Cinema Wellman’s 2025 Unspooled
Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host, David, and first of all, Happy 2026. We wish you all a healthy and happy next 365 days.
Since everyone and their brother can do an end of the year recap, why can’t we do our own version of that here at Cinema Wellman?
We did it a couple of seasons ago, but you were denied these minutiae last year by the chipmunks.
We here at Cinema Wellman lack the invasive software to analyze what YOU watched, but we can certainly tell you how we spent our screentime in 2025.
This is, admittedly, mostly stat geek stuff, but you’re looking at a stat geek so this shouldn’t surprise you at all.
Here we go!
673 total movies (5th highest yearly total)
211 👍(31%)
394 🫤(59%)
68 💣(10%)
I really have no problem with that breakdown. Essentially a 60/30/10 split in those categories which may be close to what the splits would be if I looked at the entire 10,000+ films.
The middle ground or “meh” can sometimes be deceiving because some of them may deserve to be included in the thumbs up and others of them may deserve the bomb.
At the end of the screening, the film did nothing to distinguish itself for inclusion to either of the extremes, so meh.
I don’t want you to get the idea that all of those 394 “mehs” were a waste of my time because I can enjoy a movie without it getting a thumbs up in the archives.
Speaking of time!
54,356 minutes
(making the average runtime 82.1 minutes!)
905.9 hours
37.7 days
So…a lot of time, but that’s not news.
Next!
17 Genres
(genres with 50+ films in 2025)
1) Drama 126
2) Comedy 81
3) Foreign 69
4) Foreign (English Language) 67
5) Horror 60
t6) Mystery/Suspense/Thriller 59
t6) Shorts 59
I’m not usually one for dramas (movies or real life), but film noir movies are classified as “Drama - Crime” in the database, and at least 100 of those are film noir, so a lot of drama.
31 Different Countries
(countries with 5+ films in 2025)
USA 539
United Kingdom 49
France 13
Japan 10
Italy 8
Canada & Germany 7
Mexico & The Netherlands 5
18 Platforms
(Top 6 Platforms of 2025)
TCM 379 “Platform of 2025!”
Plex 86
Netflix 42
Amazon Prime 41
kanopy 34
Amazon $ Rental 20
Only 11 visits to AMC Theaters which led to me cancelling that subscription, and that same total for the year on HBOMAX or whatever they go by led me to cancelling that subscription.
The cancellation of those two subscriptions (totaling $43.99/month) made me more open to spending $3 or $4 on rentals which is why Amazon Rental made the top six last year.
10 Different Ratings
And if you were thinking, there aren’t 10 different ratings, you’d be correct!
Turns out 339 of last year’s films had ratings that no longer exist (P, AP, GP, M) and 122 films were NR or UR.
The #1 rating of films screened in 2025 was “AP” or “Approved” which makes sense because ALL of those film noir movies I love are rated AP.
12 Decades
Teens: 1
20s: 11
30s: 142
40s: 108
50s: 84
60s: 53
70s: 34
80s: 18
90s: 18
00s: 28
10s: 45
20s: 129
That puts our average at 1971.1 for this past year’s screenings
And one last category worth mentioning…
513 Different Directors
That’s quite a few, but I’d like to highlight the five (5) directors I saw five (5) or more of their films in 2025.
None are household names, so I wanted to give them a little shoutout.
Five films (5) screened: Robert Z. Leonard
Mr. Leonard went 1-4-0 in his five films last year in a mix of drama and comedy. There was also one silent film in the bunch.
Leonard was a two-time Oscar nominee with 162 directing credits in a career spanning six decades.
Six films (6) screened: Robert Florey
Mr. Florey went 2-4-0 in his six films which included some drama, some comedy, and some war.
Florey’s B-movies were known for running over schedule, but coming in in or under budget, which is wild!
Six films (6) screened: Frank McDonald
Mr. McDonald went 2-4-0 in his six films which were mostly comedy mysteries.
Baltimore born McDonald worked for almost every Hollywood studio at one point or another during his career that spanned over 40 years.
Six films (6) screened: Lesley Selander
Mr. Selander went 0-6-0 in his six films, and I’m about to explain why this isn’t bad at all.
Lesley Selander is generally considered to be the most prolific director of Western films of all time with at least 107 to his credit according to IMDb.
All six of the Selander films I screened were westerns, and old westerns, for me, are usually entertaining but nothing to write home about when the sun sets, which would explain the “mehs.”
And the “director of the year” is…
Seven films (7) screened: Richard L. Bare
Mr. Bare (who I assure you never made adult films) went 3-4-0 in his seven films, so these top five directors didn’t have a bomb among the 30 films in this sample size, which is why I’d go back and watch more films they made.
Bare lived to the age of 101 and made mostly short films from the early 40s and 50s before moving on to television.
Bare’s television career included seven episodes of The Twilight Zone, 34 episodes of Petticoat Junction, and 166 episodes of Green Acres, which means he was good friends with Arnold Ziffel.
Did you know that Arnold Ziffel once substitute taught for me when I taught at the Hudson Memorial School in New Hampshire?
I have the paperwork to prove that!
Well, that is a wrap for our Cinema Wellman 2025 Unspooled.
We hope you’re with us again next time as we take a look at some “Composers of Note” who provide the soundtracks in movies that make us feel all the feels.
Until then, take care.
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