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Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times

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"She's a cheerleader. You've seen Star Wars 27 times. Do the math."
— Neal Schweiber to Sam Weir, Freaks and Geeks

A character is noted to have watched a movie/seen a show/read a book/listened to an album/attended a theatrical production/seen a recording artist or band live/etc. on a high enough number of occasions for it to sound geeky, obsessive, embarrassing, and possibly even unhealthy.

Rewatching or rereading one's favorite stories is a very common, very human activity, as well as a principal hobby of any fandom. However, whenever an actual number is given for how many times a person has enjoyed a specific work, it's usually never something for anyone to take much pride in having done—even if the work in question is good. After all, Even Nerds Have Standards.

This is also a common trait of younger children, both in real life and fiction, who often find the familiar stimuli very comforting. This can, however, grate on their parents and older siblings, which is probably a big part of why there's so often a Periphery Hatedom around media aimed at younger kids.

In fiction, such information about a character is usually brought up either by another character, in which the remark is typically intended to be an insult or a put-down, or by the character himself, wherein the character may not show any shame for his devotion for a work, but it's still something that nobody else (be it the audience or other characters) reveres the character for doing all the same.

At its most extreme, this trope can be invoked when explaining how a character came to acquire an actual talent or skill. Can also be combined with Red-Flag Recreation Material if the thing being rewatched is particularly disturbing.

Not to be confused with Seen It a Million Times.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • In one commercial for Walt Disney World, a boy visiting the park tells Aladdin and Jasmine, "I saw your movie three times!" In this case, his remark shows that he's having fun at the park and is excited to see his favorite Disney characters. Another commercial has a girl tell this line to one of the Dwarfs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
  • "American Honda Presents DC Comics Supergirl": Steve Gordon has watched "Battle for Neptune", his favorite movie, twenty times and intends to watch it several more times, to his co-workers' bafflement and his boss' exasperation; the latter joking Steve's mind is "somewhere north of Neptune".

    Anime & Manga 

    Asian Animation 
  • In Season 7 episode 41 of Happy Heroes, Doctor H. watches a drama called "Making Paste While Smiling" that stars his Celeb Crush, Miss Peach. He enjoys the show so much that the television station boss, Mr. Lightbulb, decides to rerun the drama over and over again. By the end of the episode, Doctor H. has witnessed this program 107 times and has grown tired of it. And then the Supermen become excited to watch it one more time since it helped them to defeat the Monster of the Week...

    Comedy 
  • From one of David Letterman's Top Ten lists, "Top Ten Excuses for Losing an Election," Number 7 is "Should've kept quiet about seeing Hello, Dolly! 63 times."
  • Bill Hicks had a bit where he would extensively castigate Basic Instinct as being a "piece of shit" before admitting to having watched it about 8 or 9 times (if only for the explicit sex scenes).

    Comic Books 
  • The 37th issue of Marvel Comics' Micronauts comic book mentioned that Wolverine intended to see Raiders of the Lost Ark for the 14th time.
  • In an issue of Dominic and Claire, Dominic claims to have seen TRON fifty-five times in one story to justify to Claire that he knows about machines.
  • In the first issue of Dylan Dog, while at a horror movie marathon, Dylan sees that the next film will be An American Werewolf in London and casually states that he saw it 14 times. When Sybil incredulously repeats that number, Dylan asks her to be quiet because the movie is starting and he doesn't want to miss the beginning and not understand any of it.
  • In The Chronicles of Wormwood miniseries The Last Battle, Danny gets into an argument with Jimmy the talking rabbit and quips on how seeing Watership Down 200 times doesn't make him some kind of lagomorphic ninja.

    Comic Strips 
  • Peanuts:
    • From a Sunday Strip of the early 1970s:
      Snoopy as Joe Cool: I see they're showing Citizen Kane again... I've only seen it 23 times.
    • Charles Schulz used Citizen Kane for this a few times, in an apparent example of Author Appeal as it was his own favorite film. The strip where Lucy spoils the ending for Linus has her say she's seen it "about 10 times", and there's another strip where Sally is in the movie theater line behind Linus talking about how she's pretending they're on a date until Linus gets to the box office and says, "One, please!" Cut to Sally in front of the TV.
      Charlie Brown: I thought you were going to the movies.
      Sally: I am. I'm watching Citizen Kane for the eighth time.
    • In the November 12, 1976 strip, Schroeder mentions that his grandfather has seen Victory at Sea twelve times.
  • FoxTrot:
    • In a series of strips, Roger gets concerned over Andy watching Titanic (1997) way too many times. By his estimates, it was at least twenty-four before this revelation:
      Roger: Watching it over and over isn't going to change the ending... the boat sinks! It's sad but what's done is done!
      Andy: I know, but when I'm in the theater it's like everyone's still alive for those six hours.
      Roger: Um, don't you mean three hours?
      Andy: I can't drive all the way to the cineplex and just see it once.
    • In another series of strips, Peter gets a job as a theater cashier on the eve of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. After rattling off all six showtimes to a kid in a Sith costume, the kid asks for six tickets.
      Peter: To which showing?
      Star Wars Fanboy: One of each, obviously.
    • Another strip has Jason camping out (on his computer server) to get tickets to see Attack of the Clones.
      Jason: Guess who has eight tickets to see Star Wars?
      Paige: Who's going with you?
      Jason: My friend, Marcus.
      Paige: I'm confused.
      Jason: Guess who has tickets to four consecutive showings of Star Wars?
    • In another strip, Jason and Marcus go to the movies to see the re-released Star Wars trilogy. The entire trilogy, back to back. Three times. Because it's a trilogy.
    • An early strip has Peter renting the movie Raising Arizona, which Paige says Peter has seen about four zillion times. He explains it's because Holly Hunter is in it. Paige says "Oh, that's a reason". However, it turns out the video store screwed up and gave Peter a tape of Dirty Dancing. Paige wants to watch it, and Peter says she has seen it eight billion times. Paige explains it's because Patrick Swayze is in it, resulting in the Ironic Echo of Peter saying, "Oh, that's a reason."
    • Jason does this quite a bit. It started with seeing Batman (1989) four times in a row. Later instances involve seeing Terminator 2: Judgment Day somewhere in the low-eighties and attempting to see X-Men enough to memorize it.
  • In Garfield, Jon once takes Liz to the movie The Sludge Monster Meets Vermin Man, which he and Garfield already saw eight times.
  • In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin demands to be read a book called Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie every night before bed. His dad hates it.

    Fan Works 
  • In Not Normal Harry's father admits to having seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail forty-seven times.
  • In You're My Density a minor character strikes out in a pub and one of his buddies heckles him.
    Hey Marty, so is it Back to the Future for the two hundred and eighteenth time tonight? You might as well, it seems like you've nothing else on.
  • In Scandalous Affair Lucius has seen Carmina Burana twenty-seven times.
  • Emerald Flight Book One: Union:
    Clark Kent: Hey, it's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I remember this special, I watched it a few times when I was a kid.
    Martha Kent: A few times, Clark?
    Jonathan Kent: Yeah, you seemed to watch it about a dozen times a year. I wouldn't be surprised if you could recite the entire thing by heart.
  • Never Cut Twice (a Naruto fanfic): While numbers aren't specified, Kisame Hoshigaki is noted as being a huge fan of Jaws; he used to own the world's largest collection of memorabilia from the film (but had to leave it behind when he became a missing-nin) and makes a habit of periodically going to a theater and watching every showing of the movie that day. While loudly cheering for the shark (he has a very unique view of the film, which tends to weird out other viewers in the same theater). Itachi, when explaining all this to Naruto and Temari, also grumbles about Kisame having dragged him in to see it seven times.
  • Cat Tales: When Clayface returns to the Iceberg during "Blueprints", Sly recognizes him as the actor he used to be and exclaims that "I have seen Space Tempest like 60 times!"
  • Eye of the Storm: Used twice in the midquel A Midsummer Night's Chaos:
    • When Vader agrees to babysit for Rachel while her parents are out, she decides she wants to watch a movie. After rejecting Star Wars, Vader agrees to "suffer through a fifteenth showing" of Finding Nemo (which Rachel adores but Vader can't stand).
    • When he starts to fanboy about the arrival of the real Darth Vader at their Sons of the Sith meeting, Darth Ramirez is reminded of how he bragged about having seen Return of the Jedi "no less than fifty-seven times", and should therefore remember that Vader is a traitor to their Order.
  • Changes, a Ranma ½ fic by gromittd, has Genma Saotome reveal to his new partner in crime (a panda named Frank) that he's seen The Italian Job (1969) thirty-seven times. This comes in handy when he has to escape the police after being caught driving a car while in panda form.
  • In The Chessmaster: Black Pawn Harry has read The Hobbit seventeen times.
  • Unspeakably Recruited mentions that Neville dragged Harry to see GoldenEye six times the year it was released.
  • Brief Encounter mentions that Harry's seen the movie Brief Encounter so many times that he could practically recite the lines along with the actors.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Badhaai Do: Shardul says he watched Pumping Iron over 30 times to motivate himself to get jacked.
  • In Barbie (2023), Depression Barbie's ad states she's watched the 1995 series of Pride and Prejudice seven times.
  • Beetlejuice has "seen The Exorcist about a hundred and sixty-seven times" (and it keeps getting funnier every time he sees it).
  • In The Muppets Take Manhattan, Scooter takes a job as an usher at a theater showing the 3D film Attack of the Killer Fish. When Lew Zealand heads in without taking a pair of glasses, Scooter follows him in with a pair — and learns Lew doesn't need them because "I've seen this movie ninety-seven times!" His favorite part is when the fish attack, at which point he tosses his boomerang fish around the theater to add to the excitement (the other moviegoers think it's All Part of the Show).
  • In Strange Brew, Bob says that Doug saw Return of the Jedi 17 times.
  • In High School Musical, Chad mentions that his mother has seen The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway 27 times.
  • In Smoke Signals, Victor Joseph tweaks Thomas Builds-The-Fire over how many times the latter has seen Dances with Wolves.
  • In Tropic Thunder, Alpa Chino says he's seen Tugg Speedman's first "Scorcher" movie twenty times when he was in 8th Grade.
  • Played for Drama during the opening scene of Scream (1996). Casey claims to have watched Friday the 13th "twenty goddamn times" in response to being told that she gave the wrong answer to a trivia question about it (which asked her to name the killer) with the stakes being her boyfriend's life. Unfortunately for Casey, the killer was not talking about the series as a whole, but the original movie, whose killer was not Jason Voorhees but his mother. The boyfriend gets Gutted Like a Fish soon after.
  • The Cable Guy crosses this with Critical Backlash when he says of Waterworld "I don't know what all the fuss is about. I've seen that movie six times; it rules!" Mind you, he says this after quoting a line that Kevin Costner's character never actually says in the movie.
  • The phrase itself isn't used outright in Prometheus, but it's clear David gets many of his preconceptions about himself from repeated viewings of Lawrence of Arabia while the crew of his ship are in stasis.
  • In the Dutch movie Filmpje (1995) with comedian Paul De Leeuw the hopelessly naïve woman Annie de Rooy has watched The Wizard of Oz thousands of times and still goes to see it every day. The local film theater only keeps programming it just for her.
  • In The Ωmega Man the last person on Earth visits an abandoned movie theater, activates the projector by himself and plays Woodstock alone for himself. He has clearly watched it countless times, given the fact that he is able to quote it line by line by this point.
    • The remake I Am Legend has a similar scene with the protagonist quoting Shrek line by line.
  • Alien in Spring Breakers cultivates his gangsta creds by having Scarface (1983) on repeat.
  • The end of the Canadian slasher film The Wisher (aka Spliced) ends with voiceover exposition from Ron Silver explaining the killer was an obsessive horror movie nut who was basing his killings on a fictional in-story film, which he is especially noted as having viewed "25 times in one week" during its theatrical run.
  • In Laserblast when the police are questioning the witnesses of the explosions Billy caused with a laser gun the night before, one officer says to another that one of the witnesses, Froggy "must've seen Star Wars 5 times" after hearing his account of the event.
  • Overdrawn at the Memory Bank: The plot is set off by the protagonist getting caught watching Casablanca over and over again instead of working. As a result, his simulated reality inside the HX-368 computer ends up becoming an ersatz version of both Rick's nightclub and the titular city.
  • In Jane Wants a Boyfriend, Jane has seen her favorite old movies, like Kansas City Confidential, so many times that she can recite the dialogue from memory.
  • In Molly (1999), Molly's favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz, which she watches almost every day. At one point she makes her babysitter watch the flying monkey scene six times in a row.
  • In You've Got Mail, Meg Ryan's character mentions that she reads Pride and Prejudice every year.
  • In The Video Dead, after zombie hunter Joshua pulls out a chainsaw, his younger partner Jeff claims that his all-time favourite horror film is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974, and that he's seen it 6 times.
  • In Mermaid Down, the mental patient Charlotte has been rereading the romance novel Water Bound for the last two years.

    Literature 
  • The Baby-Sitters Club:
    • Stacey states that her favorite film is Mary Poppins and watches it at least once a week, adding up to hundreds of viewings.
    • Kristy (at least) makes a similar remark about Dawn's repeated viewings of The Parent Trap.
  • In Bruce Campbell's autobiography If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor, Bruce describes the difference between a mainstream movie and a cult film as 1,000,000 people watching a movie 10 times and 10 people watching a movie 1,000,000 times.
  • In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman mentions that he has rented the movie Body Double 37 times. One chapter follows his train of thought at a video rental store as he picks the movie out "as if he'd been programmed." He also pretends to ignore "the horrified reaction" of a store employee who recognizes Bateman upon being handed the movie box when renting it out for what would be the 38th time. He sometimes likes to describe some of the film's more violent moments to both the reader and other characters throughout the story. "The power drill scene" is Patrick's favorite part.
  • In Life, the Universe and Everything, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged asks his ship computer if there's any movie he hasn't already seen "over thirty-thousand times." However, this is less about devotion or obsession and more about him being bored with immortality.
  • The nerds in "One of Us" from the anthology Geetkastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd have all seen something — be it Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc. — tons of times. They take pride in this when talking with each other, but they seem to be embarrassed with others.
  • In Good Omens:
    • Crowley highlights the unending sameness of Heaven by implying that it's nothing but watching The Sound of Music over and over. "And you'll enjoy it."
    • Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell is noted to have seen The Devil Rides Out fifteen times, sixteen if you count the time he got thrown out of the cinema for loudly criticizing the main character's demon-fighting methods.
    • Also from Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys has a scene where its hero, Charlie, is being mind controlled to get out of his apartment for a few hours, and ends up at a movie theatre watching Eraserhead over and over again. He's not sure he fully understood it the first time.
  • 1-800-Where-R-U: Jess and Ruth have seen Point Of No Return nine times. Apparently it's the only movie that they know of which fits both of their tastes in movies — Ruth prefers films with beauty makeovers, and Jess (at the time) likes films with explosions.
  • Camp Haunted Hills: In the first book, Stuart Glassman admits to having seen Battle For the Galaxy fifteen times the first week it was open.
  • In Bruce Coville's I Was a Sixth Grade Alien series, protagonist Tim Tompkins mentions in the first book that he's been waiting for aliens to contact Earth since the first time he saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and that he's seen it 47 times by that point.
  • It's said in Welcome to Night Vale that Diane (and most other people in Night Vale) has seen John Franheimer's 1973 adaptation of The Iceman Cometh at the local movie theater dozens of times in her life, as there were nightly screenings of it by Night Vale city ordinance.
  • Roy Pond's The Mummy Monster Game: In book 1, Josh and Amy's cousin Harry has seen the horror film Blood From the Mummy's Tomb six times (not counting the time he watches it with his cousins in the book). His Egyptologist mother has apparently also watched it many times and thinks it's funny.
  • In the Beavis And Butthead book "Beavis & Butthead's Huh-Huh For Hollywood", it's mentioned that Beavis saw Backdraft 27 times the year it came out.
  • March from The Eagle Tree has seen a documentary about Julia Butterfly Hill 117 times.
  • In Moving Pictures, when the owner of the Odium is rhapsodising to Dibbler about Sword of Passione, he says his wife reported several women swooning over Victor, then suspiciously notes that she watched it five times herself.
  • A Twist of the Knife: How Maureen Bates met theatrical producer Ahmet and eventually went to work for him: he was doing the booking for Cats and found out that Maureen had seen the show a hundred times.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The trope name and page quote come from the pilot episode of Freaks and Geeks when Neal is giving his opinion of Sam's chances of going to a school dance with Cindy. Of note, the show takes place in 1980, so Neal would be suggesting that Sam has seen A New Hope (1977) twenty-seven times within three years of its release (and before the film was released on home video).
  • Something of a Running Gag on Scrubs, Turk and J.D. have watched Judge Dredd together on a surprising number of occasions. In the episode "My Déjà Vu My Déjà Vu," Turk invites J.D. to watch the movie at his place at which point they both loudly proclaim in unison, "NINETY-NINTH VIEWING" before high-fiving each other.
    • They and Elliot have also watched Red Dawn (1984) together, two at a time or all three of them, many, many times.
  • The X-Files:
    • Fox Mulder reveals in the episode "Hollywood, A.D." that he has seen Plan 9 from Outer Space forty-two times. He claims that the sheer badness of the film numbs his brain, allowing him to make intuitive leaps and solve problems that have him stumped.
      Scully: You've seen this movie 42 times?
      Mulder: Yes.
      Scully: Doesn't that make you sad? It makes me sad.
    • In an earlier episode, the agents ran across a woman who was convinced she'd been impregnated by Luke Skywalker. This becomes even more hilarious when it is revealed she's seen Star Wars 368 times and was hoping to break 400 by Memorial Day.
    • And in the infamous episode "Home", Scully mentions having babysat her nephew the previous weekend, and claims that he watches Babe "fifteen times a day".
  • In the Friends episode "The One With The Prom Video," Monica says that Roy, her prom date, had seen Star Wars 317 times. His name was in the paper. (At the time of the clip, set in 1984, the movie was only available on laserdisc; however, it had been re-released to theatres multiple times since its original 1977 run).
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • Teal'c has seen Star Wars ten times. Not that large a number compared to some on this page, but the humor comes from the fact that he's a Fish out of Water, unfamiliar with Earth culture... except movies. He recognizes John McClane's name and, upon having the concept of a virgin conception described to him, immediately thinks of Darth Vader.
    • In another episode, the joke is reversed when it's revealed that O'Neill has not seen Star Wars even ONE time and Carter considers him to be the weird one.
    O'Neill: Oh, come on Carter. You know me and sci-fi.
  • In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, when Carlton's ex-girlfriend comes back with a baby she claims is his, Will explains to Phil and Vivian that the baby belongs to "a young man who has seen The Little Mermaid 8 times."
  • Humorously used in this scene in The Wonder Years episode "Eclipse" where Chuck, who is uncomfortable with the creepy man who picked him up while he was hitchhiking, tries to lighten the mood by sharing how he's reminded of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents story about a man with "a big butcher knife" who was picking up hitchhikers. Getting creeped out by the man again, Chuck decides to drop the discussion, leading to the following exchange:
    Chuck: Nevermind, probably didn't see the episode... Did you?
    Creepy Guy: 27 times! [creepy stare]
    • Chuck quickly leaps out of the moving pickup truck.
  • In Top Gear, the Stig's African cousin has seen The Lion King 1,780 times.
  • In Lois & Clark, Perry White mentions having seen Godzilla '85 on cable over a hundred times because he liked seeing Elvira present it.
  • Glee has a moment like this with one of their new characters, Sam, who, up till that moment, seemed like just your average jock. When helping him clean up some blue slushie stains that he'd gotten on his uniform, Quinn mentions that it can dye your clothes "Like those aliens in Avatar." Sam's immediate reaction is "I watched that film seven times! Lor menari," (apparently, it's "you have beautiful eyes" in Na'vi.)
  • British comedian Toby Hadoke played a character in Holby City who shamelessly boasted how many times he had seen The Matrix, the slight irony being that Hadoke himself is famously enthusiastic about Doctor Who.
  • On Saturday Night Live, Tracy Morgan once said he's seen Star Wars 500 times.
  • In the Sports Night episode "Thespis", after Jeremy gives Dana some sage advice, she gives him the backhanded compliment, "You know, for a guy who's read The Hobbit 14 times, you're not so dumb."
  • The Big Bang Theory:
    • Sheldon mentions having played 3000 hours of World of Warcraft.
    • Penny often can't understand why the gang of four rewatch movies like Star Wars so many times, especially one time when they were going to a theatrical showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark to see a promised 20 seconds of never before seen footage.
    • Sheldon says he's seen Raiders "36 times. Except for the snake scene and the face-melting scene, which I can only watch when it's still light out".
  • On Go On, Mr. K claims to have seen Mary Poppins over 500 times... but not by choice. "It's a compulsion known as supercalifragilisticexpialidocia."
  • In the I Spy episode "So Long Patrick Henry", Kelly is annoyed that Scotty hired a kid to be a lookout for them who was constantly making James Bond references, having seen the still in theatres film Goldfinger 27 times.
  • In a special episode of Siskel & Ebert in which the critics pick their all-time favorite scenes of specific genres, Gene Siskel picked for Best Musical Scene the dancing contest scene from Saturday Night Fever. Roger Ebert remarked he "could have guessed that would be the movie you would pick, since I know you've seen that film 27 times."
  • In the Sopranos episode "A Hit Is a Hit", one-off Gangsta Rap exec Massive Genius expresses his admiration for the Cosa Nostra by saying he had watched The Godfather "like 200 times."
  • The BBC television and radio series I've Never Seen Star Wars uses the opposite of this as its premise. British celebrities came on the show and tried out various things they'd never done before such as listening to Thriller by Michael Jackson, reading The Da Vinci Code, or eating a Big Mac.
  • The Middle revealed that Axl Heck knows about black holes from Hot Tub Time Machine many times, Celebrity Paradoxnote  be damned!
  • In the 80s sitcom Square Pegs, La Donna Hendricks, who has a star complex, says she's seen "Fame" 75 times.
  • In The Get Down, Ra Ra had seen A New Hope 57 times by 1978.
  • Supernatural: In "Scoobynatural," where Sam, Dean, and Castiel are plopped into the Scooby-Doo episode "A Night Of Fright Is No Delight," Dean says he's seen the episode a million times, so he knows what is supposed to happen. Except, it doesn't.
  • For All Mankind. The astronauts on stranded on the Jamestown Moon Base only have a videotape of The Bob Newhart Show for entertainment. They've seen it so many times that when the tape player breaks down they're able to reenact the entire show by rote.
  • A similar scene happens in M*A*S*H when Hawkeye complains about how the Army has just sent them the one movie to watch by reenacting the entire dialogue with the sound off.
  • Full House: In "El Problema Grande De D.J.", when Uncle Jesse discovers that Kimmy Gibbler got a C in Spanish while D.J. got a D, Kimmy tells him that she saw La Bamba five times.
  • In the Family Ties episode "Father, Can You Spare a Dime?" Mallory and Nick watch 101 Dalmatians for the 101st time.

    Magazines 
  • MAD: One issue had a bit that looked at scenes from redneck life all over the country. It included one family in which the highest status symbol is how many times you've seen Smokey and the Bandit, with the champion sitting down to his six hundredth viewing.

    Music 

    Newspapers 

    Podcasts 
  • This is the premise of The Worst Idea of All Time, where the two hosts, Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery, watch the same film once a week and then review it for a year for each season. There is a reason for the podcast's title, though — namely because the subjects the duo pick for the podcast aren't exactly films that are known for being great or just alright or not even So Bad, It's Good, but rather some that are remembered for being rather bad at worst and somewhat pedestrian at best, such as Grown Ups 2, Sex and the City 2, and We Are Your Friends.
  • The premise of the early episodes of Blank Check with Griffin & David was them analyzing every aspect of all the Star Wars movies, meaning they fell into this trope just by virtue of doing the podcast.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Theatre 
  • In the musical adaptation of American Psycho, Patrick Bateman's movie rental fixation is changed from Body Double in the original book to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
    Video Store Clerk: You've rented this movie 37 times.
    Patrick: [slowly leaning in] And I find something new every... single... time.
  • In Beyond the Fringe, one sketch is about a man who has seen an unnamed theatre show nearly 500 times, because he'd heard a rumour that members of the royal family were going to attend... someday.

    Video Games 
  • The main character in For Love of Digby has the distinction of having seen Digby the World's Biggest Dog "six or ten or eighteen times. But it's a classic."
  • In the final mission of Saints Row: The Third, after Pierce asks the Boss if they've got anything to get off their chest, a Boss speaking with Male Voice 1 will admit that he's read Jane Eyre thirteen times.
  • In Persona 5, Futaba claims to have seen a movie called Back to the Ninja "like 50 times," but says that seeing it with the player character in the Yongen-Jaya movie theater is more fun than seeing it alone in her room.
  • In Homescapes Scotty states that he's seen The Avenge-Hers a hundred times and would be more than willing to watch it a hundred more.

    Visual Novels 
  • In Heart of the Woods, Maddie, the main character, has apparently watched 2001: A Space Odyssey many times, since she often watches movies to relax.
    Tara: How many times can you watch 2001 without getting sick of it?
    Maddie:(cheerfully) I dunno, but I intend to find out.

    Web Comics 

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo episode "That's Monstertainment" has Flim-Flam McScam claim to have seen The Son of The Bride of The Ghost of Frankenstein 100 times.
  • According to The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The DVD", Gumball is said to have seen "Alligators on a Train" 72 times.
  • In the CatDog episode "Spaced Out", Dog wanted to see Mean Bob in Space, Part 12 for the 73rd time. Dunglap also wanted to see the movie for the 74th time in the same episode.
  • In Class of 3000, Sunny Bridges has seen Free Willy 40 times.
  • In an episode of Doug, the title character mentions in his voice-over that he and Skeeter saw a Smash Adams movie 7 times.
  • King of the Hill:
    • In the episode "Now Who's The Dummy?", Bobby starts naming off rules and facts for golf during a game, and Hank asks how he knows so much about it. Bobby explains, "I've seen Happy Gilmore 50 times", to which Hank replies, "I hate Adam Sandler!"
    • In an earlier episode, Hank mentions having rented The Great Santini 23 times.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In the episode "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie", Milhouse brags about seeing the Itchy & Scratchy movie 15 times and Nelson brags that he saw it 17 times. Bart (who has been grounded from seeing the movie after failing to watch Maggie) tries to joke that the two must have been sick of seeing it and ends up getting chased by Nelson and Milhouse because they know he would make that joke if he hadn't seen the movie himself.
    • In "Co-Dependents Day", after the latest Cosmic Wars movie "The Gathering Shadow" is a disappointment, Comic Book Guy makes the following comment.
      Comic Book Guy: Worst Cosmic Wars ever! I will only see it three more times. Today.
  • South Park:
  • Steven Universe: In "Log Date 7 15 2", Peridot becomes a shipper, drawing up charts and graphs detailing which characters are an ideal match for each other, after watching a single episode of the Soap Within a Show Camp Pining Hearts for nearly three days straight.
  • Total Drama

    Real Life 
  • This phenomenon is very common with children. They love repetition and are at an age where they are far more immersed in stories, because they are still discovering the world. Plus, they are not yet aware of or bothered by clichés and platitudes. If it holds their attention then they feel it's good.
  • Autistic people commonly watch/read favorite movies, shows, books, comics etc. over and over again, to a degree neurotypicals can find concerning. For example, someone with a special interest in Jane Austen might re-read her books dozens or hundreds of times.
  • According to some stories, Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi) was once asked for an autograph by a fan who claimed to have watched the first Star Wars film a hundred times. Alec gave him the autograph but only under the condition that he never watch it again.
    • Guinness' autobiography A Positively Final Appearance confirms that the story did indeed happen. Guinness, however, states that the boy's mother dragged her crying son away after Guinness' request, and he never mentions actually giving the autograph.
    • Ironically, Guinness himself was not immune to this — he never traveled anywhere without taking an Anthony Trollope novel to re-read.
  • The 2009 film Avatar spawned many examples of this. Several threads exist on one Avatar forum relating to how many times each poster has seen the movie. The second even has photos of ticket stubs as proof...
    • Conan O'Brien saw the film five times during the first three weeks of release and even learned Na'vi (which he demonstrated on one of the last episodes of his run on The Tonight Show).
  • Fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show are well known for this. Somebody who's seen the film twenty times is still a neophyte. A few fans claim to have watched the film over 1,000 times, equivalent to once a week for twenty years.
    • It's common for live casts to fish out first-time viewers ("virgins") by having the entire audience stand, then sit as they count down how many times they've seen the film note .
  • In the first of his autobiographies, Moab Is My Washpot, Stephen Fry stated that in his schoolboy days, he and a few friends went to see A Clockwork Orange, The Godfather, and Cabaret over and over, each one having different elements that appealed to him at the time. He ended up cutting a lot of school to do it, however, and was eventually expelled.
  • Apparently, a fan once approached Edgar Wright and asked him to sign his ticket stubs for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World... all 55 of them.
  • The writer of this essay on IMDb claims to have seen Beauty and the Beast a grand total of three-hundred and eighty-one times, as of 2003. Going from Dec 31, 1991, to Jan 1, 2003, that adds up to around 4015 days, adding up to once every ten days.
  • A San Francisco youth made national news when saw the movie Rocky 81 times (and possibly more) during its first-run release in 1976 and 1977. After the 27th viewing, the theatre started letting him in for free.
  • Christopher Lee once stated that he had read The Lord of the Rings all the way through every year after it was first published. It was for this reason that he was one of the main consultants for Peter Jackson's film adaptations, in addition to playing Saruman in them.
  • Alas, John Hinckley, Jr. watched Taxi Driver 15 times in a row and got the entirely wrong idea from it, stalking an actress in it, and attempting to assassinate the President (something like in the movie) because she wasn't impressed.
  • When Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out in 1988, legendary animator Shamus Culhane recommended that all serious students of animation watch it several times; it was that groundbreaking, he claimed.
  • Roberto Sadovski, best known for editing defunct Brazilian movie magazine Set, declared in an interview that he saw Batman (1989) over 50 times when it was in theaters in 1989, while adding that ending movie night at his house with a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark is a constant. Another time he wrote that he saw The Matrix over six times in theaters while he was travelling to New York (the movie having not entered his country yet), and just about every month he watches it again.
  • Howard Hughes is said to have watched Ice Station Zebra 150 times in the years leading up to his death. Initially, he bought a Las Vegas TV station (KLAS) so he could have the film (among others) aired on demand; he would even call up the station and order that a technician rewind the movie if he wanted to see a scene again. He eventually traded up to a private screening room, in which the movie played in a continuous loop. note 
  • Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz watched Citizen Kane more than 40 times during his lifetime, something he also referenced in his comic strip.
  • At the last The Idolmaster movie screening at Shinjuku's Ward 9 theater, one fan revealed to the Aniplex representatives there that he saw it 102 times during its theatrical run.
  • Hillary Clinton has said she saw Casablanca numerous times when she was in college.
  • Disney animator Andreas Deja (who animated Jafar for Aladdin, among other assignments), says that as a kid in the 1960s he thought The Jungle Book was so cool that he went to see it every day for a while, to the point that his mother began to worry about him. That was the film that convinced Deja he wanted to become an animator.
  • Jennifer Lopez said in a 2009 interview that she watched West Side Story (1961) "37 times growing up", but: "I never wanted to be that wimpy Maria... I wanted to be Anita, who danced her way to the top."
  • Tom Hanks has seen 2001: A Space Odyssey "over 40 times" and claimed: "You can look at it over and over and ponder its meaning."
  • Daft Punk claimed one of the biggest formative experiences as teenagers was Phantom of the Paradise, which they saw over 20 times together in the theater. It's no surprise the duo adopted similar robotic personas. Or that they managed to eventually collaborate with the film's star\composer Paul Williams!
  • There are apps and social media sites, such as Trakt.tv or the defunct TV Tag/Get Glue, that can keep track of the number of times a person has seen a movie or TV series episodes. Each tally is recorded whenever someone using the app checks in to say they're watching a program.
  • Osamu Tezuka claimed he saw Bambi over 80 times in the theater as a child, he was able to see it so much because he came from a wealthy family in Osaka, Japan.
  • Tom Hall of id Software fame saw Star Wars 33 times as a kid (according to the book Masters of Doom).
  • Richard Garriott became fixated with the film Time Bandits when it came out in 1981, and he watched it over and over ("like 20 times") with his friends. This was mostly because he wanted to make an accurate copy of the magical map in the movie, only shown in brief glimpses. (Time Bandits went on to provide inspiration for Garriott's Ultima II.)
  • The Marvel Cinematic Universe has some really dedicated fans:
  • As made clear by the responses here, it's easy to find fans of Alita: Battle Angel who have seen the movie a lot in theaters, as high as 77 or 119.
  • A very devoted French fan of Kaamelott has seen The Movie, Kaamelott: Premier Volet, 204 times in theaters (all the more impressive due to the film being released during the COVID-19 Pandemic). Director and actor Alexandre Astier promised he would attend a screening with him, and he obliged on the 200th time.
  • NBA player Michael Kidd-Gilchrist watches The Lion King every week as a tribute to his late father, as both used to see the movie together until the father's murder when Michael was 3.
  • Crispin Glover said that he "went and saw Eraserhead at least 12 or 13 times at the Friday midnight shows at the Nuart Theater in Los Angeles in 1980" while doing publicity for when he worked with director David Lynch, Wild at Heart.
  • In a 2021 interview, Paul Mills, then the head men's basketball coach at Oral Roberts University, claimed to have seen Hoosiers over 1,000 times. In the same story, Baylor head coach Scott Drew, who had previously been Mills' boss, said, "Literally, you can pause it at any time in the movie and he’ll give you the next 10 lines in a row. He has it memorized."
  • One of the reviews for Turning Red references this phenomenon saying "It’s one of those special movies where during your first viewing you already know there’s going to be a 100th viewing someday.".
  • It's not unusual for people to watch their favorite holiday films once a year during the appropriate holiday season. If nothing else, TV channels will air Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and at least one of the seemingly infinite variations of A Christmas Carol every December, and some people will watch them.
  • Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik admitted to having watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter an unspecified amount of times, but phrased it as "so many times", when the film was an answer to a clue in an episode.

Alternative Title(s): Saw Star Wars 27 Times, Watched It A Hundred Times

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