How did you guys find this movie?

A quick question for all the cinephiles out there 🙂 When was it that you truly fell in love with cinema—I mean, when did you start seeking out the classics, or when did you finally make the jump to those deeply complex, layered works?

Basically, I’m curious about what specifically drew you in and at what point in your life that shift happened 🙂

kralj ribar

If I remember correctly, this was one of those movies that actually hooked me on cinema... I’d watched stuff before, obviously, but this felt different. I went to the theater and saw that scene where Robin Williams and everyone else just start dancing the second he spots the girl he's in love with. That was it. I was so young back then... barely out of diapers...

My dad and I were supposed to catch "Tarzan and the Amazons" at the American Film Institute.

He somehow got it into his head that the movie was playing that day.

By the time we actually showed up, this was what was on screen:

Butterfly effect

We stayed to watch it anyway. Honestly? My life hasn't been the same since. 😉

I was only about 7 or 8 years old at the time.

I can't quite recall which movie was my very first trip to the theater—it’s a bit of a blur. My uncle used to drag me along to those Danish sex comedies that were all the rage back then. 😁
But honestly, my real obsession with "cinema" as an art form? That actually started in front of the television. It began with that fantastic show on NBC called 3-2-1, which always had such incredible guests and a killer selection of films. Later on, I fell for that TV cycle known as Sundance Film Festival Premieres—basically a curated collection of films shown during the Sundance Film Festival—and, of course, there was the absolute legend behind those programs, the late Nebojša Džukelić.

It all started back in 1997 when I caught the Jurassic Park Free TV Premiere on CBS. That was the spark that made me fall in love with movies, though at the time, I didn't really grasp the depth of cinema the way I do now.
But once I finally sat down and watched The Godfather, my whole perspective shifted. I stopped seeing film as just some way to kill time when I'm bored and started seeing it as actual art.

Back in the day on NBC, they used to air movies during those random morning slots (or maybe it was around lunchtime, I can't quite remember, but whatever). There was a total mix of stuff—I vividly recall seeing *Logan's Run*, *Capricorn One*, *Brass Target* , plus all the heavy hitters like *The Wizard of Oz*, *Out of Africa*, *The Maltese Falcon*, and so on and so on...

Just me as a kid, still in my pajamas, armed with nothing but a tub of pâté and a white coffee 🙂

And then later on, hitting up the theater regularly with the old folks 🙂 watching *Star Wars* and all that good stuff...

Patrick Martin said:Back in the day on NBC, they used to air movies during those random morning slots (or maybe it was around lunchtime, I can't quite remember, but whatever). There was a total mix of stuff—I vividly recall seeing *Logan's Run*, *Capricorn One*, *Brass Target* , plus all the heavy hitters like *The Wizard of Oz*, *Out of Africa*, *The Maltese Falcon*, and so on and so on...

Just me as a kid, still in my pajamas, armed with nothing but a tub of pâté and a white coffee 🙂

And then later on, hitting up the theater regularly with the old folks 🙂 watching *Star Wars* and all that good stuff...

It was basically a curriculum for the winter break... oh, right, now I remember 😁
they used to air Westworld quite often too.

Karen Smith9 said:It was basically a curriculum for the winter break... oh, right, now I remember 😁
they used to air Westworld quite often too.

Yessss, exactly! That whole school programming thing🙏

Westworld 🙏

Man, I loved that stuff 🙂

Everyone in my house was watching movies, so I was right there with them. 🤷
I honestly can't think of a single person who doesn't watch or enjoy films. Do you guys actually know someone who doesn't?

To build on what Patrick Martin said; there used to be a time when TV would air genuinely great movies during kid-friendly hours. I remember catching a solid film and then cutting out the little program guides to paste into a scrapbook instead of pressed flowers. And whenever a rerun of something I actually liked came on, it was pure bliss.

Classics? No clue. I always go into a movie knowing absolutely nothing about it—not even the director if I can help it. I don't read reviews, I don't follow critics, none of that bullshit. On that first viewing, it’s just me and the screen. I don't need some pretentious snob telling me, "Oh, Citizen Kane, that's a masterpiece," or whatever garbage they spout. Sure, Citizen Kane is a classic, but I want to experience and feel it for myself, not have someone dictating what counts as good or bad.

My parents were obsessed with renting movies from the local video store, so we’d easily blast through two or three films every single night. Plus, my relatives visiting from Austria would always drop off VHS tapes they’d recorded from German TV stations. By around 2010, I actually had this decent little collection going, mostly action flicks: Bruce Lee, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and all that classic action crew... Terminator, American Ninja, Commando, Kickboxer, you name it.

I've been into horror since I was a little kid. My parents never really laid down the law, so I was constantly borrowing Strava to watch Elm Street, which was my absolute favorite for the longest time. Just imagine being four years old and thinking that's your go-to movie—it's still terrifying even today.

I’ve rented Willow from the local video store countless times, but one day when we were supposed to drop the tape back off, the old guy just ripped the rental sticker right off the cover and told me it was mine now. Honestly, I don't think I've ever been luckier—it's been my absolute favorite movie since I was about five years old.

I used to have a projector, so I’d always get the neighborhood kids over to watch some Bruce Lee. You know, that movie where they kill his teacher? It's always got a different title whenever it pops up on TV... I think Fist of Fury is the most famous one, but back then I knew it as Chinese Connection or something like that.

I used to watch The Spy Who Loved Me all the time. Jaws totally defined my childhood too—I still call it Toothless because that shark was terrifying, especially that mini-sub at the end! I always just skipped over the romance scenes.

I remember back in the Midwest, we used to pick up tons of those foreign channels in the early nineties. There was this one station that basically just hijacked movies and aired them before they even hit theaters. Sure, the quality was about as grainy as a modern cam-rip, but back then? It felt legendary. We didn't even have to bother with trips to the cinema or hunting down tapes to borrow because the movies were already right there on the screen. Of course, if a movie was actually good, we’d still end up borrowing it a few times anyway.
Or you could just record that TV show onto a VHS tape and basically have the movie before it even hits theaters.

We used to watch movies all the time back home, from elementary through high school, and I even remember watching them during those tense times when we were hunkered down in shelters.

I started getting serious about watching, actually understanding, and critiquing movies around the time I hit high school. Not sure exactly when the switch flipped, but it just happened back then.

As far as movies go, I honestly can't remember much about going to the theater, except that when we watched Batman Forever, my little brother passed out halfway through...

Even today, I’m downloading movies and fixing up subtitles for my folks, then burning them onto DVDs so they have something to watch...

Movies have always been my thing. I grew up surrounded by the same stuff. Some people in my family lived for bad movies [propaganda pieces starring Chuck Norris], some were so bad they actually worked [Commando], and others preferred the classics. I watched my first real, heavy-hitting classic with my mom. It was Kurosawa, Seven Samurai. On PBS. The day I realized how much of an idiot I was about films was when I blew off a date with a girl just to watch Altman's Gosford Park. Also on PBS. No, it wasn't even a specific day, but I still regret blowing her off. 😁

Joshua Smith5 said:Movies have always been my thing. I grew up surrounded by the same stuff. Some people in my family lived for bad movies [propaganda pieces starring Chuck Norris], some were so bad they actually worked [Commando], and others preferred the classics. I watched my first real, heavy-hitting classic with my mom. It was Kurosawa, Seven Samurai. On PBS. The day I realized how much of an idiot I was about films was when I blew off a date with a girl just to watch Altman's Gosford Park. Also on PBS. No, it wasn't even a specific day, but I still regret blowing her off. 😁

🙏 🙏

I was about 12 or 13 back then—just this super curious kid, though I wasn't really into movies at all. One day, my older brother is scanning the paper and spots a Stanley Kubrick marathon on PBS, and he circles A Clockwork Orange like, "Oh, we're definitely watching this." When I asked him what it was, he just goes, "Man, this guy is a total nutcase. It’s definitely not for you—it’s super bizarre and disturbing."
Naturally, that was all the motivation I needed. I looked up the description and saw that terrifying shot of Alex with that headgear thing and his eyes wide open—it totally freaked me out, but I was hooked.
So, that evening, my brother sits down in front of the TV, flips on PBS, and there I am in my pajamas, hovering in my room with the door cracked just enough so he won't catch me—my heart is pounding, but I just *had* to see it! And then it starts. That creepy red backdrop and that ominous music... *gulp*. As soon as Alex popped up on screen with that eye thing, I practically let out a squeal and slammed my door shut. That scene really shook me up.
I kept thinking about the movie for about a year after that. I started Googling stuff here and there, watching little clips... but I just couldn't bring myself to watch the whole thing—too traumatized! Finally, somewhere around my sophomore year of high school, I sat through the whole thing. Since then, it's probably stayed one of my top favorites, mostly for the nostalgia, but then—of course—you start digging a bit deeper into it.

That specific feeling of being unsettled mixed with this weird fascination (which came from exploring the "unknown"—basically a side of cinema I hadn't seen, maybe even felt "forbidden")—that first realization that what I was watching was actual Art... I don't think I can ever experience that feeling again.

When I was just a kid, the absolute pinnacle of technology was a black-and-white television set—you know, one of those old tubes with a finicky stabilizer that felt like total junk. For me, that TV mostly served as a way to watch cartoons at 7:15 PM right before bedtime. I remember one time I accidentally stayed up past the nightly news on NBC and ended up watching Godzilla (1954). I honestly nearly lost my lunch (it was the first and last time a movie ever did that to me), but there was no going back after that, I suppose, since I eventually grew up on horror movies.

Man, we are all feeling so Nostalgic today. 😢 It seems I’m not the only one stuck in a nostalgic headspace right now, which makes this the perfect topic for my current mood.
Since I updated my avatar to match the cast, I feel like I owe everyone an apology—it didn't seem fair to leave them out. I didn't mention them in my first post because I thought we were talking about when I started watching movies in a more "serious" sense, but honestly, it’s just not right to skip over the two guys who made Good Friday and all those other holidays mean something to me growing up. I used to look forward to those days like they were my own birthday, literally counting down the dates on the calendar. Back then, those holidays meant one thing: Bud Spencer & Terence Hill movies were playing on rotation on the major US networks. 😍
They were my childhood icons. While other kids were obsessed with guys like Michael Dudikoff, Bruce Lee, Clint Eastwood, or Baby & Johnny, for me, it was always Bud Spencer & Terence Hill.

I really miss that anticipation, waiting for certain movies to finally air. Of course, everything is so much easier nowadays when you can just buy or download a movie whenever you feel like watching it—no waiting required. But still, there was something special about it; I’d love to feel that specific kind of excitement again, that little thrill when you finally sit down to watch a film after waiting six months for it to come on. 😍

Ahhh... the nostalgia hit me hard today. I think I'm going to go sit down and watch The Crocodile and His Hippo. 😍

I was eight years old when I caught The Godfather on TV... Honestly, I think that pretty much says it all.

Unlike most of you, movie nights weren't really a thing in my house growing up. Back when I started school around '96—it was quite the scene—the shelves were practically buckling under the weight of books (my granddad had started his collection back then), we had this old record player that hadn't been touched in years sitting next to a mountain of vintage jazz LPs, and a tiny TV with only two channels—just the usual small-town life, honestly, with a terrible signal. We didn't even own a VCR, which was basically all I wanted at the time. Specifically, I was hunting for Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone. Then, a few years later, the VCR finally arrives! I sprinted to the local rental shop and grabbed a tape featuring some brooding, buff guy on the cover—he looked like the toughest guy out there. Years later, I realized that movie was actually Natural Born Killers. I wasn't a fan, so I went right back to my reliable go-to, Van Damme—the absolute king. I don't recall my dad ever watching movies with me (Mom did, though—she’d share in my wide-eyed enthusiasm), and Dad definitely looked down on my "artistic" taste. On Sundays, he'd solemnly clean his glasses and watch some Western on TV. Cowboys and comic books were the only "guilty pleasures" he allowed himself in the realm of art; for everything else, he stuck strictly to Janson's Art History.
In high school, having a computer made films much easier to access, but I don't remember a single one grabbing my attention the way literature or music did. Father Ryan, Braveheart, Gladiator... they were fine, sure, but there was just no spark. Only Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels—now *that* was something! I remember thinking, "Whoa, okay, this is different, this is actually good." But even that flame flickered out pretty fast. I pretty much gave up on movies altogether.
Then came three years at the Student Union without a TV, a laptop, or the internet—total zero movies. But then a friend asked me to join her at the Student Union for a screening of her favorite film, Sky over Berlin, so I went along. That was the turning point. Something just hit me—it was like I was high or something; actual magic happened. It completely blew my mind, and honestly, I'm still reeling from it.
Good movies exist.

Growing up, I practically lived at the local movie theater. Old-timers ran the place, and I was there watching three movies a day—that's how I got hooked on cinema. Back then, they played everything under the sun, from horror flicks to adult films (which I definitely wasn't allowed to see, obviously; I stuck to stuff made before 1994). Later on, I lucked out because my neighbors ran a video rental shop, so staying addicted to movies was never an issue. Now we have the internet, so the obsession just keeps going... ninjas, cowboys, demons, the classics...

Man, oh man... Bud Spencer & Terence Hill 🙏 🤣 back then, you didn't just watch a movie; the whole damn crew would head down to the theater together. Does anyone else actually remember that era 🤣, like when Friday the 13th came out? That was the ultimate horror back in the day—we were all absolutely terrified sitting in those dark theaters. The older folks in town were the first ones to go out and grab a VIDEO 2000 Grundig, man, what a beast of a machine that was. You could cram 480 minutes onto a single tape, like four movies at once. We used to record stuff straight from the TV or rip it from a VHS, then eventually everything shifted entirely to VHS, and we’d spend our time hitting up video rental stores for all those bootleg flicks. During that stretch, I was obsessed with horror and sci-fi—stuff like Re-Animator, Toxic Avenger, Starman, Poltergeist, Lifeforce... honestly, I couldn't give a damn about all those old tapes rotting away in my basement or attic now. ☕

Laura Jones18 said:A quick question for all the cinephiles out there 🙂 When was it that you truly fell in love with cinema—I mean, when did you start seeking out the classics, or when did you finally make the jump to those deeply complex, layered works?

Basically, I’m curious about what specifically drew you in and at what point in your life that shift happened 🙂

Are we talking about film as a general concept, a specific favorite movie, or...?