IMDb is arguably the most useful database on the internet related to the subject. It has been, for many years, a resource I have consistently gone to whenever I got the proverbial, “You remember that movie, with that guy, and that couch…“.
For years though I never thought I never became a member because I never thought of a use for having an account with IMDb. Recently I thought to myself, “Well it would be nice to have an archive of movie’s and TV shows I have seen.“. Naturally I made an account thinking the IMDb Watchlist would be a useful tool for me to add things to watch and check them off. I did not know if IMDb went so far as to collect dates and times and though that might be a novel idea to keep track of my movie/TV show watching experiences.
I signed out and went to IMDb’s description page, “Build Your Watchlist” which states,
“A Place To Keep Track Of The Movies And TV Shows You Want To Watch.”
Okay, so a place to keep track of the movies and TV shows I want to watch… Well then what? Does the user experience fall after that? Surely that cannot be. I must be able to add the movie I watched to an archive where I can easily review what I have watched this month etc. Let’s walk through this logical process (to me anyway) knowing I haven’t read anything more than what I have posted here about IMDb’s built in Watchlist.
- Login to IMDb.com
- Search for The Avengers
- Click “Watchlist” button
- Click down arrow next and “View Watchlist”
At this point I am brought to a page with a grid showing me The Avengers, and I would imagine other movies and TV shows if I added them. Actions I can see are, view showtimes, remove from watchlist, buy it on amazon (ooo, really? I had to click knowing it wouldn’t be there yet since I am writing this and it’s still in the theaters =), share it on social networks, rate it, review it, and export this list (which creates a CSV). What if I watched it, and want to archive it? Doesn’t seem too straight forward.
I haven’t had enough time to really explore IMDb to find a solution to this simple problem I have but it would appear I could create a new list of ‘watched’ movies and I can keep that list for myself. I have no idea if it will allow me to make date and time stamps for those occasions, and maybe I don’t need that, but I think it would be novel to have a scrapbook of my movie and TV show watching experiences. =)
That being said, what would it take? I could see myself adding The Avengers like I did above, knowing I had seen it days before but only had time to do login now, going to my watchlist and seeing it just as I do now. But instead of moving it to another list, maybe another action button that says, “Watched”. A special list appears that has a date and timestamp but allows me to change that for when I watched this move or TV show. Maybe this is too simple? Maybe this exists and I am just missing it! If the latter is the case please comment and let me know so I can update this post accordingly.