About Movies With Macca

Hello, I'm Macca, and this is where I write about films. All of them, eventually, if I have my way.

A while back I set myself a challenge that sounded simple and turned out to be anything but: watch a film from every country on Earth. Not just the famous ones from the usual handful of film industries, but a film from everywhere, the places that make one feature a decade and the places that flood the world with them. Tracking some of them down was a quest in itself. But I finished it. Every country, one film at a time.

That challenge taught me something. The best film writing isn't a star rating and a thumbs up, it's context: the where, the why and the who, wrapped around an honest opinion. So that is what I try to do here. Every review is long-form and written in the spirit of the critics I grew up reading, Roger Ebert chief among them. A bit of history, the story behind the production, who is on screen and what they bring, my actual take, and a closing thought that hopefully sends you somewhere new. The sort of thing you would talk through with a mate over a pint, just written down.

These days I am working through the various "best of" lists that film obsessives know too well: the Letterboxd and IMDb top hundreds, Sight and Sound, the Palme d'Or and Best Picture winners, and the canons of documentary, animation, horror, and the films by women and Black directors that the mainstream lists too often skip. The goal, eventually, is to have written honestly about all of them.

Where I'm up to:
32% Letterboxd Top 500 (163/500)
58% IMDB Top 250 (147/250)
26% Oscar Best Picture Winners (26/98)
19% Cannes Palme D'Or Winners (20/104)
80% $1 Billion Club (50/62)
39% AFI 100 Years 100 Movies (39/100)
27% Sight and Sounds Greatest Films (72/264)
24% 1001 To See Before You Die (248/1001)
22% They Shoot Pictures Don't They... All Time (224/1000)
15% They Shoot Pictures Don't They... 21st Century (158/1000)
12% Top 250 Women-Directed (30/250)
14% Top 250 Black-Directed (36/250)
52% Top 250 Most Fans (130/250)
12% Top 250 Documentaries (30/250)
42% Top 250 Animation (106/250)
30% Top 250 Horror (76/250)

How the ratings work

I rate out of five, in half-star steps, the same scale I have always used on Letterboxd. A five is rare and means something. A half-star means I would rather have been doing the washing up. Most films, like most things, live somewhere in the honest middle.

Where to watch

Where I can, I tell you how to watch each film in the UK. Some of those are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy or rent through them, at no extra cost to you. It helps keep the lights on and the films flowing. I only ever point you to where a film actually is, never where someone has paid me to send you.

Say hello

You can find me on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/MoviesWithMacca, or drop me a line at movieswithmacca@gmail.com. I always like hearing which ones you think I have got wrong.