Becoming a Cinephile, Fifteen Minutes at a Time

Finding room for art in the margins of a busy life

I like to read. I’m a reader. And I’m blessed to have a job where I can do a lot of reading. Over the past seventeen years, I reckon I’ve read more than two thousand books. Most of those two thousand were read in prepping for AoM podcast interviews and for researching AoM articles. Some of them were read just for fun.

But for several years, I’ve wanted to branch out from books and start exploring movies, too. Not just any movies. I’m talking about great, artsy cinema. I’ve wanted to become a cinephile.

This itch to become a turtleneck-wearing movie buff started back in college, when I took a film appreciation class. I loved watching forgotten classics or off-the-beaten-path modern movies. I learned to love movies as a storytelling medium.

But as an adult, I’ve mostly ignored that itch.

Why? Well, for the same reason why adults don’t do a lot of things they want to do. Time. Or the lack of it.

I just don’t have the time to sit down for two or three hours straight to watch a film from start to finish. Between work, chores, and kids, uninterrupted movie nights haven’t been an option for me.

I told myself I’d get around to becoming a cool dude cinephile one day.

But when you hit your 40s, you start to realize “one day” is never going to come (as Kate likes to say, “Good times are not around the corner!”). If I wanted to become a cinephile, I was going to have to make it happen for me now.

Well, thanks to some mindset shifts and savvy tech use, this year I’ve been able to watch dozens of movies. I’ve become the cinephile I’ve always wanted to.

Below is the simple, practical approach that’s helped me watch dozens of classic films this year without blowing up my schedule or abandoning my dad duties.