New is not necessarily better. Here are some of our favorite films and television shows we revisited in a year with seemingly endless options. 

Blues Brothers (1980)

I ‘made’ my 6 and 3-year-old watch the first 30 minutes of this on my birthday. Both had seen clips, specifically all of the car chases, but neither knew why the guys in suits were being chased by state troopers and Nazis. Now they kinda know. I’ll be using it as a teaching tool for the next 3+ years. Sometimes doing the right thing is in opposition to law enforcement, Nazis and the church. Related, it’s fun to play music with your friends. -Brandon Wetherbee

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982) 

Saw this at a repertory screening in Los Angeles with my three kids under age 11. They were mesmerized, and none were at all fazed by the hospital scene that traumatized me at their age. -Tony Beasley

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

This is one of my favorite movies period, an expertly written and directed new direction for, at the time, a franchise that was on the cusp of lurching into irrelevancy, in my opinion. A sequel that left the stoner-vibed Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the dust. Its secret is that its story is as old as the hills: the price of revenge. I saw it in 1982 at the Old Town Theater in Cottonwood, Ariz., and I have watched it several times since, on whatever platform is available, from VHS to streaming. So it’s not like I was surprised by how good it is. That I knew. What made this rewatch great was seeing a 35mm archival print, screened at the Library of Congress Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Centerin Culpeper, Va., the largest collection of films in the world. The LOC screens films on a regular basis there, for free, in their original format. Seeing it with a crowd, in a theater, more than four decades removed from my first viewing of it in a theater, was a reminder of why movies are such a great communal experience, and the power of sharing our collective dreams. That, and it’s just a kick-ass action movie. -Jason Dick

The Straight Story (1999)

I minored in Film Studies in college, one of my favorite film classes was supposed to be an intro to film criticism but was in reality a repurposed version of a rejected semester long dive into the filmography of David Lynch. The professor pigeonholed that prospective syllabus into a class where we learned about the different schools of film criticism through the lens of Lynch’s body of work. It was mostly a great time, watching classics Mulholland Drive and Eraserhead for school, but one film I struggled to connect with was The Straight Story: it wasn’t freaky enough, felt too family-friendly, missing the twisted David Lynch edge I’d come to love as a 20-year-old boy. I came back to The Straight Story earlier this year and was knocked the hell out by the humanity and warmth of the whole thing. Really special stuff! -Matt Byrne

After David Lynch died at the beginning of the year, I just wanted to spend time with his work. I saw some new stuff, like the kooky and creepy short films that populate the Criterion Channel and watched unfamiliar fare like Hotel Room, a mini-series he did in the early 90s. But it was The Straight Story, that really got to me. Based on a true story of an old coot in Iowa (Richard Farnsworth) who rode his lawn mower to Wisconsin to visit his ailing and estranged brother (Harry Dean Stanton), this is a quiet, sweet masterpiece that, while somewhat of a departure because of its lack of surrealistic violence and dream-reality, is unmistakably a Lynch movie. Watch it and watch your blood pressure go down. -Jason Dick

Peep Show (2003-2015)

Any and all episodes of Peep Show, but I just rewatched the episode “Jeremy Makes It” where Mark makes a new friend at work only to find out he’s a Nazi. I think it’s one of the most prescient pieces of media about the “male loneliness epidemic” to right wing freak pipeline. -Joe McAdam

New Girl (2011-2018)

Out of all the sitcoms to stream, New Girl is the one I return to the most. In light of Rob Reiner’s murder, rewatching the show has new significance. Like many, Reiner’s films fundamentally shaped me. Whenever teachers did not want to teach at my elementary school, they put on Princess Bride. Last year, I fought and bribed friends with candy during a movie bracket, so When Harry Met Sally could win the best fall film award. New Girl allows you to watch Reiner’s genius in front of the screen. Playing Jess’ dad, Reiner steals every scene with his infectious smile and warm, comedic charm. -Nicole Schaller

Industry (2020-present)

Industry was initially promoted as “for fans of Succession,” which underplays how addictively sleazy it is. One part grim (yet hilarious) satire, one part gleeful everybody-here-sucks misanthropy, and three parts rockling soap opera, Industry, now in its fourth season, tracks a diverse but uniformly terrible group of young, sexy, greedy, conniving overachievers looking for shortcuts to success in the brutally competitive financial sector as they toot Scarface-sized mountains of booger sugar and get naked as much as their high-pressure professional obligations allow. I’ve started over several times, and it keeps getting better. Industry, to its eternal credit, has few pretensions toward what was once called “prestige TV.” Instead, a bitter, gratuitous third cousin of a spec script for Gossip Girl written by Mamet at his most incisive. Industry might piss you off, fuck with your heart and head, get you hooked, or any combination of the above. -Emerson Dameron

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