Worst & Best Months for a Movie

After my first year on Letterboxd (185 films in the first 365), it got me thinking: what are the best (and worst) months for watching movies? Let’s start from the bottom:

12. July is right in the heart of summer. It’s got the warmest weather, most sun, and baseball season is in full swing (not that I’m expecting the White Sox to take up even a second of my summer this season). 4th of July is the best holiday of the summer, too. Take the momentum from the fourth and darty your way through July. If you’re going to watch a movie, save it for a lazy, hungover Sunday. Rip a gummy (or five) and let your couch take you somewhere magical.

11. June is a close second for the worst month for movies. School’s out for the kiddos, summer has started and picks up quickly. Similar to July, enjoy the sun, go to a baseball game, have twenty beers, and save the movies for a lazy Sunday.

10. August rounds out the Summer months. To me, it’s clearly the best of the three. You can only drink twenty beers with the gang so many times before fatigue sets in. Once this fatigue sets in, movie night starts sounding better and better. 

9. May has a similar excitement to June with summer right around the corner, but with more rain. Rain + movies are like Steph + Lebron at the 2024 Olympics. There are a lot of movies released in May that run through the summer. You could make the argument that May should be higher for this reason, but I’m not going to. I’d rather celebrate my birthday.

8. September is an interesting month, definitely a solid month for movies, but it’s lacking something that makes it special. Summer is essentially over, so that naturally allows more opportunities for movie night, but some good days still sneak through into September. Still plenty of reason to get outside.

7. April is going to be the worst of the peak movie period. All of the remaining months are fantastic months for watching movies. I had to rank April here as it has the best weather of the remaining months and no theme. However, the April showers make for plenty of great movie days.

6. March, like April, lacks a theme, but has worse weather. I considered how spring break impacts March as a movie month, but I think if anything it supports watching a movie. Movies on the flight, resorts have movie nights at the pool, maybe a movie when you get home to smooth out that post-vacation anxiety.

5. November may be a bit of a surprise here for some as the weather is definitely worse than some of the remaining months. November, however, lacks a strong theme for it. Aside from Paul Blart Mall Cop and the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, I can’t think of any Thanksgiving movies. 

4. February, on the other hand, has a pretty clear theme with Valentine’s day falling smack dab in the middle of it. Romance is definitely not my favorite genre and I’m a single lad anyway, so I considered keeping this below November. The weather is just still so awful in February, and watching a movie is a great alternative for those of us without V-Day plans.

3. October is the first of the three peak movie-watching months, and this should be pretty self-explanatory. “Halloween, Halloween, this is Halloween”. Halloween is a dark, magical holiday with unlimited movies to watch. Although it’s not my favorite genre, horror movies were meant to be watched in October. Spooky movies for the spooky month. The weather cools down significantly too, so I’m looking for any reason to stay inside.

2. December, believe it or not, is the second best movie month. I absolutely love Christmas movies and the weather gives us plenty of opportunities for it. My sister and I still watch a movie together every Christmas Eve as we hope Santa doesn’t miss our house. “How is it NOT number one?”, some may say. Totally fair. I just feel like December can get so busy with the holidays. A lot of traveling to visit family, prepping for parties, and last second gift-shopping to be done in December. Still an amazing month for movies, but not as good as…..

1. January. The ultimate movie month in my opinion and the inspiration for this blog. I watched a semi-depressing, semi-absurd twenty-four (24!) movies this month. The excitement of the holidays has come and gone, and everyone heads back to work/school with that post-holiday blues. The weather sucks worse than any other month, there’s no more holidays to look forward to, and everyone has to return to their lives. On top of this, a ton of great movies are released at the end of December, so they can get squeezed into consideration for that year’s Oscars (go see The Brutalist). 

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