Two things that people learn about me very quickly are that I’m a teacher and that I’m a nerd, and not in that order. In my classroom, I’ve got a corner behind my desk where I put my geekery on full display, with Superman figures, LEGO constructs, Star Trek models, and a whole bulletin board collage made of comic book images clipped from the likes of the Previews catalog (assembled by my wife each year when she comes in to help me get my classroom ready). The long and short of it is that nobody who walks into my room has any doubt as to what kind of stuff I’m into. And this often leads to fun conversations with my students about the movies, shows, and characters I like. Frequently, though, it also leads to conversations like the one I had a few days ago, when a student came up to me very excited and asked if I’d seen Venom: The Last Dance yet because she wanted to talk about it, and I had to sadly disappoint her and say, “No, I’ve got a kid, remember?”

My son, of course, is the light of my life, but as I’ve mentioned here many times in the past, he has seriously curtailed my moviegoing. Erin and I rarely make it to the movies anymore, and it’s even rarer that we go to a movie we can’t bring seven-year-old Eddie to, so this is about the time of year where I start to take stock of all the recent releases I haven’t seen yet and trying to figure out how to prioritize them. I always want to watch as many new releases as I can, but going to the theater is rarely an option, and there are quite a few movies that I simply can’t watch with my son. This is why I still haven’t seen Deadpool and Wolverine, although thanks to the Internet I already knew about every surprise and cameo in that film approximately 20 minutes after the first screening let out, because people on the internet are jerks.

If I want to squeeze in these movies before the end of the year, I need to get started, not the least because in that window between Thanksgiving and Christmas I usually push aside new releases and just binge as much holiday content as I can. Sure, there are also new Christmas movies every year, but the ones I’m most interested in – such as The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and Red One – are theatrical releases, and 99 percent of the remaining Christmas movies are cozy romances from the Hallmark Channel or one of their increasing number of imitators. That’s not quite my style. 

As it stands right now, my Letterboxd list of movies I want to watch from 2024 is over twice as long as the list of movies that I’ve actually seen from 2024, so it’s time for me to prioritize. Keeping in mind that I have to check which movies are actually available via one of the assorted streaming services, and I may not be able to watch all of these anyway, let me start by figuring out which movies I can share with Eddie. Some are simple: he likes the Minions, so getting him to watch Despicable Me 4 should be no trick. Flow looks intriguing, and the visuals may just be the thing to hold his attention. I think the novelty will be enough to keep him interested during the unlikely Pharrell Williams LEGO-animated biopic Piece By Piece as well, so we’ll probably give that a try. And I’m personally dying to see The Wild Robot, which I think he’ll be into, even though when we gave him the choice between seeing that or TransFormers One in the theaters, he went for the major IP. 

We haven’t had as much luck getting him to pay attention to live-action movies, though, so I don’t know if he’d be down for If or Harold and the Purple Crayon…on the other hand, he liked the first two movies, so Sonic the Hedgehog 3 looks like a no-brainer. And even though it’s a documentary, the kid loves airplanes, so I might take a chance and see if he’d be interested in The Blue Angels.

Speaking of documentaries, this has been a heck of a year for them. Two of the best movies I HAVE seen have been documentaries, the charming Jim Henson: Idea Man, and the magnificent Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. But looking at my list of 2024 movies, I see several other documentaries waiting for my attention. Doc of Chucky is a mammoth five-hour deep dive into the Child’s Play horror franchise, similar to the huge documentaries Crystal Lake Memories (about the Friday the 13th films) and Never Sleep Again (detailing the Nightmare on Elm Street series). If it’s anything like those previous two documentaries, it’ll be a lot of interviews and discussions about the development, shooting, and legacy of those movies – sort of like the world’s longest DVD extra. Some people may not be into that kind of thing, but I can watch it for hours…and I’ll need to, if I want to get through the whole film. Other documentaries on my radar include In Search of Bass Reeves, the history of the legendary escaped slave who became one of the most storied lawmen in the old west, MoviePass, MovieCrash, detailing the short life and disaster of the MoviePass service, and the more obvious films Music By John Williams and STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces. I’ll need to check on which of these are most safe to watch while the kid is bouncing around the house. If he starts humming John Williams music, that’s fine, but there are certain Steve Martin routines I don’t need him repeating as he walks around second grade.

Next up on my list are movies that I think will probably be safe ENOUGH to watch while Eddie is around, but that aren’t specifically FOR him. For instance, there was a whole Godzilla movie this year we didn’t get to – Godzilla/Kong: The New Empire, and that’s something that has to be on my end-of-year list if I’m to have any business calling myself a geek. I have similar feelings about Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!, although I’m a bit more reluctant to watch that one with Eddie. I don’t think he’ll get scared by it – my little dude has proven to be almost disturbingly fearless in the face of things like Spirit Halloween and guys in monster costumes – but once again, there’s language in there that I don’t quite want him to start repeating. I’ve heard good things about the action/comedy Fall Guy, though, so I’ll have to check on the language content to see if that would be an Eddie-safe viewing. (If you’ve already seen it, please feel free to expound in the comments.) 

Horror movies are an obvious no-go with the kid. If I am to watch those, it’ll likely be on my laptop while he’s watching cartoons or sports. The unwatched horror movies on this year’s list include Daddy’s Head, Night Swim, A Quiet Place Day One, Trap, The Substance, and Watchers, all of which I am resigned to not watching on the actual television. The same goes for darker actioners like Monkey Man, Love Lies Bleeding, or The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. As for Alien: Romulus…maybe if we can get the kid to bed early some night. 

It saddens me how relatively few comedies are being made these days, because I think the world needs more deliberate comedy in it as opposed to the ironic kind that real life continues to subject us to. That’s why one of the movies I’m most anxious to watch – if parenting ever gives me a chance – is Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie. It seems as though the film is a sort of love letter to the moviegoing experience, especially as it was in the 1980s, and damned if that isn’t exactly what I want to watch. It’s Kevin Smith, so I expect there to be a degree of the crude humor he’s best known for, but his more recent films (like Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and Clerks III) have also displayed a surprising depth and heart that I hope he’s carried over to this new film. 

I haven’t even gotten around to most of this year’s comic book or superhero movies. In addition to the aforementioned Venom sequel and Deadpool and Wolverine, I have yet to watch Madame Web, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, Megamind Vs. The Doom Syndicate, or Joker: Folie a Deux. And admittedly, every one of these movies has received a heavy critical thrashing, but the comic book completist in me insists on watching them. Perhaps at least a little less divisive is DC’s two-part animated adaptation of Watchmen. This one particularly has me interested, as the script was written by J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 and a fine writer. This is the third Watchmen production, of course. First came the Zach Snyder movie, which I thought was okay, if a little TOO slavishly devoted to the source material right up until the end. Then there was the HBO miniseries, which wasn’t an adaptation at all but rather a sequel to the original graphic novel. It was magnificent, but no one has yet done an actual adaptation of the story that’s knocked it out of the park. Could Straczynski and director Brandon Vietti finally pull it off? 

And finally, there are the “serious” films. The dramas. The award bait. I enjoy watching these things, but I know that even if there’s no objectionable content, my kid would lose interest in seconds and wander off to try to dismantle the refrigerator or something. So I wouldn’t even make the effort to watch a movie like Ghostlight in front of him – a drama about a construction worker who winds up in a local theater performing Romeo and Juliet with his own estranged daughter. Nor Miller’s Girl – a young writer gets mixed up in a project with her teacher, which made it to my list primarily on the strength of starring Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman as the student and teacher, respectively. And DEFINITELY not Francis Ford Coppala’s sci-fi drama Megalopolis, a film which has garnered such divisive and vitriolic reviews that I feel compelled to watch it if for no other reason than intellectual curiosity. 

And the thing is, guys, even if I were to somehow manage to watch each and every film I’ve mentioned here, that still would only be about HALF of the films on my “To-Watch” list by the end of the year. I know I won’t get through the whole thing, I know it’s virtually impossible. So my task here, in the last lap of 2024, is to figure out which ones are both worthy of my time and to get in as many of the best ones as I can.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. The great thing about this weekly column is that sometimes he can use it to justify the sort of nonsense list-making he does all the time by calling it writing.