How to keep a film diary you'll actually keep

What should a film diary entry include?

Less than you think. Long entries feel good for a week and then become a reason to skip a night. A useful entry has:

• The title and year, so remakes and films with the same name don't get mixed up.
• The date you watched it.
• A rating, on a scale you'll stick to.
• One line: a scene, a feeling, who you were with.
• Whether it was a first watch or a rewatch.

Where you watched it and who with are nice extras. A cinema trip on your birthday is worth noting. A Tuesday on the sofa probably isn't.

Notebook, spreadsheet, Notion or a film diary app?

A notebook is lovely to look back through and never sends you a notification. It's also hard to search, and it's rarely with you when the credits roll.

A spreadsheet sorts and counts brilliantly, and there are plenty of movie tracker templates to start from. On a phone at eleven at night it's fiddly, and that's exactly when you'll want to log.

A Notion page can hold posters, tags and ratings in one database, and it looks great on a laptop. It has the spreadsheet's problem on a phone, and it's easy to spend more evenings on the template than on films.

An app is the most likely to be in your pocket. Letterboxd is the best-known film diary app, with a big community and plenty of reviews to read (there's a fuller look at the options in one app for everything). If you'd rather keep series, books, albums and gigs in the same diary as your films, artsvibe does that. Pick the one you'll open without thinking about it.

How do you keep track of the films you've watched?

From today, it's simple: log each film the night you see it. The harder part is the years before you started.

Check your streaming history. Most services keep a list of what you've watched in your account settings. Netflix calls it Viewing activity, and you can download it.

Search your email for cinema bookings. Confirmation emails have the film and the date, and often the screen.

Start with your favourites. Add the films you'd name if someone asked, and leave the date off when you don't know it. A short list you trust beats a long one you guessed at.

If you watch as much TV as film, the same approach works for series, with one extra step for episodes. The TV guide covers it.

How do you keep going after the first month?

Plenty of film diaries stall after a few weeks. These habits help:

Log the same night. Before you start scrolling, before bed. By the next morning, half the feeling has gone.

Write one line, not a review. "The last ten minutes, in the rain" is enough to bring a film back years later. You can always write more when a film deserves it.

Rate fast. Your first rating is a snapshot, not a verdict. You can change it later, and a rewatch gets its own rating anyway.

Don't backfill everything. If you've missed a week, log what you remember and move on. A diary with a gap is still a diary.

Count rewatches. The films you go back to say more about you than the ones you saw once. Log them every time.

How should you rate films?

Five stars with halves gives you ten steps, which is enough to separate "good" from "I'll be thinking about this all week" without agonising. What matters is being consistent. Write down once what each star means to you, at the front of the notebook or in a note on your phone, and check it when you're unsure.

A useful rule: rate the experience, not the film's reputation. If a classic bored you, give it the stars you felt. Your diary is a record of you, not of the canon.

When you log a rewatch in artsvibe, the log sheet shows what you gave the film last time. It's a small thing, but it's fun to see how your opinion has moved.

Should your film diary be private or shared?

Both have something going for them. A private diary is where you're most honest: the guilty-pleasure rewatch, the acclaimed film you switched off. A shared one starts conversations, and friends' entries are one of the best sources of films to watch next.

You don't have to choose once for everything. Decide entry by entry. In artsvibe, Save keeps an entry to yourself, and Post shares it with your friends or with everyone, so the honest note and the recommendation can sit in the same diary.

What do you do with a year of entries?

This is the good part. At the end of the year:

Read it back by month. You'll spot patterns: the run of horror in October, the comfort rewatches in a hard month, the director you worked through all at once.

Pick your ten. Sort by rating, then trust your gut over the numbers. The film you gave three and a half stars but keep bringing up belongs on the list.

Note the firsts. The first film at a new cinema, or the first one you watched with someone.