How often do you watch your favourite movies?
Sometimes I find myself suffering from an overwhelming wave of guilt when I decide to rewatch a film instead of seeking out something I’ve never seen before.
It’s admittedly pretty pathetic to consider this an issue, but I take my movie-watching (very) seriously, and with such an ever-expanding watchlist, I can’t help but feeling like a fraud when I realise I’ve still not watched Metropolis, but I have seen Scream seven times in the past five years.
In fact, the previous two times were just a few months apart, yet I wasn’t bored for a single second. Don’t even get me started on the comforting teen classics that defined my youth; I’ve probably seen Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging upwards of 10 times in the past decade, and sometimes I even find myself delivering the script in my head at the same time as the characters whenever I’m indulging in my annual rewatch.
Then there’s my other favourites, ranging from Paris, Texas, Mulholland Drive and The Green Ray to Deep End, Clueless and The Virgin Suicides, all of which I’ve seen countless times, despite knowing the plot twists, the dialogue, the very moment a song will start playing. I’m sure we all have our own go-to picks when it comes to rewatching, finding comfort in the familiarity of the characters and the knowledge that you’re aware of exactly what you’re getting yourself in for.
But how do we not get bored? And is it a bad thing to go back to the same films when there are so many other movies waiting to be watched? What if you’re missing out on a new favourite by closing yourself off to new films in favour of familiar ones?
The endless selection of movies out there is sometimes just too much to comprehend. I’ll never be able to watch every film I want to tick off, and I’ll probably never get to see a movie that could easily become my all-time favourite. With so much choice, sometimes it’s just easier to retreat into the reassuring world of your favourite characters – it’s like visiting old friends who’ll never let you down.
Just as we can listen to our favourite songs over and over, when we find a film we love, the urge to re-enter that cinematic world never goes away. At the end of the day, things become our favourites because we love the way they make us feel. The atmosphere of our favourite song likely inspires pure adoration and feelings of euphoria, and films can do that, too, even if it means sitting for two hours as we watch the same events play out that we’ve seen many times before.
I mean, the fact that many of us watch the same films every Christmas really says it all. How many times do you think you’ve seen Home Alone? Or It’s A Wonderful Life? You might expect yourself to get bored of seeing Kevin lay out his traps every year on end, but without fail, you’ll probably find yourself watching it, endeared by nostalgia.
There should be no shame in rewatching, because in doing so, you bring yourself closer to that innate feeling of joy that comes with something being your favourite, and really, why deny yourself that? It’s something that many famous film lovers admit to doing, like Mel Brooks, who once revealed that he watches Gladiator a whopping 12 times a year.
With every rewatch of your favourite film, you’ll discover something new about yourself in the way that you interpret the story this time around, and that’s what cinema is all about. It becomes an education in knowing yourself, and maybe one day you’ll watch a film enough times to know that you don’t need it anymore.
But that doesn’t mean you should ignore seeking out something new, because who knows what you might find? You might discover a movie that, like Brooks, you’ll end up watching every single month, finding endless joy in the comfort and familiarity.
