I saw 519 films for the first time in 2025, of which 386 were features (60+ minutes), 13 were medium-length (40-60 minutes), 114 were short films (less than 40 minutes), and then I also saw 6 shows (or seasons of shows) in their entirety. These are brief, primarily statistical notes about them.

Sticking to the features, I saw 12 on an aeroplane, 86 at the cinema, 3 on DVD, 17 on file, and 268 online. I did also see one medium-length film at the cinema, as well as a few of the shorts. I also saw short films in art galleries, as well as a VR exhibition space.

The primary (i.e. first-named country of production) provenance of the features was as follows:-

Algeria 1
Argentina 6
Armenia 1
Australia 8
Austria 1
Bangladesh 1
Belgium 4
Brazil 3
Canada 37
Chile 1
China 13
Colombia 4
Côte d’Ivoire 1
Cuba 4
Czechoslovakia (as was) 2
Democratic Republic of Congo 1
Denmark 2
Dominican Republic 2
Ethiopia 1
France 29
French Guiana 1
Georgia 1
Germany 11
Guatemala 1
Guinea Bissau 1
Hong Kong 4
Iceland 1
India 5
Iran 16
Iraq 1
Ireland 7
Israel 2
Italy 5
Japan 6
Latvia 1
Lebanon 2
Lesotho 1
Madagascar 1
Mexico 8
Mongolia 1
Morocco 1
Namibia 1
Netherlands 3
Nigeria 1
Norway 4
Palestine 8
Peru 2
Philippines 5
Portugal 3
Qatar 1
Romania 3
Senegal 2
Singapore 1
South Africa 1
South Korea 7
Spain 6
Sri Lanka 1
Sudan 1
Sweden 1
Syria 3
Taiwan 2
Turkey 2
UK 30
USA 98
Vietnam 1

Among the medium-length and short films, and shows, I also saw work from Angola, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, Russia and Zimbabwe.

In terms of period, from among the features I saw 1 from the 1910s, 2 from the 1930s, 2 from the 1950s, 6 from the 1960s, 7 from the 1970s, 6 from the 1980s, 7 from the 1990s, 12 from the 2000s, 31 from the 2010s, and 312 from the 2020s. Of these, 99 were from 2025, with 125 from 2024 (as well as 2 that will be released more officially in 2026).

With regard to feature films that I saw online, I saw 2 on Aflamuna, 28 on Amazon Prime, 2 on Apple+, 2 on CBC Gems, 11 on the online distribution channel for the Cineplex cinema chain in Canada (which was Cineplex, and then became CosmoGo), 16 on Crave, 22 on the Criterion Channel, 5 on DA Films, 6 on Disney+, 69 on FestivalScopePro, 3 on Kanopy, 39 on MUBI, 2 on the National Film Board of Canada, 14 on Netflix, 4 on Plex, 2 on TUBI, 14 on Vimeo and 12 on YouTube. There were some other sites – but I either saw only 1 film on each one, or they were a temporary channel associated, for example, with an online film festival.

I shall leave to others any possible interpretations that can be made from my film-viewing statistics (how many films by women, how much I rate films by women, how much I rate non-western vs western film, how I rate films by non-white filmmakers, etc).

More to the point, though, is my ratings of the films that I saw, which goes as follows. Of the features, 2 got 0 stars; 11 got 0.5 stars; 57 got 1 star; 86 got 1.5 stars; 111 got 2 stars; 64 got 2.5 stars; 40 got 3 stars; 12 got 3.5 stars; 3 got 4 stars;

Of the medium-length films, 1 got 1 star; 1 got 1.5 stars; 3 got 2 stars; 2 got 2.5 stars; and 6 got 3 stars.

Of the shorts, 1 got 0.5 stars; 20 got 1 star; 28 got 1.5 stars; 36 got 2 stars; 16 got 2.5 stars; 8 got 3 stars; and 5 got 4 stars.

And of the shows, 4 got 2 stars; and 1 got 4 stars.

Here are the films that got 2.5 stars or more – with then there being a grid below for featuring all of the films I saw (I sometimes cross-check my ratings against the IMDb, but I am not sure I’ll be doing that this year). They generally appear in the order that I saw them, according to category.

Pre-2024 shorts that got 2.5 stars: You Hide Me (Kwate Nee Owoo, Ghana, 1970), Ghost Trio (Donald McWhinnie, UK/West Germany, 1977), No No Nooky T.V. (Barbara Hammer, USA, 1987), Rosalie’s Journey (Warwick Thornton, Australia, 2003), Yellow Fella (Ivan Sen, Australia, 2004), Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s Day) (Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zimbabwe, 2005), Shadow of a Cloud (Radu Jude, Romania, 2013), Threshold (Mike Hoolboom, Canada, 2018), OctoGod (Shievar Olegario, Philippines, 2019), Nazareth (Mike Hoolboom, Canada, 2020), Plastic semiotic (Radu Jude, Romania, 2021), Really Good Friends (Adam Sekuler, USA, 2022), Three Aeolian Winds (Maria Kourkouta, Greece/France, 2023).

Pre-2024 shorts that got 3 stars: Eh, Joe? (Alan Gibson, UK, 1966), Nice Coloured Girls (Tracey Moffatt, Australia, 1987), Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (Tracey Moffatt, Australia, 1989), Un certain matin (Fanta Régina Nacro, Burkina Faso, 1992), What Lies Beneath the Sky (Vladimir de Fontenay, USA, 2014), Haifa (Mike Hoolboom, Canada, 2021).

Pre-2024 shorts that got 4 stars: Blight (John Smith, UK, 1996), Jus Soli (Somebody Nobody, UK, 2017), República (Grace Passô, Brazil, 2020), A Radical Duet (Onyeka Igwe, UK, 2023), Incident (Bill Morrison, USA, 2023).

2024/2025 shorts that got 2.5 stars: Yu’a Ah/Our father (Clément Lagouarde, France, 2024), An Orange from Jaffa (Mohammed Almughanni, Palestine/France/Poland, 2024), Flores (José Cardoso, Ecuador/South Africa, 2025).

2024/2025 shorts that got 3 stars: Super Autochtone (Clément Lagouarde, France, 2025), Fragments for Venus (Alice Diop, France/Italy, 2025).

Pre-2024 medium films that got 2.5 stars: Frontiers of Dreams & Fears (Mai Masri, Palestine/Lebanon/USA, 2001), Smith in Malaya (Paul Antick, UK/Malaysia, 2023).

Pre-2024 medium films that got 3 stars: British Sounds (Groupe Dziga Vertov, UK, 1970), Film Festival Film (Perivi Katjavivi and Mpumelelo Mcata, Namibia/South Africa, 2019).

2024/2025 medium films that got 3 stars: A Stone’s Throw (Razan AlSalah, Canada/Lebanon, 2024), C’est pas moi (Leos Carax, France, 2024), The Diary of a Sky (Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lebanon ,2024), Gaza Sound Man (Hossam Hamdi Abu Dan, Palestine, 2025).

Pre-2024 show that got 4 stars: Twin Peaks: The Return (Mark Frost and David Lynch, USA, 2017).

Pre-2024 features that got 2.5 stars: Law of the Border (Lütfi Ö. Akad, Turkey, 1966), Medea (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy/France/West Germany, 1969), The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived (Heiny Srour, Lebanon/UK/France, 1974), Baxter, Vera Baxter (Marguerite Duras, France, 1977), Will (Jessie Maple, USA, 1981), Mossane (Safi Faye, Senegal/Germany, 1996), The Business of Fancydancing (Sherman Alexie, USA, 2002), La tierra y la sombra (César Augusto Acevedo, Colombia/France/Netherlands/Chile/Brazil, 2015), Tales of Two Who Dreamt (Andrea Bussmann and Nicolás Pereda, Canada/Mexico, 2016), Alicia (Alejandro Rath, Argentina, 2019), Manifiesto (Alejandro Rath, Argentina, 2019), Wintopia (Mira Burt-Wintonick, Canada, 2019), Tout Simplement Noir (Jean-Pascal Zadi, France, 2020), Spectre: Sanity, Madness & The Family (Para One/Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, France, 2021), The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambose, USA, 2021), Brother (Clement Virgo, Canada, 2022), Revoir Paris (Alice Winocour, France, 2022), Day Tripper (Chen Yanqi, China, 2023), Endless Borders (Abbas Amini, Iran/Germany/Czech Republic, 2023), Occupied City (Steve McQueen, Netherlands/UK/USA, 2023), Cerrar los ojos (Victor Érice, Spain/Argentina, 2023), Goodbye Julia (Mohamed Kordofani, Sudan/Sweden/Germany/Saudi Arabia/France/Egypt, 2023).

Pre-2024 features that got 3 stars: Aji Agha, Cinema Actor (Ovanes Ohanian, Iran, 1933), The Sun in a Net (Štefan Uher, Czechoslavakia, 1963), The Sealed Soil (Marva Nabili, Iran/France/Luxembourg, 1977), Un dessert pour Constance (Sarah Maldoror, France, 1981), Burning An Illusion (Menelik Shabazz, UK, 1982), The Unseen (Perivi John Katjavivi, Namibia, 2016), Western (Valeska Grisebach, Germany/Bulgaria/Austria, 2017), La casa lobo (Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, Chile/Germany, 2018), Énorme (Sophie Letourneur, France, 2019), France (Bruno Dumont, France/Germany/Italy/Belgium, 2021), History of Ha (Lav Diaz, Philippines, 2021), Youth (Spring) (Wang Bing, China/France/Luxembourg/Netherlands/Hong Kong, 2023), Daaaaaalí! (Quentin Dupieux, France, 2023), Disco Afrika: une histoire malgache (Luck Razanajaona, Madagascar/France/Germany/Mauritius/Qatar/South Africa, 2023), Milisuthando (Milisuthando Bongela, South Africa/Colombia, 2023), In Camera (Naqqash Khalid, UK, 2023), Hoard (Luna Carmoon, UK, 2023).

Pre-2024 features that got 3.5 stars: Gheisar (Masud Kimiai, Iran, 1969), The Night (Mohammad Malas, Syria, 1992), Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork (Eyal Sivan, Israel/France/Belgium/Germany, 2009).

2024/2025 features that got 2.5 stars: Chroniques fidèles survenues au siècle dernier à l’hôpital psychiatrique Blida-Joinville, au temps où le Docteur Frantz Fanon était chef de la cinquième division entre 1953 et 1956 (Abdenour Zahzah, Algeria/France, 2024), Manas (Marianna Brennand, Brazil/Portugal, 2024), Intercepted (Oksana Karpovych, Canada/France/Ukraine, 2024), Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke, China/France/Japan, 2024), Mistress Dispeller (Elizabeth Lo, China/USA, 2024), The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn, Denmark/Poland/Sweden, 2024), Tiguere (José María Cabral, Dominican Republic, 2024), L’histoire de Souleymane (Boris Lojkine, France, 2024), La passion de Dodin Bouffant/The Taste of Things (Trần Anh Hùng, France/Belgium, 2024), Bring Them Down (Christopher Andrews, Ireland/UK/Belgium, 2024), September Says (Ariane Labed, Ireland/UK/Germany/France/USA, 2024), Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia/Belgium/France, 2024), Li Cham/I Died (Ana Ts’uyeb, Mexico, 2024), Life is Beautiful: A Letter to Gaza (Mohamed Jabaly, Norway/Palestine, 2024), Happy Holidays (Scandar Copti, Palestine/Germany/France/Italy/Qatar, 2024), Cartas telepáticas (Edgar Pêra, Portugal, 2024), Eight Postcards from Utopia (Radu Jude and Christian Ferencz-Flatts, Romania, 2024), Grand Theft Hamlet (Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls, UK, 2024), Santosh (Sandhya Suri, UK/Germany/India/France, 2024), McVeigh (Mike Ott, USA, 2024), Through The Graves The Wind Is Blowing (Travis Wilkerson, USA, 2024), The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, USA/UK/Canada, 2024), You Hide in Hope (Liam and Will Riley, Canada, 2025), Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again (Lyana Patrick, Canada, 2025), Meadowlarks (Tasha Hubbard, Canada, 2025), Resurrection (Bi Gan, China/France/USA, 2025), Cactus Pears (Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, India, 2025), It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi, Iran/France/Luxembourg, 2025), The President’s Cake (Hasan Hadi, Iraq/USA, 2025), Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/UK/Canada/South Korea/USA, 2025), After the Hunt (Luca Guadagnino, Italy/USA, 2025), Louis Theroux: The Settlers (Joshua Baker, UK, 2025), The History of Sound (Oliver Hermanus, UK/Sweden/USA/Italy, 2025), Hamnet (Chloé Zhao, UK/USA, 2025), One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, 2025), Train Dreams (Clint Bentley, USA, 2025), The Librarians (Kim A. Snyder, USA, 2025), Remaining Native (Paige Bethmann, USA, 2025), WTO/99 (Ian Bell, USA, 2025), Mickey 17 (Bong Joon-ho, USA/South Korea, 2025), Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) (Joel Alfonso Vargas, USA/UK, 2025), Moodswing Whiskey (Skinner Myers, USA, 2026).

2024/2025 features that got 3 stars: Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada, 2024), Yintah (Brenda Michell, Michael Toledano and Jennifer Wickham, Canada, 2024), Youth (Hard Times) (Wang Bing, China/France/Netherlands/Luxembourg, 2024), Pepe (Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic/France/Namibia/Germany, 2024), La chambre d’ombres (Camilo Restrepo, France, 2024), La bête (Bertrand Bonello, France/Canada, 2024), Youth (Homecoming) (Wang Bing, France/Luxembourg/Netherlands, 2024), Shahid (Narges Kalhor, Gemany, 2024), Passing Dreams (Rashid Masharawi, Palestine/Sweden/France/Canada, 2024), Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 (Göran Hugo Olsson, Sweden/Denmark/Finland, 2024), Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari, UK/Germany/USA/France/Greece, 2024), Invention (Courtney Stephens, USA, 2024), Little, Big, and Far (Jem Cohen, USA/Austria, 2024), L’arbre de l’authenticité (Sammy Baloji, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2025), Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 (Raoul Peck, France/USA, 2025), Renoir (Chie Hayakawa, Japan/France/Singapore/Philippines/Indonesia/Qatar, 2025), Ancestral Visions of the Future (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, Lesotho/Germany/France/Qatar/Saudi Arabia, 2025), La gran historia de la filosofía occidental (Aria Covamonas, Mexico, 2025), Palestine 36 (Annemarie Jacir, Palestine/France/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/UK/Denmark/Jordan/Norway/USA/Sweden/Australia, 2025), With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari, Qatar/Germany/France, 2025), The Encampments (Kei Pritsker and Michael T. Workman, USA, 2025), Drowned Land (Colleen Thurston, USA, 2025), Manhunt (Wayne Wapeemukwa, Canada, 2026).

2024/2025 films that got 3.5 stars: The End (Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark/Germany/Ireland/Italy/UK/Sweden/USA, 2024), The Adamant Girl (P.S. Vinothraj, India, 2024), Higher than Acidic Clouds (Ali Asgari, Iran, 2024), The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich, USA, 2024), O Agente Secreto (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil/France/Netherlands/Germany, 2025), Levers (Rhayne Vermette, Canada, 2025), The Clown of Gaza (Abdulrahman Sabbah, Palestine/France/Qatar, 2025), Dracula (Radu Jude, Romania/Austria/Luxembourg/Brazil/UK/Switzerland, 2025), Peter Hujar’s Day (Ira Sachs, USA/Germany/UK/Spain, 2025).

2024/2025 films that got 4 stars: From Ground Zero: Stories from Gaza (Aws Al-Banna, Ahmed Al-Danf, Basil Al-Maqousi, Mustafa Al-Nabih, Muhammad Alshareef, Ala Ayob, Bashar Al Balbisi, Alaa Damo, Awad Hana, Ahmad Hassunah, Mustafa Kallab, Satoum Kareem, Mahdi Karera, Rabab Khamees, Khamees Masharawi, Wissam Moussa, Tamer Najm, Abu Hasna Nidaa, Damo Nidal, Mahmoud Reema, Etimad Weshah and Islam Al Zrieai, Palestine/France/Qatar/UAE/Switzerland/Denmark, 2024), Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, USA, 2024), Sirât (Oliver Laxe, Spain/France, 2025).

And below is all of the films that I saw…