The 100 Movie Challenge 2018

The 100 Movie Challenge 2018

At the start of December it was looking pretty ropey as to whether we would make it to number 100 – but after a few days between Christmas and New Year recharging from too much socialising and feeling pretty knackered after our first Christmas hosting for three days straight we had a few movie binge days and managed to catch up and complete just in the nick of time! We were off to a good start over Spring as we were moving house we were doing a lot of packing whilst watching movies as we bubble wrapped item after item, but then as soon as we were in we became much slower at progress – often taking us two or three stints to finish a film!

For those who aren’t aware, I set this Challenge up for myself and Ben to try and watch 100 different movies in one year. They can be movies that we’ve seen before but you can only count the same film once in a year. The reason I set it up was because I was fed up of having to watch Marvel Movies over and over, and now I have a way to highlight when they were last watched! There are movies that we watch by ourselves, however they only count when we watch them together. I do think it’s diversified our watching and we watch things that often we wouldn’t normally.

This year we only watched one of the Original Harry Potter films, so I suspect we may be overdue a marathon of them this year! I was also surprised at just how little Star Wars, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings we’d watched too!

This is our third complete year of this and if you’re interested in reading about our past ones you can find the 2017 edition of this here and the 2016 edition here!


We’ll start with our favourites and disappointments for the year before the final completed list. As usual I’ve roped Ben in for his opinions too.

Three Standout Films of the Year (For Any Reason)

Rachael’s Picks

One – The Greatest Showman
This was an early watch for us in 2018 back in January, but I knew from then it was going to be near on impossible to beat. I walked out the cinema in tears of combined Joy and Sadness, the movie effected my mood for weeks afterwards and to think I almost didn’t go to see it and went only off the recommendations of a few friends who knew I liked musicals. It’s definitely made a huge part of my music listening through the rest of the year too and I’m already planning to rewatching it in early 2019 as I’ve had to stop watching it in favour of others. If you like musicals I thoroughly recommend!

Two – The Crimes of Grindelwald
Whilst I did love the first Fantastic Beasts I thought this was another level of magic. The first movie was very much setting the scene for the new characters and this one turned it up a few notches. I love where this storyline is heading and it’s kept me guessing and thinking about it since we watched it as to how it ended and what might be true and what isn’t. I’m already looking forward to rewatching it when it’s out as I feel like there must have been so much I missed the first time around. I already can’t wait for the third one too!

Three – A Simple Favour
Not the biggest blockbuster out there, but I loved this movie. Starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively it features Anna Kendrick as a slightly-uptight budding Mum-youtuber and blogger who makes friends with the far more stylish and off-handsy Mum Blake Lively who suddenly disappears. It has those Gone Girl mystery vibes but it was bursting with so much wit and humour at the same time. I kind of dragged Ben to the cinema to see this (because I love Anna Kendrick) and it’s not the kind of thing we’d normally see at the cinema, but I was so glad we had gone to see this. I always forget how much I like Blake Lively in movies too, and the duo worked really well as clashing personality types.

Honorable Mentions – Christopher Robin, Ready Player One & Black Panther

Ben’s Picks

One – Avengers Infinity War
 This film has been a long time coming, and takes me from being an 18 year old university student (I still have Back in Black as my ringtone) to a proper adult (ish!) Infinity War didn’t disappoint me, setting a fantastic pace from the start. It also produced one of my favourite cinematic moments of all time – Thor’s entrance to Wakanda (more on that below).

Two – The Greatest Showman
It’s really hard not to like this film, it’s soundtrack or the production back story. It’s also produced another of my favourite film moments, the bar scene between Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron!

Three – Christopher Robin
A great film with fantastic animation. When the film finished I turned to Rachael and said simply that it might be one of my favourite films of all time.

Honorable Mentions – Fantastic Beasts – Crimes of Grindlewald, Black Panther, Goodbye Christopher Robin


Biggest Disappointment

Rachael – Avengers Infinity War

It’s not to say that this was a bad film, as I don’t think it was – but this had so much hype, in the media, in box office takings and by everyone who had seen it before me telling me how excellent it was. I think as a result it put my expectations as sky high for it and it didn’t meet them. I think that’s partially because the two previous Marvel films, Thor Raknarog and Black Panther were far better in my eyes that this one didn’t stand out as much. It didn’t have the witty humour seen in more recent ones, and I think that there was so much going on groups of characters all over the place and constant fighting it didn’t leave much room for dialogue. We freshly watched this as our first movie in 2019 so I could remind myself why I had remembered it as my biggest disappointment and my thoughts did not change.

Ben – Ready Player One

Whilst I was really impressed by the acting and CGI, I can’t help but think of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory every time I watch it.


What We Watched In Order

  1. Hunger Games (1st January)
  2. Boss Baby (1st January)
  3. Collateral Beauty (1st January)
  4. Hunger Games Catching Fire (1st January)
  5. Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 (1st January)
  6. The Hangover Part 2 (5th January)
  7. Bridesmaids (6th January)
  8. Table 19 (7th January)
  9. Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 (10th January)
  10. The Greatest Showman (13th January)
  11. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (13th January)
  12. Meet the Robinsons (19th January)
  13. Gone Girl (21st January)
  14. Rock of Ages (27th January)
  15. Love and Basketball (1st February)
  16. Spiderman Homecoming (5th February)
  17. Baywatch (17th February)
  18. When We First Met (18th February)
  19. Killing Hasslehoff (20th February)
  20. Central Intelligence (22nd February)
  21. Hidden Figures (22nd February)
  22. Tangled (23rd February)
  23. The Mask of Zorro (3rd March)
  24. Black Panther (3rd March)
  25. La La Land (3rd March)
  26. Chips Law and Disorder (4th March)
  27. Thor Raknarog (20th March)
  28. Skyfall (21st March)
  29. Going in Style (24th March)
  30. Despicable Me 3 (25th March)
  31. Get Smart (30th March)
  32. Pink Panther (31st March)
  33. This Means War (1st April)
  34. The Monuments Men (1st April)
  35. The Lion King (2nd April)
  36. Justice League (2nd April)
  37. Game Over, Man! (5th April)
  38. Ready Player One (8th April)
  39. The Foreigner (13th April)
  40. The House (15th April)
  41. The Dark Tower (22nd April)
  42. Beauty and the Beast (Live Action) (23rd April)
  43. Avengers Infinity War (28th April)
  44. Pitch Perfect 3 (11th May)
  45. Rough Night (12th May)
  46. Delivery Man (12th May)
  47. The Week Of (13th May)
  48. The Clapper (20th May)
  49. About Time (21st May)
  50. Jurassic World (8th June)
  51. Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom (9th June)
  52. Set it Up (14th June)
  53. Zombieland (17th June)
  54. Paddington 2 (22nd June)
  55. Game Night (30th June)
  56. Lucky Logan (1st July)
  57. Two Night Stand (8th July)
  58. She’s Out of My League (15th July)
  59. Ant Man (29th July)
  60. Like Father (5th August)
  61. Kingsman Golden Circle (10th August)
  62. Office Christmas Party (12th August)
  63. The Big Sick (12th August)
  64. Christopher Robin (18th August)
  65. What If (19th August)
  66. The Railway Man (27th August)
  67. Ant Man and the Wasp (2nd September)
  68. Jumanji Welcome to to Jungle (2nd September)
  69. Bad Moms (7th September)
  70. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (10th September)
  71. The Package (14th September)
  72. Sierra Burgess is a Loser (13th September)
  73. Simple Favour (30th September)
  74. Avatar (7th October)
  75. Goodbye Christopher Robin (12th October)
  76. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (13th October)
  77. Murder on the Orient Express (20th October)
  78. Early Man (3rd November)
  79. Coco (7th November)
  80. Just Before I Go (15th November)
  81. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (30th November)
  82. Crimes of Gringlewald (1st December)
  83. Christmas with the Coopers (1st December)
  84. Bad Moms Christmas (2nd December)
  85. The Maze Runner Death Cure (7th December)
  86. Burlesque (9th December)
  87. Die Hard (14th December)
  88. The Change Up (15th December)
  89. Mary Poppins Returns (23rd December)
  90. A Christmas Prince : A Royal Wedding (23rd December)
  91. Die Hard 2 (24th December)
  92. Blockers (26th December)
  93. Solo : A Star Wars Story (28th December)
  94. Die Hard with a Vengeance (28th December)
  95. Die Hard 4.0 (28th December)
  96. A Good Day to Die Hard (29th December)
  97. A Wrinkle in Time (3rd December)
  98. Rampage (30th December)
  99. Darkest Hour (30th December)
  100. Unbreakable (30th December)

We’re off to a semi-reasonable start in 2019 and we’re always looking for recommendations for things to watch – please leave your comments about what your favourite films of the past year have been so we can tick them off our list in 2019 if we’ve not seen them before!

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25 Comments

  1. January 9, 2019 / 6:45 am

    I’m not really a fan of marvel superhero movies but they can be ok to watch every once in a while but they are the sort of movies I would watch with others rather than on my own. I do want to watch The Greatest Showman and A Simple Favour so I’ll add them both to my list! It’s interesting how similar yours and Ben’s top movies are!

    • January 9, 2019 / 10:20 pm

      I do enjoy watching them but mainly because Ben loves them so much and he gets so much enjoyment out of them it makes me happy – but I only need to watch the damn things once or twice, not a hundred haha!
      Ahh I think you’d enjoy both of those!
      Funnily we both strongly disagreed with each others disappointing movies, but both kept reminding each other of our favourites and being like “oh yeah, I forgot about that one!”

      • January 10, 2019 / 1:05 am

        I know what you mean, watching certain movies once is enough!

  2. world of happiness_x
    January 9, 2019 / 10:43 am

    I love this post. Nice to have something different as a blog post

  3. January 9, 2019 / 10:55 am

    I happen to notice not many christmas movies, do you not like them or just not got round to watching ELF is my all time fav to watch at christmas. Lovely blog, fantastic read. xxx

    • January 9, 2019 / 10:16 pm

      These were films I watched with my husband there were some others which I did watch alone – The Muppets Christmas Carol being one of them! I love Elf but didn’t get around to watching it this year, I couldn’t see it on demand anywhere and my DVD is lost in one of many boxes as we’ve recently moved! xx

  4. rinkydinkyrhi
    January 9, 2019 / 10:07 am

    We did the challenge too and managed 127 in the end. We definitely spent too many Sundays on the sofa watching movie after movie, not that I’m complaining! This year I’ve set us a challenge of 150 : /
    I’m so glad to hear someone else talking about A Simple Favour, I went to see it with my friend and we loved it but no-one else seems to mention it.

    • January 9, 2019 / 10:14 pm

      Ooh well done! Us too – if you look at the dates on ours you can see there are points where we watched 5 in a day – those are the days we definitely were catching up on a shit tonne of ironing haha!
      Simple Favour was so good, it was such a slick and stylish film!

  5. January 9, 2019 / 11:10 pm

    I’m going to side with Ben on his top movies! Love the Marvel series and I cried over Christopher Robin! This is a really good idea. Good date night activity that my guy would love! We’ve seen all on your list except Unbreakable. But it’s on my list!

    • January 9, 2019 / 11:32 pm

      How dare you haha! He will be pleased to hear that though. Black Panther and Christopher Robin were almost made it into my top ones, but the Avengers one just didn’t do it for me! I think I may have seen Unbreakable at some point in the past but couldn’t remember it, but we’re on a Bruce Willis binge at the moment!

  6. January 10, 2019 / 7:37 am

    I love the Marvel movies. I finally got all caught up last month when I rented Ant-Man & The Wasp. I was never big into superheroes and then I watched The Avengers and got hooked.
    The Greatest Showman was fantastic. That was Hugh Hackman’s baby. He’d been trying for years to get it made. It’s on HBO right now so I need to watch it again soon.
    I loved Christopher Robin so much my boyfriend got it for me on blu-ray for Christmas.
    I still need to see The Crimes of Grindelwald. I loved the first Fantastic Beasts movie (then again I also adore Eddie Redmayne).

    • January 10, 2019 / 4:31 pm

      I would have never have gotten into them I don’t think if Ben hadn’t have been so into them!
      We’re going to see Hugh Jackman live and I can not wait!
      Eddie Redmayne is such a diverse actor – I’ve loved him in everything I’ve watched him in!

      • January 10, 2019 / 8:33 pm

        Jealous you’re going to see Hugh live! That’s so awesome. He seems just so freaking cool.

        • January 11, 2019 / 12:09 am

          He does whenever we see him interviewed on chat shows we always declare how nice he seems and how we’d love to be his friend haha!

          • January 12, 2019 / 3:53 am

            I love his bromance with Ryan Reynolds too.

  7. January 10, 2019 / 10:30 pm

    Congratulation on completing it! It sounds like you watched some really great films! I can’t believe I still haven’t seen the greatest showman!xx
    Hannah | luxuryblush

  8. January 16, 2019 / 10:06 am

    The Greatest Showman was definitely one of the best films of the year. I loved Bohemian Rhapsody too😊 How do you manage to watch so many filns when you’re busy?? I watched 20 the whole year. Six of those was on a flight😂 x

    • January 16, 2019 / 11:33 am

      I think we spend quite a lot of time at home, especially during the week evenings because of the dogs – we don’t really go out and do that much in the evenings at all! We did spend a lot of time this year sat on our old living room floor packing boxes and we’d easily watch 2, 3 or 4 films in a day, but then sometimes we can go weeks and weeks without watching a film!
      I haven’t seen Bohemian Rhapsody yet, we didn’t make it to the cinema, I can’t wait to see it though!

      • January 16, 2019 / 3:34 pm

        I think as it’s nominated for awards it might pop back up in the cinema. We’re going to a sing-a-long showing in Feb😊 x

  9. January 20, 2019 / 5:32 pm

    This is such a good idea and a great way to watch movies you wouldn’t usually watch. I need to do this. Xx

  10. triviagic
    March 10, 2019 / 5:02 pm

    This One’s Actually Good!
    A Great way to list movies

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