Tales from the screener pile
This time of year, my fellow film critics and I are watching a superhuman number of new movies. A look at how we do it.
A few things to say right at the top: I realize that it’s hard to think of more of a first-world problem than having too many movies to watch. I am perfectly aware that I am unbelievably blessed and lucky to be able to work as a professional film critic, that I have the access that I do, and that I live in a city with plentiful movie screenings and first-rate studio reps.
That said, as what we film critics call “screener season” gets underway, I wanted to pull back the curtain a bit and talk about what critics do in the fall.
A brief introduction on how it works: Film critics, at least those close enough to big cities, are invited to early preview screenings of upcoming movies. We also sometimes attend film festivals throughout the year, where we can see movies that are sometimes a ways off from release. And publicists, and in some cases the filmmakers themselves, will sometimes offer us “screeners,” or links that allow us to watch not-yet-released films.
Why we do it
We critics have a few mandates when it comes to what we write about. I personally review multiple new movies each week, so throughout the year, I choose which screenings to go to and screeners to watch with that in mind. Sometimes I’m scheduled to interview an actor or director or have some other assignment that requires me to see the film by a certain point.
I’m a also member of three critics groups — the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, the Critics Choice Association, and the Online Film Critics Society — and need to be thinking, at least in the back of my mind, about what I’ll be voting for.
That’s how it works, at least, for most of the year.
The first eight months
From January through September, I mostly watch and review the movies that are coming out that week, either by attending screenings or watching screeners. There are some festivals in the winter, spring, and summer; some years I’ve done virtual coverage of Sundance (in January) and South by Southwest (in March/April), in addition to the one year I went to Texas for SXSW. There are also Philadelphia-based festivals throughout the year, such as PFS Springfest, BlackStar, and FirstGlance, which I attend when I can.
Then comes the fall
But in the fall, the focus shifts a bit to awards season, especially as the calendar begins to be dominated by what’s known as “prestige” movies.
In September, there’s the Toronto and New York Film Festivals, both of which I’ve covered both virtually and in person in recent years. This year, I did not cover TIFF, and only went up to NYFF for three days, but I paid attention to both, and what the big movies were there.
Then, in October, the Philadelphia Film Festival takes place, and the other local critics and I get a look at a lot of the big year-end films.
November, though, is where it really gets real.
Throughout the month, the awards screeners start to arrive- sometimes via discs in the mail, and increasingly, virtually. We’ll end up, at the end of October, having about 10 movies to watch, and two weeks later, with 50 or 60. In cities like mine, in addition, local screenings are held for most major releases by the first of December, which is the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle’s deadline.
So I spend the month of November watching movies, and prioritizing them through some combination of what I need to review that week, what I want to see the most, and what I think is a must for awards voting. Also, sometimes a critic I trust will recommend something and put it on my radar (my old friend Sheila O’Malley seems to do this with at least one film every year.)
In addition, I’m now a voter for the CCA’s Documentary Awards, giving me a bunch of documentaries to watch the first week and a half of November (and the DOC NYC festival arrives that month as well.) Beyond that, my deadlines for CCA and OFCS are staggered later, so I can vote later on for those.
I have a system
So how do I keep track of what to watch? I make charts. Lots of them. I have a running calendar of the upcoming release dates, as well as another one of my ongoing assignments. I have watchlists on Letterboxd and JustWatch- the former for movies to watch that I have access to right now, and the latter for the ones that I don’t have access to yet. (I used to use the Netflix DVD “Saved” list for the latter function, but that’s unfortunately no longer an option.)
By the time December rolls around, I mostly just watch what I feel like watching, and fill out what I need for my annual Top Ten list, as well as my final ranking of the year’s movies, which I now keep up on Letterboxd (and I’m planning on something fun for it for the Substack.)
The view from the bottom
And that brings about another fine tradition: The bottom of the screener pile.
In the later days of December, I’ll usually work my way through the dregs of stuff I hadn’t gotten to watch yet before that point- often very esoteric indie and international fare that didn’t get much of a release. But most years, I’ll end up finding at least one gem at the bottom of the pile.
In December, the Oscar shortlists come out for several categories, including documentaries and international films, and that usually gives me some ideas of things to catch up on before the year’s end. That’s also the case with other critics’ top ten lists.
This is the new year
Once the calendar flips to January, I’m past my top ten list and all my critics’ group voting obligations, and then it’s time for January Movies. That’s the type of movie — often starring Liam Neeson — with no awards ambitions whatsoever. At this point, I turn towards those movies, while also catching up on TV shows that I hadn’t watched much of in the previous four months.
Once the Oscar nominations are announced, I’ll usually watch the handful of nominated films that I missed (as well as the shorts program), and I keep track of those on a supplemental list of movies from the previous year on Letterboxd. And then, it’s on to the following year.
There’s one key rule with this process, which I’m sure to tell other critics who are new to it: You are not going to see everything. That’s just not possible. You can only do the best you can, but some things are going to fall through the cracks.
As I say often, if I didn’t enjoy doing this complex dance, I wouldn’t do it. But in addition to the joy of discovering great new movies, a part of me really loves solving the puzzle of what to see when, and in what order.