Welcome!
Films by the Year began around 2011 as a way to organize my film viewing by watching a film from each decade beginning with the 1890s up to the present decade. I begin with years that end in zero, 1890, 1900, 1910, etc. and once I’ve watched a film from each decade I return to the 1890s and start with films from years that end in one, 1891, 1901, 1911, etc. and so on. In order to do this I began entering the films in a spreadsheet in chronological order by release date. After a while I made the spreadsheet public as a Google sheet and in 2015 I created this website which includes my film index, which has now grown to over 22,000 entries. You will also find film reviews, articles on film history and the complete Lumière and American Mutoscope & Biograph photo catalogues organized by catalogue number. The latter catalogue is still a work in progress. Many of the films in the index and playlists for the film history articles link to my Films by the Year YouTube channel. I also have a few channels on the Russian social media site Odnoklassniki. I invite you to join my Films by the Year Facebook Group where I post about my current projects and uploads to my YouTube channel.
Updates to the Film Index as of February 8, 2026
Here is the list of new YouTube uploads and index entries:
1896 Panorama pris d’un bateau – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1897 President Cleveland and President McKinley – new index entry and added to online AM&B Photo Catalogue
1898 La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ : IV. Trahison de Judas – new YouTube upload for The Year 1898 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1901 The Reversible Divers – new index entry from Paper Print Collection Catalogue
1903 Parade of “Exempt” Firemen – new YouTube upload for The Year 1903 in Film playlist
1906 Voleurs de bijoux mystifiés – new index entry and YouTube upload from my digital archive
1944 Our Hearts Were Young and Gay – new index entry from Jon Whitehead’s rarefilmm.com
1985 Screen Two (TV Series) S01E02 Poppyland – new index entry ok.ru
1985 Screen Two (TV Series) S01E03 Unfair Exchanges – new index entry ok.ru
1985 Screen Two (TV Series) S01E06 Lent – new index entry ok.ru
1986 Screen Two (TV Series) S02E01 The McGuffin – new index entry YouTube
1987 Screen Two (TV Series) S03E01 Coast to Coast – new index entry YouTube
1988 Screen Two (TV Series) S04E01 The Vision – new index entry ok.ru
1989 Screen Two (TV Series) S05E01 Death of a Son – new inde entry YouTube
1990 Screen Two (TV Series) S06E01 Old Flames – new index entry YouTube
1991 Screen Two (TV Series) S07E01 Heading Home – new index entry YouTube
1992 Screen Two (TV Series) S08E01 The Grass Arena – new index entry ok.ru
1993 Screen Two (TV Series) S09E01 The Clothes in the Wardrobe – new index entry ok.ru
1994 Screen Two (TV Series) S10E01 Genghis Cohn – new index entry ok.ru
1995 Screen Two (TV Series) S10E20 The Blue Boy – new index entry ok.ru
1995 Screen Two (TV Series) S11E01 A Very Open Prison – new index entry ok.ru
1996 Screen Two (TV Series) S12E09 Half the Picture – new index entry
1996 Screen Two (TV Series) S13E04 Bad Boy Blues – new index entry ok.ru
2013 Endeavor (TV Series) S01E03 Rocket – added to index
2025 One Battle After Another – new index entry from IMDb’s list of films released in 2025
Updates to the Film Index as of January 19, 2026
Here is the list of new YouTube uploads and index entries:
1896 Danse tyrolienne – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1896 Labourage – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1897 Troop “A” of Cleveland, O. – new index entry and added to online AM&B Photo Catalogue
1898 La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ : II. La Fuite en Égypte – new YouTube upload for The Year 1898 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1902 Visions d’art : 2. Aubade à la lune – new index entry and YouTube upload from my digital archive
1903 Move On – new YouTube upload for The Year 1903 in Film playlist
1905 Reuben in the Subway – new index entry from Paper Print Collection Catalogue
1913 Broken Ways (Griffifth) – new index entry and YouTube upload
1944 Opfergang – new index entry from Jon Whitehead’s rarefilmm.com
1959 The Twilight Zone (TV Series) S01E01 Where Is Everybody? new index entry Amazon Prime Video
1961 The Avengers (TV Series) S01E01 Hot Snow – new index entry ok.ru (incomplete)
1961 The Avengers (TV Series) S01E06 Girl on the Trapeze – new index entry ok.ru
1961 The Avengers (TV Series) S01E15 The Frighteners – new index entry ok.ru
1961 The Avengers (TV Series) S01E20 Tunnel of Fear – new index entry ok.ru
1961 The Defenders (TV Series) S01E01 The Quality of Mercy – new index entry ok.ru
1962 The Defenders (TV Series) S01E29 Reunion With Death new index entry and ok.ru upload
1963 The Avengers (TV Series) S02E15 Intercrime – new index entry ok.ru
1963 The Defenders (TV Series) S02E16 Kill or Be Killed (directed by Sydney Pollack) new index entry
1963 The Twilight Zone (TV Series) S04E02 The Thirty-Fathom Grave new index entry Prime Video
1973 Columbo (TV Series) Season 2, E05 Requiem for a Falling Star Prime Video
2003 American Wedding – new index entry
2003 The Singing Detective – new index entry
2013 Endeavor (TV Series) Season 1, E02 Fugue – new index entry Prime Video
2015 Better Call Saul (TV Series) S01E01 Uno – new index entry from IMDb’s list of films released in 2015
2015 Better Call Saul (TV Series) S01E02 Mijo – new index entry from IMDb’s list of films released in 2015
2025 Bowie: The Final Act – new index entry channel4.com (can’t stream outside of the UK – might work with a VPN)
Coming Soon
The Year 1898 in Film – Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from November with 243 films in the playlist so far.
The Year 1903 in Film – Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from September with 165 films in the playlist so far.
Maudite soit la guerre (War Is Hell) (1914) – translating Dutch subtitles to English. Have finished 17 of 49 minutes.
Ongoing Projects
- Adding all entries from Kent Niver’s Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress to the film index. There are about 3,000 films listed in the book arranged in alphabetical order. I’m currently working through titles that begin with the letter “R”.
- Creating an online version of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Photo Catalogues. These can be downloaded from Rutgers University but there’s no way to search them. When it’s finished you will able to search by title and find a still from the film along with other information.
- I have an enormous amount of films in digital format that I haven’t added to the index or uploaded to YouTube.
- Adding films from Jon Whitehead’s streaming site rarefilmm.com. I’m currently adding films from years ending in “4” to the film index.
- Adding films from IMDb’s list of films from each year sorted by number of ratings. Currently working on years that end with “6”. I add one film 1905, 1915, …until I get to 2025 then start with the year 1906, 1916 and so on ad infinitum.
- Uploading my collection of over 900 movie trailers to Odnoklassniki. So far I’ve uploaded 611.
- Uploading my entire collection of digitized films to the cloud. Eventually external hard drives fail or might be destroyed in a fire or natural disaster. I started in July, 2023 and have uploaded over 10 TB so far. Currently I’m working through films from the year 2010 and some anthologies of films from the late 19th and early 20th centuries along with DVD extras, trailers, etc.