A Guide on How to Watch Films
This essay, on the surface, is about Cinema. At its core, it is about time—how we choose to spend the few hours we have, and how we let films shape our imagination and memory.
The number of films ever made on Earth is not infinite. Roughly 1.5 million exist. An average moviegoer will see around 3,000 movies in a lifetime. A true cinephile, maybe 12,000. In either case, the number is small. This scarcity makes selection important. It’s the same as food: imagine 1.5 million dishes exist, but you will only taste a few thousand. Who would want to waste time on the bad ones?
So, how do we choose? Here are some principles I’ve found essential.
Forget the year. The age of a film does not determine its worth. Good films have been made in every decade since the 1930s, and great films are timeless. Do not dismiss something because it is black and white, or because it was released before you were born.
Forget the genre. A masterpiece can come in the form of comedy, science fiction, melodrama, or documentary. Do not imprison yourself in categories. Kubrick made horror, war epics, sci-fi, and satire—and all of them are singular.
Follow the directors. Once you find one whose style resonates with you—be it Tarkovsky, Spielberg, Angelopoulos, Kubrick, or even contemporary voices like Giorgos Lanthimos—watch everything they have done. Their body of work becomes a world you can inhabit.
Trust a few critics. You don’t need to read everyone. Find one or two whose taste aligns with yours. They can be your compass. Ignore random opinions. Never confuse popularity with quality.
Respect the Metascore, but don’t worship it. Numbers help—if a film scores in the 90s, chances are it has something. But do not turn numbers into destiny. Cinema is not math, and sometimes the films that split critics are the ones that matter most.
Know nothing of the plot. Surprise is the greatest gift a film can give. Enter like a traveler who has not seen the map. Let the images, the pacing, the music reveal themselves without prejudice.
Create the right conditions. Always aim for the biggest screen possible. Avoid crowds if you can. Watch alone sometimes, in silence. Never watch dubbed. Never start in the middle. Avoid daylight, avoid background light. Cinema is a ritual: you owe it your full attention.
Respect the beginning. If you miss the first minutes, better leave. The opening shot often holds the key to everything.
Allow yourself freedom. You can leave if it fails you. You can sleep if you can’t help it. (The story of Emir Kusturica falling asleep eight times before he finally managed to stay awake on the ninth, to watch Fellini’a Amarcord at film school is notorious) But do not eat. A film is not a picnic. Laugh, cry, let yourself be moved, but do not distract others with chatter.
Be punctual. Be present. Let the film wash over you.
After the end—wait. As you would let a cooked steak rest before cutting, let the film rest in your mind. Do not rush to judge. Think, revisit, dream on it. Only then ask yourself: did it awaken something in me? Did it make me feel love, hate, sorrow, disgust, joy? If yes, then it worked.
On adaptations. Never read the book before the film. Let the movie be your first encounter. Later, go to the text and discover how your imagination converses with the page.
Cinema is one of the few arts that demand not just attention but surrender. Watching a film is not consumption; it is devotion. If chosen wisely, if experienced fully, a film is not simply “content.” It is time transformed into memory, into beauty, into life itself.