Check your movies

Ever started watching a movie only to realize after 30 minutes that you’ve actually watched that one before?

Django Unchained
Django Unchained Official Poster

There was this guy in our uni who kept a poster of each movie he watched, so that he wouldn’t watch the same movie again, ever. When you look at a movie’s poster you immediately get a flashback of what it was about, who the cast was as well. Added bonus.

But now we don’t have to go into such lengths to keep track of the movies. We have the great big movie database IMDb and dozens of other sites made right for the purpose. But then comes the problem, which one to choose?

IMDb logo

If you look around, there are many who use the former, the International Movie Database. You sign up for an account, then start rating the movies you’ve watched. 9/10 for Reservoir Dogs and 4/10 for What Happens in Vegas and so on. After that, there’s nothing much you can do. Also note that you can’t check in for a movie without actually giving it a rating. Heck, I watched Original Sin so many years back, all I remember of it is the Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie having sex. No way I could _rate_ that movie now.

WatchTh.is

I was using watchth.is since about 2010 until I got tired of it a few months ago. It pulls data from the IMDb’s database and lets you check and favorite movies and comment on them. Other than being able to add friends, that’s pretty much of what it can do. Unlike in IMDb, you don’t have to rate anything. Just check them and feel good about it.

goodfil.ms

Then there is goodfil.ms. It has a modern-looking UI and some cool features like movie performance graphs from various sources like iTunes and Netflix. What I hate about the site is that it asks you for two ratings, the “critical quality” and the “rewatchability”. It trashes my idea of simply checking in the movie. Too complex for a simple guy.

iCheckMovies

I finally settled down with iCheckMovies. The site is simple and lets you just check the movies without the burden of having to rate them. You can favorite or dislike them, keep a watchlist, and so on. There are movie lists based on various tastes and you are awarded with medals if you finish watching half, three quarters, etc of these official lists. That’s an extra element of fun. Movie data are pulled from IMDb and the respective IMDb pages are linked to. You can even import your existing IMDb ratings, something most other sites don’t offer. Besides from the free tier, there are Basic and Pro pricing plans: it’s a startup with a business model. If you’re not much of a movieholic the free plan is just enough.

There’s a slew of other similar sites that lets you achieve much the same, like Rotten Tomatoes, Flixter and SeenTh.at. Some of them offer you much more than just checking in movies. Don’t be overwhelmed.

Finally it all comes down to personal taste. If you’re looking for one, make sure you check out iCheckMovies. IMHO, it does a rather good job at what it’s supposed to do. You can find me there.

7 responses on “Check your movies

  1. budhajeewa

    I think GetGlue is better. You can check-in to movies, if you like – comment, and rate them. It’s not limited to movies either, books, games, TV shows are there as well. They have “stickers” in place of “medals”. They ship physical stickers too. It’s Android app makes it easier to check-in.

    1. thameera

      Used GetGlue back then (and even got many stickers shipped). But it’s too generic. As for books, goodreads does it best and it’s where the bookworms flock to. As for movies, you can’t get the cool stuff you have in places like iCheckMovies in GetGlue.
      That said, if one is looking just for a place to check-in all the things they do, GetGlue might be the one.

  2. Madhawa

    “Ever started watching a movie only to realize after 30 minutes that you’ve actually watched that one before?”

    Never happened to me. Never. I’d know whether I’ve seen this movie or not just by looking at the name and the poster. I’ll read the brief description given on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes rarely to figure out that. But still this is something foreign at least personally to me. 🙂

    On the other hand I don’t record my life on the Internet or anywhere else. Check-in is not my thing. 😉

    P.S. Thank you for all Tarantino references… 😀

    1. thameera

      Yeah, this may not be for everyone. As for myself, I _need_ to keep track of them or everything will get messed up. In fact, i try to document everything in my life 😉

  3. kau (@kau_mad)

    I was using RT to follow ratings and reviews of serious movie watchers. Then they changed ‘friend activity’ to show each and every like done and front page is flooded with rubbish.

    Even though goodfil.ms made rating complex, for me that’s the best site to find what to watch next.
    Only someone has really liked a movie would spare few seconds to fill their complex rating system.

    1. thameera Post author

      Yeah, goodfil.ms is nicely built and if you can handle the complexity it might be a good choice. It would give you a hard time rating the movies you watched ages ago, though.

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