How big is your watchlist

[Lakigigar]

Mine is 1604 long, after removing around 900 titles! mostly very mainstream crap, extremely obscure stuff that don't seem interesting, turkish and indian stuff, name it

124 Japanese titles produced in Japan
96 Korean titles produced in Korea
50 to 100 Greater China titles
Around 700 to 750 USA titles in english
250 UK titles in english
Ireland, Australia, NZ will have some too
159 French titles in french
45 German titles in german (although probably only half of it, if i take a quick look)

[peeptoad]

3016 3079 now

[TiRex]

I try to keep it really small to not lose focus. So currently it has only 19 titles in it.

[OldAle1]

Infinite.

[Torgo]

I try to keep it really small to not lose focus. So currently it has only 19 titles in it.

Welcome to the Forum, Mister Tyrannosaurus! You seem to be a very reasonable person.

I keep different, sometimes overlapping watchlists, which amass 600-1000 titles now, I guess. (Mind you it'd take me 3-5 years to watch those and only those in my normal tempo)
But I actually lost track with watchlisting a lot of stuff since we got the ICM lists anyway So I don't even bother putting titles from 1001BYD, 366 Weird Movies etc on these which I want to complete anyway ..

[TiRex]

I try to keep it really small to not lose focus. So currently it has only 19 titles in it.

Welcome to the Forum, Mister Tyrannosaurus! You seem to be a very reasonable person.

I keep different, sometimes overlapping watchlists, which amass 600-1000 titles now, I guess. (Mind you it'd take me 3-5 years to watch those and only those in my normal tempo)
But I actually lost track with watchlisting a lot of stuff since we got the ICM lists anyway So I don't even bother putting titles from 1001BYD, 366 Weird Movies etc on these which I want to complete anyway ..

Thank you very much for the warm welcome Torgo .

I honestly don't know how you guys keep track of those gigantic watchlists .

[Torgo]

The cool thing is how IMDb improved managing your watchlist (the one single thing they didn't botch during the last years ..).



With only a few clicks, you can add a move directly to your "overall watchlist" or single lists, and multiple of them. (e.g. classic films, arthouse, popular stuff, 2021, you name it)

"Keeping track" as in watching is something wholly different, of course - something I can't achieve for a few years now, haha.
My growing watchlist(s) is a terrifying hydra: For every movie head I cut off, another two emerge - other film by the director, other important titles by the actors, other works on the same topic, ...
Hopefully, one day, I make it through all of that to just relax and watch films I randomly want to watch.

[Knaldskalle]

I try to keep it really small to not lose focus. So currently it has only 19 titles in it.

Welcome to the Forum, Mister Tyrannosaurus! You seem to be a very reasonable person.

I keep different, sometimes overlapping watchlists, which amass 600-1000 titles now, I guess. (Mind you it'd take me 3-5 years to watch those and only those in my normal tempo)
But I actually lost track with watchlisting a lot of stuff since we got the ICM lists anyway So I don't even bother putting titles from 1001BYD, 366 Weird Movies etc on these which I want to complete anyway ..

Thank you very much for the warm welcome Torgo .

I honestly don't know how you guys keep track of those gigantic watchlists .

iCM has a watchlist feature. So does IMDb. And we do have some people here who like to keep large spreadsheets.

And my own watchlist somehow managed to balloon from 1025 a year ago to 1673 today. I was *this close* to being able to rearrange titles on my iCM watchlist,

[joachimt]

The answer to the question depends on the definition of "watchlist". For example, I'd watch almost all official checks available on MUBI in any country. That's probably hundreds of titles. I have no list of those though, because there no tool for that and I simply select a few next movies to watch in the coming days.

On Netflix I do have a tool to filter all available movies, so I watchlist movies in the app. That's currently 39 titles. Same applies to Prime: currently 3 on my watchlist.

Also have 21 on my iCM list, but I'm not actively trying to watch those.

But there are also some lists I want to watch all the remaining titles from. So you could count those as "watchlist" as well. But if I finish those, I'll have some more lists I want to complete, but I'm postponing those at the moment. So do these count towards my watchlist?

So I guess my watchlist is endless.

[Coryn]

On Netflix I do have a tool to filter all available movies, so I watchlist movies in the app. That's currently 39 titles. Same applies to Prime: currently 3 on my watchlist.

Never had the option to say thank you for this. I've been using your Netflix list as there are hardly any differences from Belgian Netflix.


On topic; my watchlist is really short with 16 movies as I only add movies I will see in the really near future either because of challenges or short term goals.

[hurluberlu]

I have two types of watchlist (ie a list for films I have never seen):

- films I don't own: 365 - a numberthat used to be double five years ago. I have stopped adding obvious stuff though (TSDPT leftovers, etc).

- films I own in various formats: 337

I have also another 358 films I have acquired and seen before but not rewatched in this format (favourites, boxset...), pretty crazy.

[Tim2460]

8417

But it used to be over 9000!

[Armoreska]

no one watchlist exists
i can imagine there are a few layers though
one with a few dozen titles I'm focusing atm
medium scope with a few thou - I would have to deplete this considerably to start working on the greatest holes in my history (Akira and Alfred)
and a large scope includes tens of thousands of titles as I've watchlisted over a thousand of lists so far

[jonas2k]

About 2800 on imdb and another 569 I own on physical format.

[Cippenham]

1429

[sol]

I have never had literal watchlists beyond what I am focusing on. I start off every month with three watchlists to align with the Official Challenges.

I have 29 features on my Experimental watchlist, 66 on my Directors watchlist and 26 on my Benelux watchlist.

So, I guess my overall watchlist is a measly 121 films. Not that I'll get through even half of that by the end of the month.

[Onderhond]

All for immediate viewing:
32 films at home
46 films on Netflix
28 films on Prime
20 films on Disney+

And slightly different (can't immediately watch these but don't want to forget about them either):
09 films on Letterboxd

And more broadly speaking:
2298 films on Films on at least 03 official lists
1888 films on Films on 2 official lists

[shugs]

23. I've been adding movies from challenges I've hosted that looked interesting, but am in no hurry to watch them.

[cinephage]

I own 2123 films in Bluray or DVD I want to watch someday... Plus 300 films, more or less, available but which I don't own. I also want to see 9 films on platform, and an indefinite number of movies on VOD (I watch 1 or 2 per week of those).

I am in no hurry to achieve anything, I 'm mostly glad there are so many movies I feel like watching, and can whenever I'm in the right mood for it (which is, let's be honest, quite often).

My main frustration comes from the closed cinemas. I used to watch 5 to 8 films per week there. This is really what gets on my nerve at the moment, I wouldn'r have thought it possible for theatres to stay close for such a long period.

[Coryn]

I own 2123 films in Bluray or DVD I want to watch someday... Plus 300 films, more or less, available but which I don't own. I also want to see 9 films on platform, and an indefinite number of movies on VOD (I watch 1 or 2 per week of those).

What kind of capital of bought DVD/Blu are we talking about here ?

[cinephage]

I own 2123 films in Bluray or DVD I want to watch someday... Plus 300 films, more or less, available but which I don't own. I also want to see 9 films on platform, and an indefinite number of movies on VOD (I watch 1 or 2 per week of those).

What kind of capital of bought DVD/Blu are we talking about here ?

7638 (series season count as 1, collections count as 1 per feature they contain, short film collections count as 1)...
Most of which are DVDs... I rarely replace DVDs with Blurays, except in exceptional circumstances.

I started getting some of those when my daughter was born, she now lives in her own flat... My main concern is DVDRot which can occur, but I consider myself lycky, I've only run into damaged discs 3 or 4 times...

[Coryn]

I own 2123 films in Bluray or DVD I want to watch someday... Plus 300 films, more or less, available but which I don't own. I also want to see 9 films on platform, and an indefinite number of movies on VOD (I watch 1 or 2 per week of those).

What kind of capital of bought DVD/Blu are we talking about here ?

7638 (series season count as 1, collections count as 1 per feature they contain, short film collections count as 1)...
Most of which are DVDs... I rarely replace DVDs with Blurays, except in exceptional circumstances.

I started getting some of those when my daughter was born, she now lives in her own flat... My main concern is DVDRot which can occur, but I consider myself lycky, I've only run into damaged discs 3 or 4 times...

that's amazing

[sol]

7638 (series season count as 1, collections count as 1 per feature they contain, short film collections count as 1)...
Most of which are DVDs... I rarely replace DVDs with Blurays, except in exceptional circumstances.

I started getting some of those when my daughter was born, she now lives in her own flat... My main concern is DVDRot which can occur, but I consider myself lycky, I've only run into damaged discs 3 or 4 times...

Ah, you lightweight. I've lost exact count (I did keep track once upon at time), however, I own over 10 000 films on DVD/Blu-ray. I haven't been adding much to my collection over the past two or three years though due to the rise of streaming services.

Likewise, I haven't had very many DVDs that have stopped working (actually, I can only think of one off-hand) but I have had a few Blu-rays that refuse to work; the bronzing effect, I guess.

[Obgeoff]

How many of those DVDs do you think that you will rewatch in your lifetime? I sold/gave to charity 95%+ of my physical collection as I didn’t think I would ever revisit them.

I have hundreds of books on shelves that I get aesthetic pleasure from even if unlikely that I will revisit them. Is that the driver of your collecting or is it something else?

[Armoreska]

It'd be funny if DVDs just became trash after a while. Not even 50 years guaranteed though SMH yeah that's pretty pathetic.

[sol]

How many of those DVDs do you think that you will rewatch in your lifetime? I sold/gave to charity 95%+ of my physical collection as I didn’t think I would ever revisit them.

I have hundreds of books on shelves that I get aesthetic pleasure from even if unlikely that I will revisit them. Is that the driver of your collecting or is it something else?

While I do love the aesthetics of lining my book shelves with DVDs, especially those with similar spines (Director's Suite, Second Run, Artificial Eye) the main thing that drove my DVD collecting was being able to access whatever I felt like watching or rewatching. I got really scared when DVD rental stores started to close down and I began scouring thrift shops etc to pick up notable stuff on the cheap. I was really worried about the possibility of having films that I wanted to watch/rewatch and no by means by which to do it.

After a few years and a lot more places closed down, second-hand DVDs (and even brand new DVDs) actually started to get really cheap. These days you wouldn't expect to pay more than $1 for a DVD at a thrift/second-hand store and at those sorts of prices, my DVD collection grew even further as I started to just pick up anything notable that I didn't already own. It is really only the last few years that I have become less collection-obsessed, but if I happened to come across something notable that I didn't own for a $1, I would still buy it. Ease and security of access rather than having to rely on sourcing it online.

To answer the rewatch question, I really have no idea. I am far enough into my movie-going odyssey that I should be rewatching a lot of stuff that I haven't seen in ages (some it not for nearly 20 years). Maybe one day I will.

Oh, and just to be clear, I still haven't watched a sizeable chunk of my DVD/Blu-ray collection. Too much buying of stuff in bulk (a handful of $1 DVDs all at once etc.). I don't know exactly how many films I own that I have never seen. Definitely more than 10%. Maybe up to 25%.

[Cippenham]

Some of mine have been on there a long time. I don’t actually work on the Watchlist. No 1 on my list is Hearts and Minds the Vietnam war documentary, maybe I should take this opportunity to watch it. What is no 1 on yours?

[Obgeoff]

Thanks sol, I can understand not wanting to be at the mercy of the whims of streaming providers - both extent of collection and quality of the streaming experience. Despite subscribing to six separate streaming services (one of which I’m technically breaking their terms of service but they are happy to take my money thus far), there are thousands of essential titles that I do not have access to. Even for the ones that I have access to, I’m at the mercy of broadband quality and compression algorithms.

[cinephage]

How many of those DVDs do you think that you will rewatch in your lifetime? I sold/gave to charity 95%+ of my physical collection as I didn’t think I would ever revisit them.

I have hundreds of books on shelves that I get aesthetic pleasure from even if unlikely that I will revisit them. Is that the driver of your collecting or is it something else?

Of course, I won't rewatch many. But I'm glad to have them within reach when I feel like a rewatch (or just want to show someone a movie I like).

I also enjoy watching scenes from various movies. I enjoy that in particular. I can spend a whole evening switching from a dancing scene from Grease to a gag I enjoy from Austin Powers, to something else... That's probably the main use I make of my many DVDs. I can also spend time simply going through my shelves and remembering or plannings films to watch...

I still buy a few every month, so maybe I'll own more than sol, who knows ?

I feel like a dragon sleeping on his pile of gold...

It'd be funny if DVDs just became trash after a while. Not even 50 years guaranteed though SMH yeah that's pretty pathetic.

This is probably what will happen eventually... Almost no one watches DVDs anymore today, in 10 years this will be a thing from the past, and even getting a reader will be tricky. But when I am older, no one will benefit from my "collection". My daughter doesn't care for classic cinema or arty movies...

[cinewest]

Mine is over 1100 films now, but about 400 (mostly non-English titles) are not so easy to find. Of the 700 or so more readily available, roughly 125 are English language (half made before 1985, and half since), and the rest are mixed foreign language, with a split between pre and post 1985 films that is also around 50/50.

Of the roughly 3000 films I have rated about half are in English.

[OldAle1]

How many of those DVDs do you think that you will rewatch in your lifetime? I sold/gave to charity 95%+ of my physical collection as I didn’t think I would ever revisit them.

I have hundreds of books on shelves that I get aesthetic pleasure from even if unlikely that I will revisit them. Is that the driver of your collecting or is it something else?

While I do love the aesthetics of lining my book shelves with DVDs, especially those with similar spines (Director's Suite, Second Run, Artificial Eye) the main thing that drove my DVD collecting was being able to access whatever I felt like watching or rewatching. I got really scared when DVD rental stores started to close down and I began scouring thrift shops etc to pick up notable stuff on the cheap. I was really worried about the possibility of having films that I wanted to watch/rewatch and no by means by which to do it.

After a few years and a lot more places closed down, second-hand DVDs (and even brand new DVDs) actually started to get really cheap. These days you wouldn't expect to pay more than $1 for a DVD at a thrift/second-hand store and at those sorts of prices, my DVD collection grew even further as I started to just pick up anything notable that I didn't already own. It is really only the last few years that I have become less collection-obsessed, but if I happened to come across something notable that I didn't own for a $1, I would still buy it. Ease and security of access rather than having to rely on sourcing it online.

To answer the rewatch question, I really have no idea. I am far enough into my movie-going odyssey that I should be rewatching a lot of stuff that I haven't seen in ages (some it not for nearly 20 years). Maybe one day I will.

Oh, and just to be clear, I still haven't watched a sizeable chunk of my DVD/Blu-ray collection. Too much buying of stuff in bulk (a handful of $1 DVDs all at once etc.). I don't know exactly how many films I own that I have never seen. Definitely more than 10%. Maybe up to 25%.

Now this is one area where we do have a lot in common. I don't have nearly the collection of films that you do - I'm guessing it's between 1500-2000 individual BD/DVD/VHS - though some are of course box sets or collections of short films - but I have massive collections of comics, books and CDs as well. In my case, having grown up before streaming and for that matter the internet, it's not so surprising. But I have clung to the physical realm for some of the same reasons you have - aesthetics but especially the fear of "losing" something due to it not being available anymore. This is less the case now of course as it seems like nearly everything can be found online, somewhere but as a little aside - and not to take this too far off topic - I have lots of books that are essentially unavailable from the library (and I'm talking the whole statewide library system) and expensive to buy online. Years - decades - of scouring thrift stores, library book sales, etc. And sometimes I want particular editions - with books I like particular illustrated editions sometimes, which may not be available through the library or even online or on Kindle/Nook/etc (not that the latter matters to me, I hate reading from a screen and have refused to go the e-reader route so far).

There is also the factor of manipulation ex post facto - works being censored after initial release, and then only being available in an altered version, unless you happened to get the original release. The first three Star Wars films are only the most famous examples, there are many more. And of course, the removal of films/tv from streaming services, forcing you to find them elsewhere, maybe pay for another service. And sure, there's downloading or YouTube/Vimeo/ok.ru/etc, but the quality is so often mediocre, you don't usually get any extras, etc, etc. I'm not against any of it but the advantages for physical media still outweigh the disadvantages to me much of the time.

And as to what to do with all this stuff? I'm selling some of mine; I've sold stuff on eBay going back 20+ years and am ramping up to really start doing it as a full-time "job" by this next holiday season. It's not something that's going to make me rich (unless I'm really, really lucky) but it's a more fun way to make a living than some others I've had to deal with, and it's a way to both support my collecting habits and refine them and prune away the dead wood. I also have nobody to leave my stuff to, unless one of my nieces ends up taking an interest in any of it (seems highly unlikely so far but they're both still under 10 so who knows), but the books at least that I have left can go to the library. I suspect even 20-30-40 years from now there will still be enough people around who want to read physical books such that libraries will still want them.

[joachimt]

Mine is over 1100 films now, but about 400 (mostly non-English titles) are not so easy to find. Of the 700 or so more readily available, roughly 125 are English language (half made before 1985, and half since), and the rest are mixed foreign language, with a split between pre and post 1985 films that is also around 50/50.

Of the roughly 3000 films I have rated about half are in English.

What's your definition of not easy to find?

[Kublai Khan]

Infinite.

I mean, yeah. That's my answer too.

In terms of what I'm immediately going to watch, I've got about 100 movies I randomly choose from to watch next.

[Ebbywebby]

I'm really thrilled about the lethal damage I've done to my watchlist over the past year or two. I feel like I'm finally running out of essential films to see, and am transitioning into movies that I'm merely "curious about." I don't beat myself up about seeing every academically acclaimed film, so my watchlist is just about what's personally compelling. The must-see's. I see the academic films too (mostly when they turn up on TCM), but I don't have them on my watchlist.

After seeing Kaurismaki's "Calamari Union" last night, my watchlist is down to just 53 features. Getting my list down to 50 titles has been a casual fantasy of mine for a long time, but I have a contemporary pattern of periodically adding piles of 15-25 titles at a time and setting myself back. This time, I'm finally going to get to 50. Especially considering I have about 25 fresh KG downloads to watch. And if my list gets down to about 30, I may radically change its flavor and start doing what others do: just adding everything of interest or whatever is on some ICM list that I'd like to work on. So I might suddenly explode the list to 400 or 500 titles. Which I wouldn't worry as much about priority-ranking.

Now, I also have shorts on my ICM watchlist...only unofficial ones, because it's just a given that I'd like to see all the official shorts (and I have few left that are available and in a condition that I deem checkable). But I've cut my watchlist shorts from about 105 to 75 in the month since this year's KG leech. (For purposes of my watchlist, I consider everything under an hour a "short," even though that's not really true.) And a lot of those 75 shorts are really hard to find -- I only have ways to see about a dozen of them.

So....just 128 titles on my ICM watchlist now. There are many other titles that I'd like to see because they're on this or that list, but that's a different level of priority.

As for download "backlog," my current VLC queue has 57 items. But this doesn't mean 57 films, because some films are in more than one part. So it's actually just 47 films (including one mini-series). And six of those 47 films are films I already saw but would like to see again, because I didn't quite "get" them the first time like I should have.

I don't collect DVDs, though I do own a handful.

[Ebbywebby]

Some of mine have been on there a long time. I don’t actually work on the Watchlist. No 1 on my list is Hearts and Minds the Vietnam war documentary, maybe I should take this opportunity to watch it. What is no 1 on yours?

Because my watchlist is small, it's not a chore to rank it. My current #1 is "Antonio das Mortes" (Glauber Rocha). The last #1 I saw and crossed off was "Satantango."

[sol]

I don't have nearly the collection of films that you do - I'm guessing it's between 1500-2000 individual BD/DVD/VHS - though some are of course box sets or collections of short films - but I have massive collections of comics, books and CDs as well. In my case, having grown up before streaming and for that matter the internet, it's not so surprising. But I have clung to the physical realm for some of the same reasons you have - aesthetics but especially the fear of "losing" something due to it not being available anymore.

Oh yeah, in addition to my DVD/Blu-ray collection, I have over 500 films on VHS that I have never managed to upgrade to DVD. I recently moved houses and I haven't even plugged in a VCR (that's how infrequently I watch videos these days) but I don't want to lose the ability to rewatch The Belly of an Architect, The Big Parade, Prince of the City or any of the other stuff that has never been released on disc over here and which I haven't imported from overseas.

[TiRex]

I don't have nearly the collection of films that you do - I'm guessing it's between 1500-2000 individual BD/DVD/VHS - though some are of course box sets or collections of short films - but I have massive collections of comics, books and CDs as well. In my case, having grown up before streaming and for that matter the internet, it's not so surprising. But I have clung to the physical realm for some of the same reasons you have - aesthetics but especially the fear of "losing" something due to it not being available anymore.

Oh yeah, in addition to my DVD/Blu-ray collection, I have over 500 films on VHS that I have never managed to upgrade to DVD. I recently moved houses and I haven't even plugged in a VCR (that's how infrequently I watch videos these days) but I don't want to lose the ability to rewatch The Belly of an Architect, The Big Parade, Prince of the City or any of the other stuff that has never been released on disc over here and which I haven't imported from overseas.

Sol how have your VHS survived all these years and even with changing houses?? Are they all still watchable?

[sol]

Oh yeah, in addition to my DVD/Blu-ray collection, I have over 500 films on VHS that I have never managed to upgrade to DVD. I recently moved houses and I haven't even plugged in a VCR (that's how infrequently I watch videos these days) but I don't want to lose the ability to rewatch The Belly of an Architect, The Big Parade, Prince of the City or any of the other stuff that has never been released on disc over here and which I haven't imported from overseas.

Sol how have your VHS survived all these years and even with changing houses?? Are they all still watchable?

It's not the first time that I have changed house, and rare/hard-to-come across films aren't the type of stuff that I am likely to throw away, even if they are on an obsolete format.

I have no idea if all of the videos are still watchable, though it probably depends how you define watchable since very few would have anywhere near the picture/sound quality of a DVD/Blu-ray. The last movie that I watched on VHS was The Red Violin (no DVD release in Australia) back in July last year. I don't recall any playback issues, but as a late 90s film, it obviously isn't one of the earlier produced tapes in my collection. That said, I watched Roger Corman's The St. Valentine Day's Massacre only a few weeks before - a much older movie and earlier produced tape, and again I don't recall any big playback issues.

Occasionally with older videos you get the odd horizontal line squiggle, few seconds of fuzziness or audio levels dropping in and out, but it's really not that common in my experience, and certainly it beats not being able to watch hard-to-find films at all.

[Torgo]

and certainly it beats not being able to watch hard-to-find films at all.

joachimt enters the chat

[Knaldskalle]

I’m at the mercy of broadband quality and compression algorithms.

To be fair, compression algorithms apply to DVDs and Blu-Rays as well, so we're all at their mercy.

There is also the factor of manipulation ex post facto - works being censored after initial release, and then only being available in an altered version, unless you happened to get the original release. The first three Star Wars films are only the most famous examples, there are many more.

The Original Trilogy is/was available as "extras" on this DVD release. Non-anamorphic and could do with some cleaning up, but that's how my kids have seen it.



But your point very much stands. The upcoming Wong Kar-Wai set from Criterion is apparently an excellent example of this. The screenshot comparisons I've seen make me want to avoid this set as much as possible and go for the older individual releases instead. It's absurd to imagine that Leonardo da Vinci would be allowed to alter the Mona Lisa to come closer to his "original vision." Nobody has seen the "original vision" and that's not what became famous in the first place. Want to "fix it?" Go ahead, make another one, don't alter what is already loved. For directors it really shouldn't be difficult to have more than one version out there, but this revisionism where we pretend the new version is the only version is offensive.