Is It Worth Rewatching Movies?

I am totally guilty of this - I have seen Star Wars, Ferris Bueller, and The Dark Knight more times than I count and I know many others do the same with their favorite movies. But why? Is there any merit to revisiting a movie whose lines you already know forward and backwards? Would one's time be better spent watching something new, if a little less in quality. For what does one get after seeing a movie they've already memorized apart from a "Wow - this movie is still awesome!" vibe that they already got before?

I love re-watching movies. Sometimes I catch things that I missed on previous viewings, but mostly it's similar to re-reading good books - a way to revisit good art (whether that's writing [in books] or cinematography/acting [in movies]) and engaging characters. When I re-watch a film or a show that I haven't seen for a while, it's almost like seeing old friends.

(I suspect this is one reason - and a good reason - why sequels are so popular: you can see the characters you like again, but you get a new story instead of one where you already know everything that happens.)

I rewatch anything that I liked even remotely. Sometimes to a film's benefit and sometimes...not.

It's worth it just for the sake of seeing how another viewing can change perspectives.

While I'm all for trying something new, what is wrong with the tried and true?

I watch movies because they're fun for me, if I found something I know will satisfy me, what difference does it make it I watch it one time or one hundred times before moving on to something else?

I usually watch movies more than once.

Sometimes I won't watch a movie for several years but then see it again, you'd be amazed at how your reaction to it will change

I think it's a good way to avoid extreme cases of the nostalgia filter. A lot of the people who are incredibly nostalgic about...ymmv movies haven't actually seen them since they were kids. That's not a bad thing, but it can interfere with discourse.

I have seen the occasional movie where I'm glad I saw it, I just have no desire to see it again. Like Grave Of The Fireflies or Imaginaerum (the Nightwish movie) or Cloud Atlas.

edited 2nd Jun '14 7:09:03 PM by Zendervai

I'm looking forward to rewatching Edge of Tomorrow. There's bound to be stuff I missed on the first watching.

I'm like that with Where The Wild Things Are. I just don't think a repeat viewing would move me the first time did.

Depends on the movie...the best ones you watch at different points in you life and it is always a different experience. Especially with movies I watched very young I later noticed that a lot of subtext just went straight over my head.

The more you watch, the better you memorize! Right?

There's a couple of movies that really benefit from being watched over and over. The Prestige is my favourite example.

Apart from that, there's ones that are just endlessly rewatchable depending on subjective taste, even depressing ones - for example, I never find Children Of Men or Downfall anything less than mesmerising every time I watch them.

Quite.

Some films, you miss things the first time around. Especially with films that do more nuanced and subtle characterization like Pacific Rim, I end up picking up little tics and quirks that I missed upon first watch.

Others it's more a case of certain scenes you can just watch over and over. Like, I will probably never get tired of the Let It Go sequence from Frozen, or the end fight from Donnie Yen's Flashpoint, or...any of the fights from Ip Man or the Once Upon a Time in China series, really. Or singing along to Disney musicals in general.

I mean, just because I've had fried chicken thousands of times in my life doesn't mean I won't want to eat fried chicken again tonight.

Which doesn't sound like a bad idea tbh.

I rewatched Edge of Tomorrow, and came out of the second showing liking it even better than before. Might even watch it a third time. What?

I quite agree with you. Calm down, dear, it's only a film. (It's a reference to an old British insurance advert starring Michael Winner.)

I want to see it again too.

That's out already?

In Asia and Europe. I saw it on Saturday night in my nearest Imax cinema in Glasgow.

And it's superb.

Why is it not out in America?

Because most movies have different release dates in different regions of the world.

The other side of the argument: Why Pauline Kael never rewatched movies. Her reason why basically boils down to "I got it the first time" and "movies only got watched once anyway before VHSs and DVDs came around."

I'll be honest and say I can't really see why Kael was so influential. She might have pioneered film criticism's technique and style, but her opnions felt lacking to me because she disparages so many films now revered as classics and much of the ones she praised and claimed would go down in history have been pretty much forgotten to time. And most of her reviews felt like she was just rambling, not really focused one subject. I own I Lost It At The Movies, and haven't felt inclined to reread it since.

With movies, I find that after I watch it once, I can not focus so much on what is being said, but more on what's happening. Took me a few watchings of Mega Mind to notice that the father and baby show up a few times throughout the film.

That is pretty much nonsense...even before DVD and VHS, it was not unusual to watch a movie multiple times, you just watched it multiple times in theatres...back then rereleases were still a thing (which is not that long ago...I actually saw even Sleeping Beauty in Theatres at one point...and there is a theatre in my town which only shows old classics for people who like to rewatch them in a movie atmosphere). Hell, I am still watching movies multiple times in theatres if I like them particularly well and have the feeling that they wouldn't sell that well on the small screen (Titanic for example).

And there are certainly movies designed for a rewatch...The Sixth Sense, Psycho, the second watch is entirely different than the first one. There is something to say with experience a story with the knowledge where the journey will end.

And even if the movie doesn't change...we do. There are movies which initially didn't have much of an impact, but became favourites later on, and others which I used to love, but don't bother to watch now.

That, I can understand. I haven't seen the first three Star Wars movies since I was maybe 13, so I'm sure I'd think much differently of them now if I rewatched. Back then, I never really seemed to have an opinion on anything I watched unless it was cartoons.