On Jan. 1, 2025, about halfway through watching award-winning film Whiplash, directed by Damien Chazelle, I made what I can now only describe as an utterly insane decision. Something about watching Miles Teller get psychologically tortured by J.K. Simmons made me decide to psychologically torture myself by beginning a 365 in 365 challenge.
365 movies. 365 days. In an ideal world, that would mean that I’m watching a movie a day, but alas, the capitalist machine keeps turning, and between work and school and life happening, I am alarmingly behind (I’m not panicking, not at all!). As of Friday, Sept. 19, at 6:30 pm, as I write this, I am at a whopping 197/365 movies. Mind you, we are on day 262 of the year. Meaning I am a — very simple — 65 movies behind with another 103 to go. Just 168 movies to get through before 12 am on Jan. 1, 2026. No big deal…
Ok, that’s enough whining. In this first article of this series to the finish line, I want to go through my top 10 movies I’ve seen this year so far. For the sake of fairness, I’m only going to pull from movies that I watched for the first time, or else this whole list will just be Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I’ll run through my — incredibly lax — rules for myself for this challenge first and then hop into some brief reviews.
If I were doing the challenge by the book, the rules would have me watching a movie a day, no repeats, and only movies I’ve never seen. That sounded like an absolute nightmare, so I tossed all of that out the window and made my own rules!
- I can watch a movie over and over as many times as I’d like.
- This was a big one, because I am a chronic comfort rewatcher, and there was no way I would make it far in the challenge without rewatching.
- The entire duration of the movie must be watched before being logged.
- Movies do not have to be new — to me or release-wise.
- This goes back to rule 1. Guys, when I say I have a chronic rewatching problem, I mean it’s a problem, as you’ll see once we get to the review portion of the evening.
- Anything I watch for school counts. No matter how much it sucks.
- Short films count. Because I said so.
- Basically, as long as Letterboxd allows me to log it, it counts.
Piggybacking off that last rule, Letterboxd has become my best friend. I’ve been tracking the challenge by logging everything on my Letterboxd and through Instagram stories showcasing the movie poster, my star rating, and a goofy little review if I feel like it.
Speaking of goofy little reviews, here’s the incredibly volatile list of my top 10 favorites so far in no particular order, because I can’t commit to one to save my life:
- Se7en directed by David Fincher
- I can really only describe this movie as absolutely f**king wild. It centers around two detectives scrambling to find the culprit behind a series of murders centered around the seven deadly sins. The ending had my jaw on the floor and my paranoia through the roof. I won’t say anything else. To be honest, it’s probably best to go into this one blind.
- Black Swan directed by Darren Aronofsky
- Where to begin with this one…you really do just have to experience it. Natalie Portman’s performance is absolute perfection. The movie follows a ballerina named Nina as she vies for the coveted lead spot in a production of Swan Lake. What follows is a psychotic break that’ll leave your head spinning. The story feels like a raw analysis of the human psyche — particularly under the pressures of perfection.
- Mickey 17 directed by Bong Joon Ha
- Y’all, this movie is a fun, wild ride. To begin with, every actor shines in their role, but if there’s one thing you should be going into this for, it is Mark Ruffalo’s absolutely hilarious performance. The story follows our main character, Mickey, who has signed up for quite the interesting job position: being killed repeatedly in a multitude of horrifying manners and being cloned back to life to do it all over again for “the greater good” of humanity. Now imagine there were suddenly two of you and you had to fight it out to see who gets to be the one. What follows is two and a half hours of pure action comedy set against a (oddly familiar, if I may say so) political backdrop.
- Sinners directed by Ryan Coogler
- This is one of the most evocative movies I have ever watched. Twins Smoke and Stack attempt a fresh start in their hometown, opening a juke joint like no other, when things take a turn for the dark, sinister, and fanged. Vampires, blood; it’s a horror movie in the classic sense, but I think it also could be considered a horror movie in a commentary-on-reality sense. Powerful, creative, and just overall perfectly executed, if you haven’t had a chance to see it, this one is a must.
- Past Lives directed by Celine Song
- The way this movie left me sitting numb on the couch. Celine Song needs to be studied. I don’t know what she put into this movie, but whatever it is, I need it replicated over and over and over again. We watch childhood friends Nora and Hae Sung learn to navigate the intricacies of human connection. I can’t rave about it enough. The acting, the directing, the music. If you have any interest in listening to movie scores, stop reading and go add this one to your queue right now.
- In The Mood For Love directed by Wong Kar-wai
- In the mood for love? More like in the mood for a good cry. This movie highlights the struggle of grappling with society and one’s own morals as our two main characters discover their spouses’ affairs and begin to fall for one another. We crave to love and to be loved as humans; this movie will leave you aching to fall in love and hoping you never do.
- Superman directed by James Gunn
- This is Exhibit A of my rewatching issue. I saw this movie five times in theaters (shoutout the AMC A-list membership). This movie is the saving grace of the DCU. Between this, The Suicide Squad (2021), and Guardians of the Galaxy, it seems James Gunn has unmatched powers in the superhero movie world. We’ve seen so many iterations of Clark Kent, but I would argue this one feels the most true to the character. We see a new side to the character through the lens of an already established Superman rather than an origin story, which added a certain extra — for lack of a better word — umph to the story. And obviously, bonus points for the really cute dog.
- K-Pop Demon Hunters directed by Chris Applehans & Maggie Kang
- And this brings us to Exhibit B: the movie that I logged a whopping eight — yes, you read that right — times. I was convinced this movie wouldn’t be anywhere in my wheelhouse, but boy was I clearly wrong. The absolute chokehold the characters, the animation, the music had on me was crazy. It follows three friends as they attempt to seal the connection between the human world and the demon world before they consume all of humanity’s souls. Don’t let the name turn you off; it’s absolutely worth a watch.
- Aftersun directed by Charlotte Wells
- The beautiful thing about this story is that you keep waiting for that big, explosive moment that we have come to expect from all movies, but the truth is, there isn’t one. And that’s what really drives the story home. It’s an uncensored dose of reality that will have you looking back on every interaction you’ve ever had with a person. Told through our main character, Sophie’s, imagination and video footage of a holiday she spent with her father 20 years prior, the story immerses you in every moment, every sweet, loving, heartbroken, melancholy feeling she experiences. It’s an exploration of finding harmony with reality versus rose colored memories of someone who is but a ghost. Your true reaction to this movie really hits as soon as the credits start rolling.
- Before Sunrise directed by Richard Linklater
- This movie is romance. The whole movie just feels like one beautiful love poem that hooks you in and leaves you feeling all warm and sweet. There’s this one scene in a recording booth that just had me sitting there agape. My hardcore yearning little heart has never felt more attached to a movie. The story takes place over the course of one day, and yet it feels like the characters spend a whole lifetime together, even as the clock continues to tick away. The first in a trilogy, all three movies paint a complete, utterly human story of what it means to love, to be loved, and to fight for that love against the tides of life.
Honorable Mentions:
- Sorry, Baby directed by Eva Victor
- The Iron Claw directed by Sean Durkin
- Big Fish directed by Tim Burton
I would like to note that for many of these movies — and honestly just general good practice — please, please, please check trigger warnings before watching anything, particularly when it comes to R-rated movies.
And that’s the sitch, folks. 365 movies vs one really tired college student. But, mark my words, there’s not a single timeline in the multiverse where I don’t finish this challenge. If you’ve made it this far into the article, thanks for joining, and — if you’re not sick of my yapping — I’ll see you next week for another movie round-up!