My Year on Letterboxd

Hello and welcome back to another semesterly blog from yours truly. I am Abby, one of the hosts of Beaver Fever, which is on Thursdays from 8-9 pm. For this blog, I wanted to talk about my New Year's Resolution: watch 150 movies in the year 2026. I have always enjoyed movies more than TV shows, and I wanted to have something to distract me from all the stuff I have going on this year, which is why I decided to make this a goal. I often say horror is my favorite genre, but as you will see, I really love to watch everything :) I tried to watch a mix of franchises, independent films, movies I have seen before, and classics I have overlooked until now.

I think I may have taken my resolution too seriously, but I have really enjoyed finding new things to watch!

As of today, April 15th, I have watched 165 movies this year!

Through this journey, if you could call it that, I realized I really do not have a standard way of rating movies. I just started giving movies 5 stars; I was always hesitant to give a movie 5 stars because that just seems like a lot of commitment, but I think if I liked a movie a lot, it should get 5 stars. I also rate movies just off the vibes, not just the actual acting, directing, or plot. One of my cohosts and roommates, June, and I watched all of the Tinkerbell movies together one afternoon, and while they are good movies in general, watching them with a friend makes the experience way better, so that probably affected my rating. Because of this, I use Letterboxd more as a diary than a tool to criticize films; take it all with a grain of salt, I suppose.

So yeah, I have watched a lot this year; there were some really good movies and some really bad movies. I wanted to share some that stood out to me, so here are my top 10 in no particular order...

1. The Whale

The first movie I ever gave 5 stars! My other roommate and cohost, Dani, and I watched this on a random weeknight, I believe, and I was really impressed by it. This film made me reflect on my life and experiences, so we were both sobbing at multiple points of the movie. I think the discourse online about it is not very understanding, and while the ending scene did make me laugh from the memes made from it, this movie is deep and complex, something people seem to miss. Reducing this movie down to a fatphobic joke is really disheartening to see; I recommend you all watch it with an open mind to really get the message.

2. Phantom of the Opera

My favorite musical by far and another 5-star film!! Maybe I am biased because I saw this live in December and have a purse made from an original playbill, but this story and production are so good that it is hard for anything else to compare. Emmy Rossum played an amazing Christine, and Gerard Butler was there too... JK, he did a great job as well! I really have nothing else to say. This is just so amazing!

3. Little Miss Sunshine

I just found out about this movie, and I am so glad that I did. A dysfunctional family goes to great lengths to support Olive, who is on a mission to win a beauty pageant only a road trip away. While the family is not perfect and the dad pissed me off often, this was a really sweet story.

4. SLC Punk

I cannot believe I have not watched this until now, although the newer sequel was a big bummer. Matthew Lillard is cool, and so is the story.

5. Novitiate

I grew up Catholic, went to private school, attended church every week, really the whole experience. Movies about religion have always been interesting to me because of this, and Novitiate was fun to watch. Who knew nuns had so much drama going on?

6. Hoppers

Beavers have become very important to me since starting Beaver Fever. Watching this in theaters with my best friends was so nice! The story itself was also just so good; the characters, the animation, and the plot were all top-tier, and there hasn't been a movie like this in a while.

7. Strawberry Mansion

A movie I do not usually look for, but so happy I found it. It is whimsical and creative, something we need more of.

8. Begin Again

A highly recommended movie by June! I love musicals and love Keira Knightley, so this was perfect. We watched this on Valentine's Day with some fun drinks and chocolate-covered strawberries that made this one of my favorite movie-watching experiences of the year so far.

9. High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Another musical... who is surprised? I rewatched a lot of older Disney movies, and I totally forgot how much I enjoyed this movie, especially.

10. The Lure

I love this movie so much! The whole time, I thought the main characters looked like Natalie Portman and Mia Goth if they became Polish mermaids. Basically, this film was a musical horror about sirens who began singing at a nightclub, really cool!

I highly recommend checking these movies out if you haven't already!

Now, here is a list of every movie I have watched this year in the order that I watched them in. I know it is a lot of information but use this as inspiration if you don't know what to watch next. I hope you enjoyed this blog, because I am so excited to share this with you all.

(All images sourced from Letterboxd)