The Criterion Challenge - 2025
A 52 Film Journey on Letterboxd
Happy Holidays!
As we wrap up the year, I wanted to share a movie watching challenge I tackled and recently completed for the third year in a row.
Letterboxd & Watch Challenges
If you aren’t already familiar with Letterboxd, it’s like IMDb but more specialized for interaction. You can keep a diary of the the movies you watch, leave reviews and comment on others’ reviews, and you can create and share lists with the community. The users of Letterboxd tend to be more passionate about film and filmmakers, so the site seems to foster that culture.
One outcome of that culture is a shared partaking of “challenges”, which serve as a useful jumping off point for answering “what should I watch?” and also in deepening personal knowledge and experience about important films and filmmakers where you may have blind spots.
There are many movie watching challenges out there: “The Letterboxd Season Challenge” (in the middle of its 11th year—September-May) contains 33 weeks of interesting categories. “Hooptober” has been an ongoing horror film challenge for 12 years during the month of October. Additionally, there are other less rigorous or strict challenge-adjacent themes, such as “Japanuary” (watch as many films from Japan in January as possible), “Noirvember” (watch film noirs in November), and the “Oscars Death Race” (watch as many Oscar nominated film from January-March as possible).
The Criterion Challenge
The Criterion Challenge focuses on the famed boutique film distribution company, The Criterion Collection, whose mission statement states that it’s “dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements”. The challenge was started by Letterboxd user benvsthemovies in 2021 and is about to begin its 6th year.
The rules of the challenge are to watch 52 films from 52 categories throughout the year, in any order you choose. You get to choose the movies from Criterion’s disk releases (preferred) or even anything that is streaming on their “Criterion Channel” streaming service (many of their disc releases are found there). By the end of the year, you will have ideally experienced many new great films and broadened your knowledge of film and culture.
This being my third year in a row of taking the challenge, I’m obviously a fan. The challenge is such an encouraging way to push me outside of my comfort zone and to finally hit play on the films I’ve always wanted to watch, but haven’t gotten around to. Many of the films watched the past three years have been added to my top 100 favorite films list.
Here are some fun stats from the challenge:
Rating Highlights: I gave eight films 5 stars, fifteen 4.5 stars, and just eight movies 3 stars or below
Longest and Shortest: The longest film was a documentary—Hoop Dreams (1994), at 2 hours 54 minutes long. The shortest was also a doc—Robert Drew’s 1963 film Crisis that clocks in at just 52 minutes (to fulfill the category “Watch a film shorter than 80 minutes”).
Greatest Discovery: Yoyo (1965) and the comedy of Pierre Etaix. His films have that wonderful blend of heart and humor that you can get from his contemporaries like Jacques Tati and predecessors like Chaplin and Keaton. He also influenced the work of Jerry Lewis and by proxy, Jim Carrey. Thanks to the challenge category “Isabella Rossellini’s Adventures in Moviegoing” for introducing me to Etaix! (5 stars)
Hardest film to locate: White Dog (1982). This movie is not really available in the United States. I had to dig pretty deep to find a copy. I’d always been curious about it. Since I was a kid I remember seeing the VHS cover at Blockbuster. The social commentary is interesting and inventive, but the film is very low budget with bad acting and writing. (3 stars)
Least Favorite Film: Wanda (1970) by Barbara Loden. I can appreciate this movie from an independent filmmaker’s perspective, but as a casual viewer I found it pretty depressing and hard to watch. (2 stars)
Around the World: One great benefit of the Criterion Challenge is discovering films from around the world. Some countries I watched films from include: Poland, Australia, India, Germany, Brazil, Japan, and Senegal.
The simple act of going through each category and choosing a film to fulfill it is a fun exercise on its own. It’s a little challenging, usually taking me a couple days of going through every category. Once I have everything picked out I get a rush of excitement, looking forward to most of the movies, while also feeling some anxiety over certain daunting picks. The greatest part is being surprised by a 5 star find (looking at you Hobson’s Choice). But there’s the equally disappointing moment of disliking a movie you thought you’d enjoy. Below is the final list (sortable and searchable) of my 2025 journey—every category, film, and rating.
What’s Next?
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. Next week, I’ll be back with a full wrap-up of the films released in 2025 and a look at my 382 first-time watches of the year (and counting!). Then, in early January, I’ll reveal my picks for the 2026 Criterion Challenge—three of which are already set to be longer than anything I tackled in 2025. I hope you’ll join me for the journey next year!