Like lots of people, film and TV have always played a big part in our lives. We have a fabulous Picture House cinema nearby and, pre-lockdown – we would go nearly every weekend; a family ritual. My son is something of a film expert- on his Letterboxd film app, he’s recorded over 1200 movies that he’s watched. That takes some commitment!

When lockdown happened, we hunkered down with Netflix, Amazon Prime and all the other channels and made the most of it. I started to record what we’d watched … the list, in order, is below. The Best 10 films are at the bottom alongside my favourite three TV shows.

A big part of the experience has been the ritual of ‘the Mug’. After a few days we initiated a new process. Each of the three of us wrote out five films we’d like to watch on bits of paper and placed them in a mug. Each night we would take turns to pick out one of the choices. The rules were simple: respect the mug! No arguments and, during the film, no phones – cinema style. We included a ‘two episodes’ rule for some classic TV series like The Wire and The Sopranos – We’ve watched them before so this just just to get a nice reminder of the taste of them.

After a while we started scouring film review lists to find films none of us had seen. Our family touchstone for movie sense is Mark Kermode – his lists were influential. It’s been quite a journey. The early choices are quite standard but increasingly we went off into foreign language territory – where, actually, most of the gems were found. We also caught up on some older classics like 8 1/2, The Seventh Seal, Blow Up, Sunset Boulevard and Kes (a personal favourite.) In fact this might be my favourite film scene of all time:

We also watched some fabulous factual competition series, included here because they played their part. I especially enjoyed the Portrait Artist of the Year – but Glow Up did also capture our attention!

Here’s the full list in order of viewing: 

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Ex Machina
3. Anchorman 1
4. Anchorman 2
5. The Player
6. World War Z
7. Solaris (Clooney)
8. The Master (Hoffman Phoenix)
9. The Great Beauty / la grande bellezza
10. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
11. Terminator 2
12. Ocean’s 11
13. Argo
14. The Souvenir
15. Witness
16. Barry Season 1
17. Barry Season 2
18. High Life (R Pats)
19. Batman. Dark Night Rises
20. The Morning Show Season 1
21. The Seventh Seal
22. Portrait Artist of the Year 2020
23. Leave No Trace
24. The Tiger King
25. The Bigger Splash (Swinton/Fiennes)
26. Twin (with Kristofer Hivju)
27. Landscape Artist of the Year 2020
28. Unorthodox (4 episodes)
29. Ocean’s 13
30. Cloud Atlas
31. Goodfellas
32. Enemy (Jake G)
33. Quiz
34. Bob Roberts
35. Disturbia (tag Shia LB)
36. Godzilla
37. Run
38. Ozark Season 2
39. Ozark Season 3
40. Honeyboy (Shia LB)
41. What If (Daniel R)
42. The Platform (Spanish)
43. The Vanishing (original Dutch/French)
44. The Act of Killing (Indo documentary)
45. Sopranos. Eps 1&2
46. Under the Skin (Scarlett J)
47. The Imitation Game
48. The Wire Eps 1&2
49. After Life
50. BlackKklansman
51. Citizen Kane
52. Normal People TV
53. Paterson
54. Brokeback Mountain
55. Blue Velvet
56. Bait
57. Burning (Korean)
58. Marvin’s Room
59. JoJoRabbit
60. Capricorn One
61. Symptoms 
62. Being John Malcovich
63. Assault on Precinct 13 (original)
64. Gangs of London
65. Waves
66. Cleo 5 to 7 (French)
67. Se7en
68. The Witch
69. Poetry (Korean)
70. In the Mood for Love (HK)
71. Mother (Bong Joon Ho)
72. Sunset Boulevard
73. Devs
74. Team America: World Police
75. Badlands (Sheen)
76. Blow Up
77. Archipelago
78. Bombshell
79. Ford vs Ferrari
80. Dog Day Afternoon
81. Mirror
82. Heat
83. Deliverance
84. Whiplash
85. Kes
86. My Left Foot
87. Handmaiden (Korean)
88. Persona (Swedish)
89. Da 5 Bloods
90. Five Years; Last Five Years
91. Dog Tooth (Greek)
92. Mystic River
93. Gladiator
94. Embrace of the Serpent (Colombian)
95. Eyes Wide Shut
96. Touch of Sin (China)
97. The Maid (Chile)
98. Little Joe
99. Casino Royale
100. Vanilla Sky
101. Fight Club
102. Glow Up 2020
103. Eurovision Song Contest
104. Before Sunrise
105. Before Sunset
106. Before Midnight
107. Battle Royale
108. Raging Bull

Television

These series are magnificent – not quite as gripping or involving as Succession or Game of Thrones perhaps, but highly entertaining in their own way. I don’t think I’ve ever cried as often watching TV as I did during After Life.

1. The Morning Show Season 1
2. Ozark Season 3
3. After Life Season 2

Top 10 Films

My Top 10 films is chosen based on their lasting impact, not including films I’d seen before (like Kes, Eternal Sunshine, Se7en, Gladiator). Each one either has a special quirkiness, a touching central figure, a shocking/surprising turn of events or just felt great to watch as a whole package. We talked about Burning for weeks afterwards. In no particular order of merit, here’s the list:

1. Paterson
2. Bait
3. Burning (Korean)
4. Ford vs Ferrari
5. Dog Tooth (Greek)
6. Embrace of the Serpent (Colombian)
7. The Maid (Chilean)
8. The Act of Killing (Indonesian documentary)
9. Handmaiden (Korean)
10. Mother (Korean)