Do You Watch Movies Like an Introvert or an Extrovert?

Hannah Keefer

I'm a freelance writer, storytelling enthusiast, and aspiring high school drama teacher. I watch all the movies I can.

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12 Responses

  1. Nicely done and well considered, Hannah!

  2. I like to watch alone the first time, then if I like it, with someone else later. It’s nice if they end up liking it, and I feel like I’m seeing it anew again.

    • That is generally what I do as well. I definitely prefer to watch alone, but there have been some movies that I watched and thought, “I bet this is better with a group.” If I can figure out what might be better with a group ahead of time, maybe I can enjoy it as much as possible the first time through!

  3. Jandy Hardesty says:

    Don’t watch anything with people who talk during movies. If someone starts, pull out the duct tape. Problem solved! :)

    But yeah, I tend to watch things alone that I don’t know much about or if I don’t know whether they’ll be good. If I pick a movie to watch with people, I get stressed about whether or not they’ll like it, and I have a hard time concentrating on the movie. That’s still true to some extent with movies I’ve already seen, but at least then I don’t have to worry about following the movie myself as much.

    • Yeah, I am very picky about who I watch movies with. This is why I don’t watch a lot of movies in theaters.

      You bring up a good point in the idea about worrying about whether other people will like it — I do the exact same thing. That’s yet another thing to factor into the decision to watch alone or with others!

    • Ginny says:

      YES. I get way too anxious about whether the other person will like a movie, and can’t process my own feelings about it because I’m so focused on theirs.

      Like many people, I hate watching a good movie with talkers — but I also really hate when people will start talking immediately AFTER a movie that I had strong emotional reactions to. I need to sit with it and process and feel for a while, and it’s really jarring and irritating to me to have people immediately saying, “Did you like that part? I thought this. What was going on when –?” It’s especially bad if I had a strong reaction and the other people thought the movie was dumb, or something similar. I’ve learned that if I think I’m going to have Feelings about a movie, there are a very select few people I can safely watch it with. So I usually bow out of group theater excursions.

    • Jandy Hardesty says:

      Ginny, that’s a great point about needing a film to sit for a while before talking about it. I do that, too, and it’s really irritating when people are like “so, what did you think” before the credits are even over. It’s even worse when you have a reputation (as anybody who has a film blog does) as a film buff/critic, because people expect you to have opinions immediately. It doesn’t always work like that!

  4. David Conrad says:

    I think one of the main reasons so many people disliked the Blair Witch Project, which is a great movie and which Ebert quite rightly gave four out of four stars, is that they didn’t watch it alone. I think supernatural and psychological horror must be watched alone or with one other quiet introvert.

  5. I agree with everything here except for Horror. While I understand your reasoning, Horror for me falls into the “watch with one other person” category. Even if the person isn’t someone who I can snuggle up to, I enjoy knowing there is someone to talk to briefly and break that terror feeling a bit if it gets too overwhelming.

    • That makes sense! I don’t scare very easily unless I’m alone, so I prefer to watch all by myself, but having one other person around is a good buffer for when it gets to be too much.

  6. Nick Arndt says:

    Thanks for writing that article it was a great read and gave me nourishment for thought