How do you find a movie to watch?

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Here’s looking at you, kid.
There are countless ways to find movies to watch. Streaming services, following cast and crew you like, completing lists, watching well rated films.

Those are some of the obvious ways of adding films to your watchlist, but how do y’all find out about those hidden gems? Movies that are usually underrated and under appreciated and usually fly under the radar, but are actually some of the best film in cinema.



"How tall is King Kong ?"
The "Cinefix" youtube channel. In particular their misleadingly named "top 10" lists, which are like top 100 (they list a lot of honorable mentions), sorted by subcategories. And they range from notorious to obscure movies, from all parts of the world. Not sure it retained the same thematic freedom after its acquisition by IGN (the last few videos seem a bit clickbaity and trend riding), but it's existed for a long time, and the whole corpus is still there.

A much more short-lived youtube channel, "Every frame a painting", also gave some helpful pointers.

And as a kid, I had been given quite a lot of books and magazines about Cinema. So, there's a few decades of still unseen movies that had struck my curiosity and imagination back then. I was also fond of reading random entries in cinema dictionaries.

And this site here is also quite helpful. Movies popping up in games and custom lists raise my interest. Each time I see a new profile (or one I forgot I already check) I go see if they have custom lists of their owns. Unappreciated device.

Although I have now built a frighteningly long and urgent backlog, and am not really in an intense watching phase these times, so, all of this feels a bit overkill in my case.



Here’s looking at you, kid.
The "Cinefix" youtube channel. In particular their misleadingly named "top 10" lists, which are like top 100 (they list a lot of honorable mentions), sorted by subcategories. And they range from notorious to obscure movies, from all parts of the world. Not sure it retained the same thematic freedom after its acquisition by IGN (the last few videos seem a bit clickbaity and trend riding), but it's existed for a long time, and the whole corpus is still there.

A much more short-lived youtube channel, "Every frame a painting", also gave some helpful pointers.

And as a kid, I had been given quite a lot of books and magazines about Cinema. So, there's a few decades of still unseen movies that had struck my curiosity and imagination back then. I was also fond of reading random entries in cinema dictionaries.

And this site here is also quite helpful. Movies popping up in games and custom lists raise my interest. Each time I see a new profile (or one I forgot I already check) I go see if they have custom lists of their owns. Unappreciated device.

Although I have now built a frighteningly long and urgent backlog, and am not really in an intense watching phase these times, so, all of this feels a bit overkill in my case.
Definitely all new ways of looking for films I wouldn’t have been able to find on my own. Looking forward to checking out these channels! *

For YouTube, I’ve only ever watched Watchmojo, but all the films they mention are usually all the obvious choices that everyone and their mother has heard of. They usually don’t have the best taste. I’ll be sure to watch a few episodes of each channel mentioned!!!



Looking up who directed is a pretty good way.

My favorite way is to look at Imdb after I found a less known movie I watched, and look up the, quote unquote, people who liked this also liked that, and the user-made lists the movie appears on.

Manually looking up user lists for things like best Japanese movies from xyz decades also works.



Ah, playing in one of those tournament things. Looks like a good bit of fun, a lot of movies I’ve never seen.
By far the best way I've ever found to discover movies I've never seen...often I haven't even heard of them.



I wait until 3:00 AM. Peace. Quiet. No one around to judge your choices. I drive there, enter, and stride towards my destination like a salmon instinctively swimming upstream.

With a precognition of regret coming up like a hint of vomit in the throat, I thrust my hands into the bargain bin. I toss aside the 50 copies of The Green Mile which form a geologic strata of sedimentation at the top layer. Must. Go. Deeper. Like a pearl diver, I push further down into the bin, searching. Searching. Searching. The danger is ever-present as this procedure is about as hygienic as diving into a ball-crawl at Chuck-E-Cheese. Multi-packs of mediocrity emerge from the depths, as if bundling six ****ty films together will somehow form Voltron, a sum greater than the parts. I see a special edition of Harry and the Hendersons. Hmm? Did I know about this? Did I care? Do I care? Today... ...I do. I snatch my prize from the box of shame.

On the way out, I pick up a gallon of milk and some Tic Tacs to make it appear that I didn't show up to Wal-Mart to scour the bargain bin. The employee standing idly at self-check out gives me that look. It's that detached look of casual judgment that clerks have been giving customers since nudie magazines started being sold. It's that look that says, "I know why you're here." I bag my cheap cinematic pornography in a thin bag which is already tearing, and defiantly pop five Tic Tacs into my mouth on the way out.



Pre-pandemic I would frequent a video rental store. Usually I had a good idea of what I was looking for, but sometimes I would flip through the shelves and see if something caught my eye.


These days a lot of it is through Letterboxd, based on my network is watching/reviewing/adding to their watchlists. It did take me a while to build a decent network though.


And online discussion (on here and other forums in the past) has always played a role. Hell, even seeing a cool screenshot in one of the game threads has me adding movies to the watchlist sometimes.



I pay attention to what other people watch, especially if it's a title I've never heard of before.

I also find the JustWatch recommendations page to be pretty decent. And you can set it to recommend films that are free on services that you have.

Also, and this is VERY hit or miss, sometimes I will go into a streaming service and put in two random letters in the search box and then pick the most interesting cover that comes up.



Pre-pandemic I would frequent a video rental store. Usually I had a good idea of what I was looking for, but sometimes I would flip through the shelves and see if something caught my eye.

Hollywood Video and Blockbuster will be missed.



Registered User
I go through my collection until I find something I want to watch. One of these days, I'm going to get it all in a database, and organized so know how to find a particular movie without sitting there going through pile after pile after pile.



I use Youtube compilations a lot, one good scene is enough to get my attention.
I often comb some forums, I use facebook less often.
My friend EVE is a good source, she leads a social, cultural and other life