thanks to sam q for hosting this month!

✅ 7/30

1. It's All Saint's Day! It's also the Day of the Dead. The demons have been left behind in the dark, it's time to get spiritual. Watch a movie with religious or spiritual themes. (It can still be horror. I'm not your mum.) Here's the Faith and Religion genre according to Letterboxd.
2. I hit 100 movies watched in a year last month, a new record, so hosting feels like a lovely reward. I celebrated by watching a noted classic I hadn't seen from the top of my Letterboxd Lists progress in my stats (the blue circles). Watch something you haven't gotten to yet from your Letterboxd Lists progress stats. (If you're ahead of the game with those, watch something that hasn't made the 15,000 views cut-off for the Top 250 narrative features.)
3. I was a child star! Sort of - I was cast as the lead in a short student movie about a kid's toy coming to life. The experience of being on set started my love affair with movies. Watch a movie involving toys coming to life - this Letterboxd showdown might help you out!
4. I identify as queer, but the main thing I love about my identity is that you can't really pin it down. So! I invite you to watch anything queer, whatever that means to you. Queerness is all about community for me, so ask around if you're unsure. Kyle Turner's list could help.
5. I adore my partner Laura more than anything. Watch something involving a Laura. Could be political documentarian Poitras, could be actresses Dern or Linney, could simply be the movie Laura.
6. Among Laura's many favourites are a number of musicals, a genre I'd never given time to before we met. What a mistake, they're great! Watch a musical.
7. I'm often distracted from my love of movies by my love of games and novels. A lot of those tend to be of the space sci-fi variety, so watch a sci-fi movie about space and/or aliens. Here's a Letterboxd mini-genre to help.
8. What I particularly like about games is when I'm challenged out of my comfort zone, by the likes of Dark Souls or Celeste. It's all about perseverance. Watch a movie about perseverance against the odds. Go straight for a survival movie or get creative! (Alternatively, watch your own final boss movie, the one you keep putting off...)
9. Meanwhile, some of my favourite books involve multiple narratives with an emerging connecting thread, like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. This year I've learned they're sometimes called hyperlink movies in their cinematic form. Watch a hyperlink movie. (Naturally, the Cloud Atlas adaptation counts).
10. I've also been distracted from my movie-watching through volunteering as a counsellor for domestic and sexual abuse victims. Watch a movie involving therapy or counselling, and maybe throw a bit of cash to your local SV/DV charity this festive season if you have it to spare. Here's a list of movies where a therapist or psychologist is a main character.
11. It's Remembrance Day in the UK, marking both the conclusion of WW1 and the losses of war since. We'd do well to remember the cost of conflict these days. Watch a war movie - maybe one that doesn't glorify it, but last I checked I'm still not your mum!
12. It's November, and it's often raining, so it's hard to avoid a few fleeting thoughts about Guns n' Roses. Watch a movie featuring a song Guns n' Roses wrote or performed. (I believe this list is pretty accurate. If you can't tolerate that, watch something with a rainy poster.)
13. I love the way we discover movies on this app, through community connections. Find a review you really liked, go to the writer's profile, and watch one of their favourites or liked movies. Drop 'em a follow if you haven't already.
14. I've gotten a little obsessed with list making this year, both here and on book apps. One of them is the classic alphabet game. Watch a movie with a title beginning with one of the top scoring letters in Scrabble - K, J, X, Q, Z.
15. Another classic list building activity - a celebration of colourful movie posters. Watch a movie that primarily uses your favourite colour on its original poster.
16. If there's one thing I learned from my brief time on a film set, it was that movies really take a village. It's not all about the top crew credits. Go to your stats, look at your most watched crew members (that aren't directors, writers, producers or composers) and watch something they were involved in that you haven't seen.
17. I grew up in a small coastal British town, and it's definitely informed my mostly calm but sometimes turbulent personality. Watch something set in a coastal town. Here's some! Bonus points if it inspires a healthy fear of the sea, because that's absolutely the correct response.
18. That version of me from Prompt 8 is a bit of a liar - sometimes video games aren't about challenge at all, which is why I'm still vaguely tapping away at Animal Crossing: New Horizons 5 years later. Watch a movie featuring anthropomorphic animals / animals that talk.
19. Little known fact about me - I'm polyamorous. I'm not actually in a throuple, but that's what makes it to movies and hey - we'll take what representation we get. Watch a movie featuring a throuple, a polyamorous relationship... or a movie people head-canon as involving a throuple. Here's a list by Ruth to get you started.
20. One of my all time favourite albums is Blue Weekend by Wolf Alice. Watch a movie with "Blue", "Weekend", "Wolf" or "Alice" in the title. (Plurals acceptable.) Also, give it a listen if you haven't!
21. I got a 2:1 in my degree (if you're not in the UK, that's like... above average). I got my degree in Scriptwriting for Film and TV. I've done absolutely nothing with that! In another life, maybe I'd have won Best Original Screenplay? Watch a nominee or winner of Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.Here's a list from sdleydon.
22. It's my brother's birthday today! Watch a movie featuring siblings - characters, cast or crew.
23. Jim Carrey's The Number 23 isn't the only time this random number has led to conspiratorial thinking - it's also one of the infamous numbers from TV's Lost. Watch a movie with 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 or 42 in the title, or one that features a Lost cast member. Here's a list by Sergey that could help with the latter.
24. Speaking of TV, one of my comfort binges is She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Watch something about women with powers, or powerful women. Bonus points if there's a romance between two women involved.
25. It's a month until Christmas! Dive in early and watch a festive movie. If that's personally sacrilegious, at least watch something cosy. I remain absolutely not your mum.
26. 26 is the atomic number of iron. Irony is allegedly dead, especially in the media. Can you kill something that was always a bit hard to define? Fredrick Fyhr reckons there's over 600 cinematic examples of irony out there - watch something from his list (or something you personally believe will be ironic) and see if you can spot it in the wild. Hell if I know.
27. 27 is the notorious "death club", the age great artists reach before they are taken too soon. It's a bit of an urban legend, but there's nothing wrong with remembering those we've lost at any age. Watch a movie involving a cinematic legend who has passed in 2025 - whether that's Val Kilmer, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Diane Keaton, Michelle Trachtenberg, David Lynch, iconic poster artist Drew Struzan, writer-director Robert Benton, or another I've certainly missed. Rest in peace.
28. I got married when I was 28. I was divorced by 34. These things happen, and I appreciate seeing it handled well on film. Watch a movie where a divorce is a significant part of the plot. Here's a list by Kylie to get you started.
29. It's a classic prompt but an important one - Watch something in the cinema (new or re-released). If you can't make it out there, watch something released in 2025.
30. Lastly, I'd love to celebrate the reason I've watched so many great movies this year - this community! Watch one of the four favourites of one of our previous 2025 hosts, or a movie they've rated above 4 stars. That's Esther, Danny, Tom, Doobie, Samuel, Chris, Allie, Drew, Colin and Hannah.
Swap out any of these for a movie directed by a woman - I've watched almost 60 this year and they include new all time faves. Here's my watchlist for inspiration. Let me know what you watch and what I should prioritise!