TV

Leverage
4x01 The Long Way Down Job

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x68 Week 14: Wednesday
5x69 Week 14: Thursday
5x70 Week 14: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Grantchester
6x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x66 Week 14: Monday
5x67 Week 14: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x63 Week 12: Wednesday
5x64 Week 13: Thursday
5x65 Week 13: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Shetland
6x06 Episode 6 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x60 Week 12: Friday
5x61 Week 13: Monday
5x62 Week 13: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Shetland
6x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

this week on 100Films.co.uk

A new era began this week on 100 Films. For starters, it's been rebranded as 100Films.co.uk. Learn more below...


A new era begins...

Welcome to my new-look blog! Don’t worry, you’re going to find a lot of it familiar — I haven’t changed the underlying template, and all the old posts are still there... Primarily, it’s a new name and a new logo, which is showcased on the front page in dozens of randomly-changing header images... More substantively, along with the revised aesthetics comes an adjusted focus.

Read more here.


The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge

Just like its title, this new version is similar but different. My original challenge was wholly straightforward: watch 100 films I’d never seen before every year... But this brand-new version of the challenge… well, it’s going to require some explaining... You see, rather than just watching any old 100 films, now there are a selection of categories, and films will need to fulfil criteria to qualify. Whereas the old challenge merely motivated me to watch more films, this new version is designed to encourage me to watch certain kinds of films.

Read more here.


But the old era still requires some wrapping up — my "review of 2021" posts started last week, and continued this week with...


2021 Statistics

one of my personal highlights of the entire year: the statistics. Regular readers will know what this is all about, but if you’re new to these parts and enjoy things like percentages and graphs… oh boy, you’re in for a treat!

Read more here.


The Worst of 2021

‘Worst of’ lists have become widely unpopular in the film-viewing community in recent years... but film watching inevitably involves taking the rough with the smooth... Also, I’ve done this list for 14 of 100 Films in a Year’s 15 years, so now would be an odd time to stop

Read more here.


The Best of 2021

Finally, for the last time (not really the last time): what I consider to be the best (or, more accurately, my favourite) films I saw for the first time in 2021 (that bit’s correct)... it’s 10% of whatever my final total is. This year that total was 207, so it rounds to 21. (If you think that’s too many for a list like this, feel free to scroll down and start wherever you like.)

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x59 Week 12: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Shetland
6x04 Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Carry On Spying (1964)
[#1 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Number of titles in collection: 2,752 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,055 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,697 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 141 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 6,907 [up 2]
Number of films: 3,266 [up 2]
Number of additional cuts: 247 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,226 [no change]
Number of short films: 934 [up 4]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x57 Week 12: Tuesday
5x58 Week 12: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Shetland
6x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
8x10 Episode 10 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x56 Week 12: Monday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Shetland
6x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x53 Week 11: Wednesday
5x54 Week 11: Thursday
5x55 Week 11: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Great British Bake Off
12x10 The Final [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x52 Week 11: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Shetland
6x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
8x09 Episode 9
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x50 Week 10: Friday
5x51 Week 11: Monday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Agatha Raisin
4x01 Kissing Christmas Goodbye [Christmas special]

The Great British Bake Off
12x09 Pâtisserie Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x48 Week 10: Wednesday
5x49 Week 10: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

It's the last Collection Count of the year! No, not of 2022 — I know it's already January 2nd, but I didn't get anything new this year (yet), so this is really the last count for 2021. (Also, it was meant to be posted yesterday, but sorting out all the numbers took time.)

The big addition this week is Severin's box set of folk horror, All the Haunts Be Ours, which across 12 discs (plus 3 CDs) contains a whopping 22 films and 14 shorts (not to mention all the other special features). There's also Fim Detective's The Sherlock Holmes Vault, containing four films from the 1930s plus a bunch of shorts. Together, they represent some significant increases for the final update of the year.

Also this week, as well as the usual stats, it's time for a monthly running time update. Plus, as I said, it's the annual wrapup, so we can also see how things have increased since 2020's final count.

Number of titles in collection: 2,750 [up 3 this week; up 240 in 2021]
Of which DVDs: 1,055 [no change this week; down 26 in 2021]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,695 [up 3 this week; up 266 in 2021]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 141 [up 1 this week; up 48 in 2021]

Ending the year on a nice rounded number of 2,750 titles? I like it. But that increase... Last year's title increase was 234, which I described as "mad" because the previous high was 154 — and now there's a new high! Oh dear. Moving on...

Number of discs in collection: 6,905 [up 18 this week; up 459 in 2021]
Number of films: 3,264 [up 27 this week; up 363 in 2021]
Number of additional cuts: 247 [up 1 this week; up 44 in 2021]
Number of TV episodes: 9,226 [up 1 this week; up 244 in 2021]
Number of short films: 930 [up 21 this week; up 119 in 2021]

459 discs in one year?! Bloody hell! But last year it was over 500, so... As for 244 episodes of TV, that's a new low, down from last year's then-new low of 289. I think it's partly me buying less TV, but also less TV making it to disc nowadays (whither a Blu-ray box set of The Americans, hmm?), not to mention a lot of the 'best' TV having shorter seasons.

Total running time of collection (approx.):
497 days, 5 hours, and 20 minutes.
(Up 6 days, 13 hours, and 12 minutes from last month.)
(Up 30 days, 14 hours, and 48 minutes from last year.)

That's a massive increase for just one month (all those many-film box sets, I guess), but last year's annual increase was larger (over 32 days). Still, the average is around 23 days, so 2021 was no shirk. Last year I said "I do hope I manage to calm it down again next year" and, well, I guess I did... but not much, eh? Maybe next year...

And that begins next week, when I'll definitely have more stuff to add. There's no stopping me! See you then, faithful reader.

this week on 100 Films

No reviews on 100 Films in a Year this week, but my look back at 2021 is underway...


2021: The Full List

As revealed in my December review, 2021 finished on a tally of 207 new films — my third highest ever. They’re all listed below, in alphabetical order

Read more here.


My Most-Read Posts of 2021

2021 was a relatively quiet year for me, review-wise — I made just 55 posts, vs. over 120 in each of 2019 and 2020, and over 200 in 2018 and 2017. Nonetheless, that’s still enough from which to draw a Top 5, right?

Read more here.


There was also the December monthly review, which obviously has a year-end-y aspect to it...





And tomorrow on 100 Films, a new era begins...

TV

The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2021
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Big New Years & Years Eve Party
Part 2 (of 2)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who
39x07 Eve of the Daleks [New Year's Day special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Happy New Year Live!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x46 Week 10: Monday
5x47 Week 10: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Big New Years & Years Eve Party
Part 1 (of 2)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Ghosts
3x07 He Came! [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

23 Walks (2020)
[#207 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

A Study in Scarlet (1933)
[#206 in 100 Films in a Year 2021]

That's it for another year of 100 Films. The last year? Well, we'll see...

TV

Death in Paradise
11x00 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Great British Bake Off
12x08 Free-From Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
8x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x44 Week 9: Thursday
5x45 Week 9: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]