Welcome to Scavenger Hunt 130! I’m Allison, and I’ve been doing hunts off and (mostly) on for the last few years. It’s been SO good for my film literacy.
Actually, that’s true of Letterboxd challenges in general, and I’m always excited when a scavenger hunt prompt fits with a movie I need to watch for a different list.
And I’M THE BOSS NOW, so I decided to use that as my inspiration: Most of my prompts for the month tie into one Letterboxd challenge or another! If you’re hooked on them like me, I hope it helps you start the year off right, and if they’re new to you, I hope you find a challenge that appeals.
How to participate: Create your own Letterboxd list of 31 films, one for each of the prompts included below (there are TL;DR versions in the notes, so smash that “read notes" button if you want).
When you've put the list together, comment here with a link to your own. Make sure you tag your list with "scavenger hunt 130." I'll try to link everyone's list in this description as you comment - part of the fun is checking out each other's list. (I love lists. A lot.)
During the month of January, try to watch and review as many movies from your list as possible. You can aim to watch one a day in order, or just tick them off willy-nilly. Tag your reviews with "scavenger hunt 130" too, so others can find your thoughts!
And if it’s stressing you out trying to get them finished – no worries babe, it’s all for fun. The point is discovering new movies, whether you watch them now or later.
Cheers to COLLID3D for hosting the last hunt of 2025!
Master List || Discord || February Hunt Host Raffle
Now, the prompts! If you want the short versions, hit that “read notes" button.
Alternates: If you don’t love your options in any category (or frankly, for any reason at all, this is all for funsies), feel free to do any of the following instead:
- If there’s a linked challenge, swap in any other prompt from that challenge.
- See a movie on the big screen. Bonus points if it’s at your nearest independent movie theater or historic movie palace.
- Pick a movie from the list “Where to Begin: 100 Great Performances - Golden Age."
- Rent something from the Letterboxd video store.
1. Welcome to 2026! The last few years, my partner and I have watched something for the Criterion Challenge on New Years’ Day. This one (here’s the 2026 edition) was my gateway into Letterboxd challenges, and every year, Ben and his excellent prompts set me up to discover at least one new fave. Watch something from the All Time Top Criterion Closet Picks list, which includes everything everyone has ever picked in the Criterion Closet*. Thanks for the years of great movies and list-related dopamine bursts, Ben!
2. It’s Oscar Micheaux’s birthday! Honor this trailblazing director, producer, and novelist by watching one of his movies, or pick something from Slate’s The New Black Film Canon: The 75 Greatest Movies by Black Directors – one of his films is first on the list.
3. As of this writing, there are let’s see OH MY GOD 1,295 movies on my watchlist. Let’s Get That Backlog Under Control and prepare to say Honey, I Shrunk the Watchlist by watching the movie that’s been in your to-be-watched pile the longest. (Go to your own watchlist and sort by ‘when added, earliest first,’ or just watch something you’ve been meaning to watch for years.)
4. Tell the truth: Do you keep putting off long movies because they’re so, well, long? Yeah, me too. Watch a 3+ hour movie, and if you’re so inclined, use it to jumpstart your own For the Longest Time Challenge. Sort your watchlist by “longest first" and pick something from there, or use this list for inspiration.
(Alternate: Watch a short for the 2026 “Around the World" edition of the Short Attention Span Challenge.)
5. Happy Japanuary (and/or Giallo January)! Any project that encourages people to explore international cinema is A-OK in my book. For this prompt, watch a film featuring one of the stars of Rashomon – that’s Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura – or pay tribute to the late, great Tatsuya Nakadai by watching something from his nearly 70-year career. (If you’re already pretty well-versed in the filmographies of those five titans, feel free to head to Italy instead and pick a giallo film. Or do both!)
6. Is Eyes Wide Shut a comedy? No. Is it a movie Bill Hader considers essential viewing for comedy writers? Yes, yes it is. Watch something from Bill Hader’s “200 Essential Movies Every Comedy Writer Should See." (Or just watch Hot Rod, that’s also fine.)
7. For $1***, join in on the Name a Woman Challenge! Watch any film from the BBC’s 100 greatest films directed by women list.
8. Greetings from snowy Chicago, which has been dealing with A LOT of ice. Watch an American movie directed by an immigrant. It could be Hitchcock, Litvak, Wyler, Ferrer, Chaplin, Capra, or one of the countless other directors who’ve made amazing movies in Hollywood even though (gasp) they were born somewhere else. (But if you watch something by one of those fellas and it’s pre-1970, you’ll complete a prompt for the excellent – and immigrant-centric – 2026 Classic Film Challenge.)
9. If you’re doing a scavenger hunt, odds are you like checking things off lists – and if you're a subscriber, you're probably trying to close your Letterboxd loops****. Let’s keep that going (while celebrating one of my favorite writers) and watch a film featured in one of Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies" essays – many of which will also fulfill prompts for schaejay’s Letterboxd Stats Challenge. Then go read the corresponding essay!
10. Working as a freelance film critic means that sometimes the biggest movies are the ones you miss. I’m out of the game at the moment, so I’m trying to fill in some gaps in my viewing history with an infinite personal challenge: The Okay FINE Neverending Watchlist, in which I’m keeping track of the most popular movie from each of the last 100 years I haven’t seen. When I watch one of those movies, the next most popular takes its place. Fill a gap of your own and watch the most popular film you haven’t seen from the year you were born.
Replace 2025 in the following link with your birth year, then add the filter “hide watched" or toggle on the “fade watched" setting: letterboxd.com/films/popular/year/2025/
And if you’re doing kynky’s Birth Year Challenge and/or 52 Years in 52 Weeks, you can count this for both!
11. Amanda Seyfried, to Variety: “How about our agenda is take care of each other? Socialism is a gorgeous idea, and I know it doesn’t work perfectly, or that people understand what the word actually means. For me, it’s taking care of each other." Watch an Amanda Seyfried movie, or watch something from Stephen Gillespie’s list of the Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Imperialist and Anti-fascist ‘Canon’.
12. Cinemonster’s Hooptober has got to be the biggest Letterboxd challenge out there, yeah? So why confine it to a single month? It’s like Ebenezer Scrooge said: “I will honour Hooptober in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." Watch one of Cinemonster’s faves – and you can use that movie as one of your “free picks" for HORRORx52 2026.
13. After Hooptober comes my personal favorite month: Noirvember! Started well over a decade ago by the great Marya E. Gates, it’s a chance to explore and celebrate cinema’s smokiest and most cynical stories. Let’s make JaNOIRary a thing and watch some classic-era noir, or instead pick something off Marya’s Film Noir Directed by Women Starter Pack.
14. It’s Great Literature Week in the 2025-26 Letterboxd Season Challenge! Watch an adaptation of a classic novel, or do one better and pick something that’s also a frequently banned book.
15. While we’re on the subject of censorship: Watch a movie written or directed by someone from the Hollywood Blacklist. This list and this list should give you plenty of options.
16. Maybe my obsession with Letterboxd challenges come from the same part of my brain that needs three beverages all at once? So, you know, the neurodivergent chaotic femme queer part. Watch something from Emma Tolkin’s absolutely vital list, BE GAY DO CRIME 🌈🔪. (Once you’ve done that: Congrats, you’ve fulfilled one of the prompts for the 2026 Queer Film Challenge!)
17. One of my favorite little quirks of Letterboxd: When, as an example, Robert Redford died, all of the sudden my “popular with your friends" row was full of Redford movies. Losing artists you love can be painful, but watching movie fans collectively celebrate that person’s life and work in this small way? That’s kind of beautiful. Take inspiration from the 2026 Thank You for the Good Times challenge and watch a movie made by or featuring the work of someone who died in 2025 – maybe one of the several perfect movies Rob Reiner made?
18. Writing this hunt has been fun, if only because I found some really cool and/or goofy and/or weird and/or appealingly insane new-to-me challenges dreamed up by members of the Letterboxd community. One such challenge: olivia’s chain reaction challenge, which in turn was inspired by the 100 DEGREES, 100 MOVIES challenge. Watch a movie featuring one of the actors from your pick for prompt #17.
19. Welp, turns out I’m still sad about Rob Reiner, so for this prompt, let’s watch a movie directed by an actor, or which stars someone best known as a director. A director who acts. An actor who directs. A multi-hyphenate artist who does all kinds of stuff (looking at you, David Byrne – and you, David Lynch – and you, David Cronenberg – and you, Kristen “My Name is Not David, Please Stop Calling Me David, I Don’t Even Know You" Stewart). I made what is almost certainly a dreadfully incomplete list to get you started.
20. It’s officially Moira Rose’s favorite season. Celebrate with the next few prompts, beginning with this one: Watch a film that won the Oscar for Best Cinematography. (And knock one of the nine movies in that category you’ll need to watch for this year’s 10 to 1 Challenge.)
21. One of the best books I read in 2025 was Michael Schulman’s Oscar Wars, which looks at the history of the Academy Awards (and Hollywood) through a series of different lenses, be it a specific year, a long-running rivalry, a category, or an era. It’s a great read, and made me eager to participate in the next Oscars History Challenge, so I’ll pull this prompt from that challenge directly: Watch an Oscar-nominated debut performance.
22. The Oscar nominations are announced today! Watch something you think will be nominated for this year’s Oscars. Or feel free to put a placeholder in this spot for now and swap in something that actually is nominated once that happens.
23. 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of Fiona Apple’s debut album, Tidal. Watch a movie with a one-word title. (Get it? Sounds like “tidal" but it’s “title"? Wow, I am really crushing it. This is how I make my fortune.)
24. Since we went with a very short title (heh) in the last prompt, let’s do the opposite here and pay tribute to Fiona Apple’s 1999 album, which at the time was the longest album title in history. Watch a movie with at least six words in the title. Here’s a handy list of some of them. Anyway, Fiona Apple is great, and I CHALLENGE you to listen to her if you’ve never done so.
25. Sam Q had a great idea: Challenge yourself to watch 10 of the highest-rated movies in each of the Letterboxd genres. They’re calling it “Genre Masterclass" and I am one-hundred percent going to copy them. I’ll modify their idea slightly for our purposes, and say you should go to the Letterboxd Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films, filter down to a genre you don’t watch all that often, then watch one of the highest-ranking films in that genre*****. (If you choose documentary, use this list instead.)
26. I love to poke around in Letterboxd lists of hyperspecific genres and subgenres, and The Mixed Genre Fix 2026 has some good ones. Watch a movie from one of these niche categories: magical realism, cosmic horror, or anthology.
27. My good buddy Noel is a great writer, and many of his Letterboxd lists (and reviews!) are among my favorites. Whether you go with something from DUMP HIM, experience Apartment Life, watch something made by A Real Wife Guy, or say “Hell Yeah, Denzel!, for this prompt you should pick a movie from one of Noel Kirkpatrick’s Letterboxd lists.
28. I love costume design. It’s such a compelling tool in storytelling because it says so much about character. Did they choose the clothes themselves, or were they chosen for them? How comfortable are they, physically and emotionally? How often do they wear those things? What do they say about the relationship that character has to those around them? It’s fascinating – but contemporary costume design is often overlooked, no matter how good it is. So watch a movie with great contemporary costume design. I asked my pal (and my favorite costume writer) Emma Fraser for help in building a list, but anything with great, non-fantasy, non-period costume design counts. (Alternately, watch something that was nominated for a costume design Oscar.)
29. The bi-monthly movie club I’m in with a few other friends is one of my favorite things. One of those friends, Duncan, joined considerably later than the rest of us, because he hadn’t met his now-fiancée (and fellow movie club member) yet, and she’s the one who brought him in! So I CHALLENGED him to watch the movies he missed in the next year. Will he do it? No idea. Will you? Well, you’ll watch at least one of them. Watch (or rewatch) something screened for the Rosemont Ave Commune Movie Night.
30. Speaking of rewatches – I don’t know about y’all, but as much as I love making these lists, I find myself putting off movies I really want to revisit in favor of watching things I’ve never seen. So let’s break that habit of mine (and celebrate my favorite of all challenges, these monthly scavenger hunts!) by rewatching something you loved from a previous scavenger hunt. If this is your first or second one, no worries! Just rewatch any movie you love – preferably one you discovered thanks to Letterboxd.
31. And we’ve arrived at the end. I have LOVED writing this dumb thing, just like I love making my lists every month. So I want to wrap up by starting a challenge of my very own. This year I’ll be celebrating the hey-it’s-that-guys of the world by diving into the filmographies of a few excellent character actors. So for our final prompt of the month, watch a movie featuring one of these icons of cinema: Peter Lorre, Tantoo Cardinal, John Amos, Thelma Ritter, Joan Cusack, Elisha Cook Jr., James Hong, Graham Greene, Lorraine Toussaint, and of course, Character Actress Margo Martindale.
* Featured closet pickers in this year’s Criterion Challenge: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Kathryn Bigelow, Elle Fanning, David Byrne.
*** I will not actually give you a dollar. Maybe a dollar emoji?
**** Little bonus for folks doing the Criterion Challenge: Jacob Tender, who made and maintains the Closing the Loops list linked above, also made a Criterion edition of that list. It’s super useful – thanks, Jacob!
***** If you decide to try this one, know that it will put you well on your way to fulfilling a bunch of other challenges too: There’s HORRORx52, WARx52, Sci-Fix52, Animationx52, Fantasy 52 Film Challenge, Annual Genre Challenge 2026 - Superheroes, 2nd Annual Comedy Challenge...
Happy Hunting!
Final tally: 25/31
Rewatches: The Lady Eve, Double Indemnity, Wet Hot American Summer, Anatomy of a Murder (rewatch challenge), Rear Window.
Top five new-to-me:
1. Millennium Actress
2. Barry Lyndon
3. Born in Flames
4. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
5. Ace in the Hole
