What Movies Have You Seen The Most?

[Leo656]

Another thread got me curious. If this has been done before, I halfheartedly apologize, you pedantic Slapnuts, don't @ me. Anyways.

So anyways, some of us like to watch our favorite movies over and over again. For many of us, this thoroughly enhances our enjoyment of the film and gives us something new to appreciate every time. In truth, it's the ability of a film to still capture your attention and emotions after numerous viewings that reinforces its value; after all, anything can be good Once. But something that retains or even increases its enjoyment factor over time is what usually elevates a movie from being one of many, to a beloved favorite.

So I'm curious what some people's most viewed films are. I'm guessing we'll see a lot of the familiar ones like Star Wars and whatnot, but I expect there will be a few "odd duck" choices, as well, and that's what stands to make it interesting.
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I don't keep track of how many times I've seen any movie, but there are a few that I'm positive I've seen at least 100 times and some probably way more than that. Part of that came from growing up semi-poor with only a few VHS tapes handy and cable TV only sporadically, but part of that is just because I really, really like the movies. This list is just off the top of my head and I'll probably think of more later. Aside from "Young Guns" being the clear "winner" as far as the ones I've seen the most, this list is in no real order, I'm just listing movies as I think of them.

- Young Guns I and II. I generally only ever watch them as one long movie, the way they should be seen, but sometimes only the first one is on cable. I own like three or four copies of the first one across various formats, and for my wife and I it's mandatory viewing if ever we catch it on, no matter what else happens to be on at that moment, or if it's already in progress, or what. If I've seen them less than 200 times each, I'd be shocked. But I stopped keeping track somewhere around 1992.

- Superman: The Movie, Superman II, and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. The first one was generally more of an "event" movie when I was a kid, something that would come on TV once a year and they'd market the hell out of it, like "The Wizard of Oz", but I still managed to see it a lot, and II and IV were on HBO, ABC and WPIX constantly up through 1994 or so. Oddly enough, despite being a huge Superman fan, I never owned any of the VHS tapes as a kid, settling for versions I'd taped off the TV since they were "free". Superman III, for some reason, was almost never on TV, so I didn't even see it until 1993. Maybe because it ain't good.

I've cooled off significantly on the Reeve Superman films in more recent years, partly because I've seen all of them to the point that it's mind-numbing but also because as I've gotten older I can't overlook their many flaws the way many others can. I hardly ever look at them now but I've still seen them more over a lifetime than most people have.

- Back to the Future Trilogy. I spent many weekends as a kid renting all three of them on one'a those "3 Movies for 3 Days for $3" deals the mom and pop video stores used to run. I still put 'em on if I see them while I'm surfing channels. My brother-in-law and I used to kill time at work by doing Random Quotes and Trivia since we'd both seen the movies so many times we could recite the entire thing by heart, chapter and verse.

- Karate Kid Trilogy. I managed to tape II and III off TV and the first one was on TV a lot even though I somehow never recorded it, so I pretty much grew up watching these movies, most recently getting a good buddy of mine from high school to watch them for the first time in his life (after I jabbed him with a cattle prod for being 30-whatever years old and never watching any of the goddamn "Karate Kid" movies). Point of fact, Karate Kid Part II was definitely one of the very first movies I'd ever seen in a theater, if not the first one. I barely remember it but I remember seeing Kreese punch out those windows and my life changing forever in that moment.

- Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure / Bogus Journey. Another common weekend rental. Me and my good buddy essentially WERE Bill and Ted (or Wayne and Garth, six of one ) back in those days, so we'd rent and watch those movies whenever we could.

- Wayne's World. See above.

- Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The first VHS tape I owned when my Dad brought home our first VCR. I played that tape to death.

- Masters of the Universe. Another very early theatrical experience. My Dad got just as big a kick out of it as I did, but then he always did think He-Man was awesome. This is another "I will watch this movie no matter what else is on" flick, for me.

- Ghostbusters I and II. My best friend and I were absolutely steadfast in our conviction as little kids that we were going to grow up, prove that ghosts were real, and become millionaires by essentially applying the movies to Real Life. So we watched those movies a ton because we were planning for our future, y'see. Another couple of flicks I've seen at least 200 times if I've seen them once. Whenever we got together for a Birthday or Christmas or New Year's or whatever, we would always, always watch Ghostbusters, and then both films back to back after the second one came out. To this day, whenever we see each other, Ghostbusters is inevitably a topic of conversation. It became one of the thickest roots of our entire lifelong friendship, it's pretty cool.

- Batman '89. Another one I saw in theaters, and then watched to death because I taped it off the TV. The FIRST movie I ever taped off TV, if I recall correctly. The first ever blank tape I owned, I recorded Batman, Ghostbusters II, and Karate Kid Part III, and that was my default "I'm bored, I'll put this tape on in the background while I play with my action figures" tape for a good few years.

- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Possibly the second "real" VHS of a movie I owned, I can't quite remember. I remember that after being enthralled watching it in the theater I watched it every day on video for I don't know how long.

- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. McDonald's ran a promotion one Christmas season where you could buy VHS copies of the Indiana Jones movies with your meal; for whatever reason my Dad brought home Last Crusade first so that's the one I saw the first and have since seen the most times. Again, when you only had less than a dozen movies on video and you could only afford cable like half of the year at best, you kinda made due with what you had a lot of the time. I never complained, though.

- Rocky I-V. True story, I initially didn't care much about Rocky and only rented III because Hulk Hogan was in it. That's obviously the best scene in the entire saga, BUT, I genuinely fell in love with the movie, then went back and rented the others to get caught up. I will never skip them if I know they're on, and they're on A LOT so I've seen them a ton by now. I wish I could include "Rocky Balboa" but it's almost never on TV by comparison to the others, and most marathons don't include it, so it's like for every time I've seen that one, I've seen each of the others like 50. So it's never gonna make the list even though it's terrific.

- Dick Tracy. This is one of the coolest goddamn movies ever made and I could write a book about everything great about it. Another one I taped off TV and wore the tape out.

- Star Wars Trilogy (Special Edition). I didn't see these "properly" until the late-90s theatrical re-release, but I do remember seeing the first one in its entirety once on HBO or Showtime some time around 1989, and snippets of "Empire" and "Jedi" when they'd sporadically air on network TV. But I got pretty heavy into Star Wars after 1997 until right after Episode III so I watched my tapes a bunch. I've seen them all a lot but not even close to the "fanatic" numbers some people brag about. Like I said, my "Star Wars" is "Young Guns". I don't watch them much unless they're on TV anymore, though, on account of the series sucks now and the "good" movies don't even matter anymore, so it's a little less fun to watch them than it used to be.
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That's a good chunk off the top of my head. Again, a lot of these movies benefit from having been on TV a lot, and are movies I just refuse to skip if I know that they're on, even though I own all of them and can watch them anytime I want. Just about any movie on this list, if it's on I will make it a point to watch, so some of them I've easily, easily seen over 100 times and others probably twice as many. There's definitely more that could and deserve to go on this list but I'm tired and this is already pretty long.

In about 10 years both "Man of Steel" and "BvS: Dawn of Justice" will be somewhere in the middle of the pack, along with "Superman Returns", "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight"; they're all recent entries compared to most of that list but quickly gaining ground, and I'd rather watch them than about 3/4 of the ones listed above, maybe more.

So yeah, I don't expect too many people to have similar "I've seen that movie 500 times" stories but I'm curious at which movies keep you coming back over and over again. I'm especially interested in the "Dark Horse" type of stuff, the non-blockbuster stuff. That's much more interesting to me than the standard "I've seen Star Wars 1000 times" stuff, although if that's the case then it's the case, I'm simply more intrigued by the more "quirky" and personal favorites than the predictable stuff.

[Coola Yagami]

Wow, that's a good question.

When it comes to theaters I actually went to see Man of Steel, both Infinity movies, Black Panther, It (just the first part) and Joker twice.

When it comes to home viewing, I probably seen the first 2 TMNT movie a few times, and wow, IDK. I guess I'm not much of a repeat movie watcher.

I do remember 2 instances though, when we first rented Who Framed Roger Rabbit, we literally watched it like 3 or 4 times before we had to return it later. Like literally rewind the tape and watch it again just as soon as it ended the first time.

Also back in Mexico there was a channel that would constantly repeat the same set of movies over and over and OVER again until like half a year later they'd add new ones. Like yeah there would be new movies here and there but I mean they'd still play the same 3-4 movies among the new additions and whatnot. Anyways, the point is when they kept showing Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, I remember we'd drop whatever we were doing and watch it every time we happened to run into it.

I guess the real winner is a Christmas Story. Every year I watch it at the very least twice, and boy after a rough 2020 I am sooooo looking forward to seeing that movie again.

[Cure]

Jurassic Park and Ninja Turtles, probably. I love reptiles, I guess.

[CyberCubed]

The original TMNT movie trilogy and the original Star Wars trilogy by far. They're likely the only trilogies I've probably watched 50+ times or more.

But keep in mind this is since I was a kid. They would also air on TV from time to time and I'd catch them there. Obviously as an adult I don't watch movies over and over anymore even if I really liked them.

Besides that probably the Batman nolan movies, Total Recall, and some other Arnold Schwarzeneggar movies.

[IMJ]

Given my viewing habits going back to VHS, it has to be Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first TMNT flick or The Crow.

After that would have to be A New Hope or Empire, but those two are a distant, distant cousin when compared to how many times I sat through the first three in the theaters and then on VHS.

[Andrew NDB]

In semi-regular rotation?

Eh. The Rocky movies. The Rambo movies. The Star Trek movies. Brazil. Scarface. The Godfather trilogy. Not too much else.

[ZariusTwo]

Original Star Wars, the Prequels for ironic enjoyment, Last Jedi for the re-editing, Pound Puppies: The Movie (legit underrated), Transformers: The Movie, TMNT I and II, Godfather I, Superman II (both cuts, and Lesters' was the first comic book movie I ever saw)

Batman '89 and Batman Forever, Pokemon 2000 (the legit series finale as far as I'm concerned), Ghostbusters I and II, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm,Total Recall, Robocop I and II, Silence of the Lambs

[newfan]

Well thinking back to when I was a kid with VHS and a lot less choice I re-watched a lot of stuff.

Most of all would be when I was in a phase of one of the following:
Star Trek, some movies more than others
Star Wars
Robocop

Movies I watched a lot when I was young
The Goonies
The Karate Kid
Watched the Gremlins and The Never Ending Story a number of times too.

Edit: I watched The Burbs a lot with one of my sisters and my friend one summer, that and The Little Mermaid.

There are a number of movies I have watched a few times but those I mentioned already fall under most watched. I have watched a number movies over with my children too but that's not quite the same thing. I will mention Coraline though as I have enjoyed watching that.

[Wesley]

I wasn?t much of a repeat movie watcher when I was younger (I never really got into movies until nearly a decade ago), but the ones I?ve seen the most are:

Off the top of my head:
Red Eye (2005)
Batman 1989
Batman Returns
TMNT 1990
Phone Booth
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

This includes anytime I watch bits of them if they?re on tv.

[Wildcat]

Common:

Ghostbusters 1 and 2, first 4 Chucky movies, first Jurassic Park, first MIB, any Terminator (have not seen Dark Fate yet), TMNT 2 (just liked it more as a kid), Christmas Vacation (for the holidays), Mrs. Doutfire, Dumb and Dumber.

Uncommon I guess or more personal choices:

HOUSE 1986 (thats the year not part of the title, one of my absolute favorites, have the Arrow Special Edition Blu Ray), First 2 Tremors (giant worms), The Wizard (me and my sister have always loved this, not just because of Super Mario either, I know it recently got a Special Edition).

I should clarify the specific numbers for these. Except for House (the first is the best imo, sequels are ok but theyre not really connected, one of those weird things) Im not ignoring the rest of those particular series those are just the parts Ive seen the most.

For example I dont have any of the Terminators. Theyve rerun them a lot over the years though, even Genisys so I usually watch them if nothing else is on.

This topic does lead me to something Ive thought of recently. Part of the reason people consider these older movies or previous eras better than modern ones might be because of this exact thing...we watched these movies to the extreme. Not to mention the nostalgia factor

I mean as kids you just wanna rewatch your favorites over and over because “ its cool “ . As adults I dont think we rewatch movies to this level because theres other things going on. I personally space out my viewings of reruns now so it does not become monotonous but as kids its never enough.

Probably happens with todays kids and movies too.

[Spike Spiegel]

The first six Star Trek Movies
Ghostbusters
The Back to the Future trilogy
TMNT I-III
Predator 2
Alien and Aliens
Batman (1989)
Superman (1978 ) and Superman II (1980)
The Matrix
Star Wars I-VI
The Thing (1982)
Most of the DC Animated Universe DTV spin offs from the 90s and early 2000s
Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island

[Slade]

Besides a ton of Disney movies..
Scarface
Man of Steel
Tmnt 1
8 Mile
Multiplicity
Batman 89
TDK
TDKR
Infinity War
Power Rangers the Movie

[Icebot]

I never really kept track of how many times I watched a movie but I would guess:

The Wizard of Oz
Forrest Gump
The Little Mermaid 1989
Turtles Forever (not sure if that counts as a movie?)

[Galactus]

Okay reverse my man points here but when I was a kid I watched Mary Poppins a lot. My mother would sit me down with her next door neighbors daughter to watch it almost every day. She and I got the penguin dance down almost exactly at the time. I'll always still catch it when it is on TV which seems to be every holiday here in the UK.

Sticking with Disney I watched Aladdin a lot simply to imitate Robin Williams Genie and The Lion King too.

TMNT 1990 obviously and Batman 1989 - still a good movie and a good Batman movie (sorry not sorry)

Planet of the Apes 1968. As a teenager I became a little oddly obsessed with this and the original Apes series. I knew of it sure as it is one of the more referenced and parodied things in pop culture but never actually watched them until I saw a making of documentary and thought this actually sounds much cooler than I thought and bought the whole series on VHS. That and Conquest are probably the most watched movies in the series for me.

[newfan]

Originally Posted by Galactus

Okay reverse my man points here but when I was a kid I watched Mary Poppins a lot.

I was thinking about Mary Poppins when I made my list, not wanting to fess up , but if we are including what we watched a lot as young kids then this would have to go on my list too, along with Chitty Bang Bang and The Wizard of Oz.

[neatoman]

When I was like two to three years old I watched Disney's Jungle Book every single day (if my mother is to be believed). So probably that one.

If we're talking movies I watched since reaching a more cognizant age, that's hard to tell. My best guesses are:

• Alien
• Terminator
• Star Wars Episode IV
• The Shining
• Spider-Man
• Bladerunner
• Life of Brian
• X-Men

[Leo656]

Lots of interesting stuff here, nice.

To clarify, Yes, stuff we watched to death as kids for any and all reason absolutely counts, otherwise everyone's just gonna say Star Wars and TMNT and Marvel stuff, and that would be a very boring exercise.

A couple more I know I watched a lot, especially as a kid, but not sure where they'd "rank" among the other stuff I mentioned are Terminator 2, The Lion King, and the Police Academy series, predominantly 2, 4, and 6.

Wildcat said something interesting that I feel deserves its own reply. But anyways, good lists, keep 'em coming.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

This topic does lead me to something Ive thought of recently. Part of the reason people consider these older movies or previous eras better than modern ones might be because of this exact thing...we watched these movies to the extreme. Not to mention the nostalgia factor

I mean as kids you just wanna rewatch your favorites over and over because ? its cool ? . As adults I dont think we rewatch movies to this level because theres other things going on. I personally space out my viewings of reruns now so it does not become monotonous but as kids its never enough.

Probably happens with todays kids and movies too.

It's a fair point but a few things I take issue with. Firstly, yeah, it's only natural that one's definition of "a lot" with regard to how many times they watch a movie is going to shift as they get older; even me, when I say I watch Young Guns "a lot", now that might be 3-4 times a year, where as a kid it would be a couple of times per month at least for whatever reason. So yeah, it's a sliding scale.

But as a kid, while I knew intuitively which movies "speak" to me and I would gravitate towards those movies, there's also tons of movies from Back Then and before which I didn't pay much attention to and am only getting around to now. The variety of films I'm exposed to now is far wider than it was when I was a kid. And being fully objective as always - and also keeping in mind that there's a bit of a cyclical nature to the way films are made - there's ample evidence that "They really DON'T make 'em like they used to."

Films in more recent years have become more sensational to look at BUT have suffered greatly in other ways, particularly writing, acting, and sound/music. Now, not that there wasn't a lot of junk in those categories Back In The Day and not that there aren't people doing good to great work now. But there's a generic quality, a "same-ness" to tons of popular modern films that just wasn't as prevalent back a few decades ago. Around the time CGI became more prevalent, that became the new go-to thing for all movies, and all of a sudden, you didn't need "plot" anymore, or memorable characters, you could sell a picture JUST on spectacle alone, and in more recent years we've seen that the films that rise to the top - regardless of how they fare critically - tend to be these bloated, extravagant, set piece movies.

Compare TMNT 1990 to either of the PD movies. TMNT 1990 was a STORY first and a spectacle second; with the first PD film, some of the people working on it admitted that they more or less came up with the idea of the snow mountain scene, because it would be a big spectacle, and built the rest of the movie backwards from there, with little regard to where it would go or whether it was appropriate for the characters or the story being told or anything. That's just awful, you can't do things like that. And they did it again in the second one. And those are objectively two of the very worst movies ever made by anyone, a blight on the entire idea of "film" as a medium. So, so far removed from where they started back in the day. It's Night and Day. People are going to be talking in a positive light about TMNT 1990 forever; nobody even talks about the newer ones NOW except as a How-To of "What Not To Do."

In fact, any long-running series is a pretty good example of what I mean. Terminator is another example of what I mean. T1 and T2 had great, great stories and compelling characters. No objective person, or anyone who wasn't simply a fanboy for the series, could EVER say with a straight face that the rest of the Terminator movies are as well-written and well-thought out as the first two, they simply are not. T3 and "Salvation" have their own unique problems and "Genysis" and "Dark Fate" are simply awful, but in all four of them it's the WRITING that holds them back from ever achieving the lofty heights of the two originals; T2 shouldn't even work, given how it goes so totally away from what the original established, but they took great care in making it work, to the point where for most people, it works better than the first. But with T3 onwards, you can tell that Story and Plot were not their motivating factors in continuing the series, but rather, to continually increase the spectacle and have ever more impressive set pieces. And they've done that; there's no denying that the visuals in the newer Terminator films are generally impressive, but they feel empty. They're not anywhere near as well-written, the characters are more one-dimensional... it's all just popcorn movie stuff, now. T1 and T2, again, timeless classics that people are going to be favorable towards forever, and they'll still be regarded as "classics" 100 years from now. The rest of the films in the series simply are NOT going to be remembered fondly, nor do they deserve to be. No historian is ever going to cite those films as anything but an example of, "So this is what happens when you milk the cow until it's bleeding", nothing more.

I could go on. But in general, yeah there's always a nostalgic factor, but it's inarguable that there was more craftsmanship in films when everyone wasn't chasing the (then-impossible to even dream about) Billion Dollar Checkmark and making sure everything was nice and inoffensive for the Chinese market overseas. It's an entirely different world, now, and while movies are more shiny and fun to look at and more bombastic in general, it's hard to say that they've gotten "better". If you prefer Stories over Spectacle, then movies as a whole simply haven't gotten better as time goes on, and in fact it could be argued that they've only gotten worse and continue to do so. "Back in my day", there wouldn't be like six "Transformers" or "Pirates" movies, they'd have stopped after the second or third one once it became patently obvious that they were completely out of ideas and just recycling stuff from the first two to milk the cow. Back then, more movies of a greater variety came out in general, so people's patience for "the same old thing" being recycled ad nauseum was more limited to things like horror movies and lowbrow comedy, but it was generally understood back then that if you saw "Part 6" in a movie's title, that it was not a great movie.

So yeah, fair point that things do shift as we get older, and that we have stronger affection for things which we can view through a sentimental lens. BUT. It's also a different world and movies are made for different reasons, nowadays, and on the whole, the number of "classic" films that are going to be looked back on with great fondness in another two decades is at a nadir right now. What's this decade's "Godfather" series, or its "Apocalypse Now", or even its Rocky Saga? What's the equivalent? What "classics" of Right Now are going to be pored over and discussed by future generations? It's long been said that you can tell everything you need to know about a society, at any point in history, by how it entertains itself, so in 50 years, what "classic" films of Right Now are we going to be judged by? The MCU saga? "Joker"? C'mon. I know people are having fun, and that's fine, but the state of movies as a whole right now as "Art" is Not Good compared to where it used to be, even if the SFX are better and there's a lot more money floating around. That's just the facts, jack.

Whenever I watch those AFI shows where they talk about films across the decades and how they left an indelible mark on culture and changed the way movies were made, up through the 1990s there's always such incredible variety and films were treated as an art form. Now it's all fast food, not art. The inevitable AFI series on "Great Films of the 2010s" is gonna be a bunch of CGI schlock with a bunch of people shouting at giant holes in the sky while people spout witty rejoinders at each other during the climax. You won't even be able to pick out what scene came from what movie. You can't even do that now, it's all so generic. And they don't even pretend that they care about telling stories, anymore, the entire business of movies is purely profit-driven, now. Obviously people were always trying to make money but there was also a lot more creative freedom and variety, and you still had movies that were "just" stories, and they could get theatrical release and still do alright even without being a giant fireworks show. Now, if you can't sell tickets in China your movie simply doesn't get made. It's a dark time to be a fan of movies, despite the fact that they're making so much money. We're absolutely regressing insofar as what movies mean to us and how we interact with them.

So yeah, sure, we hold more affection for things which we have the benefit of looking at with nostalgia. True enough. What's ALSO true though is that movies were, on the whole, better-written and crafted with more care, Back Then, and now they're all mostly just various shades of "Meh" and "Slightly Less Meh". Anyone who can't see the drop-off in "actual" quality of movies that runs parallel to the rise of SFX Blockbusters is simply not capable of looking at movies past the superficial or emotional level.

I mean, I know not everyone feels that movies should make you actually think or feel Real Emotions or anything, but... they should. And right now they don't. But they used to. Like, all the time. And I don't think too many of Today's Hits are gonna have the staying power to make the All-Time Greats list. That's just the way it is, and it has nothing to do with age or nostalgia.

[Wesley]

I agree that movies should make us feel real emotions. One of the reasons I like the ones I?ve listed is because they have good messages in them. They?re not just entertainment.

[Leo656]

I feel you, brother, and am definitely not at all adverse to hearing about the "Why" in some of these if anybody feels like getting into it.

Any movie that a person would watch repeatedly obviously has some level of personal investment way beyond "I just like it". And to me that's a huge part of the whole thing. And what makes it more interesting is that it's going to be a little bit different with everyone because the meanings are so unique and personal.

Like with me the Young Guns thing throws people off a little until they get to know me as a person, because most people don't have such a strong personal connection with those films, but there's a million reasons why it's always resonated with me as a human being more than any other movie has. But to people who know me well it's like "Oh, well, yeah, it couldn't really be any other movie."

Everybody, I think, has one like that in their catalog and it's neat because you can learn more about a person as A Person by what they take away from certain things, or how they feel represented in certain things.