the boy’s grandfather speaks candidly to another elder man. He tells him that foreigners are paid double because they do things the first time they are told—that there is an advantage or virtue in obedience.
And yet everyone in the neighboring towns of Koker and Poshteh take multiple attempts to get themselves across—repeat themselves over and over again.
People just want to be seen and heard. The friend wants his effort noticed despite not using the notebook. The boy wants his mother to see that he’s trying to do the right thing. The old man wants his craftsmanship to be appreciated rather than discarded for a new sales pitch.
Just about every facet of the film and its characters resonated with me. It’s perfect.
One last takeaway, one that informed my list for 2025: Fewer movies 2.5 hours or longer. I’m totally down for a long movie. I really don’t mind the length of any individual film. In aggregate, however—particularly for those in foreign languages—I found myself getting pretty exhausted by the year’s end.
Maybe that’s due to poor scheduling on my part? Regardless, this year I’m being a little more conscious of that across all of my film watching challenges.