First off, if you want the big ticket stats I put together this infographic on Venngage. 457 films total, 378 new films. Safe to say I hit the target of 365 films in 2018 hard!

The average rating shifts down if you look at only new films – 6.87. There were also only 25 films that got 10/10. My reasoning for these also applies to the ratings spread – the films I watch are curated, I have chosen to watch them. So there’s already a likelihood something about it has appealed to me, and I’m going to avoid (generally) films that I don’t think I’ll enjoy. Also if a film looks like something I’ll particularly like then there’s a good chance I’ve sought it out already.

Looking at the film services I used, Sky Cinema was way out in front. This is not surprising given it costs the most, gets the most ‘big’ films first, and has new premieres every day plus a huge back catalogue which has 4-7 new films added every Friday.

But Amazon Prime Video and Netflix give it a good run, certainly on a month by month basis. They each had more films watched on 3 months:

It’s interesting that Netflix starts off so well and then dwindles away somewhat. I found during the year I was disappointed how few films were of interest on Netflix, and even in the last two months (where I worked hard to hit the 365 new films total) there were only 6 on Netflix I came away pleased to have seen, compared to 12 on Amazon Prime Video.

The best comparison I can give to the quality of the services is the average rating for films that I would not have watched had I not been attempting this challenge. For Amazon and Sky the average rating is almost the same, but for Netflix there is a surprisingly large difference (7.33 for films I would have watched anyway, 6.29 for those I would not have done).

There’s a possibility of subjectivity here – perhaps I was picking lesser films on Netflix? But that should even out somewhat given the numbers being looked at.

To not dunk on Netflix totally, it has hosted almost every television programme I’ve watched this year. Star Trek Discovery (and DS9), BoJack Horseman, The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine… it’s the go to place for TV. The film selection falls behind Amazon Prime Video though.

Moving onto the times I watched films, there’s a clear difference between a few days:

Well done Tuesday and Thursday. They’re the days I’m more likely to work at home, so of course are days I’m more likely to have something on in the background. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday are days we have the most events scheduled for so they’re going to be lowest.

It’s interesting to see the difference between the average ratings for films watched Saturday and Sunday – 7.43 compared to 6.62 (respectively). I think this comes from Saturday being the day my wife and I will watch something we’ve been saving to watch together, whereas Sunday might be the day to put on something more mindless and easy to watch.

Finally, on people, the infographic shows the top 20 directors and actors I watched this year. A quick note on this – seeking out the back catalogues (for people like Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Katheryn Bigelow, and Lynne Thompson) turned out to be a great way to see a range of film types that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen. Definitely a useful thing to learn that I will do more of in future years.

It’s also surprising the number of minor parts some of the actors (like John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Tom Kenny, and Willem Defoe) show up in. I had no particular intention of watching lots of films with them in, it just happened through the movies I watched. Scarlett Johansson and Tara Strong are the only women on the list whose back catalogues I did not particularly seek out to watch more of them, so it’s probably something to do with the number of parts written for men and their ability to be cast in lots of films as a smaller part rather than ‘starring’.

If you want some further movie based reading I’m also posting a summary of the 2018 challenge, an overview of my 2019 challenge, and my views on the streaming services I used. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy them!