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 March 2, 2026
It’s been almost a month since the last update, and here’s why. On January 20, I renewed my hosting plan with GoDaddy. Five days later I was notified that my sites were being migrated to a new server — and that’s when the trouble started. I soon discovered that danwillardmusic.com was full of “mojibake,” a term for garbled text that results from a character encoding mismatch. Here are some examples:
Neither GoDaddy nor I had backed up the sites before the migration. When I asked GoDaddy to fix the problem they caused, they wanted to charge me. I spent several hours manually going through the database replacing all the corrupted text myself.
After that ordeal, I decided to switch hosts. I moved both sites to DreamHost — at roughly a tenth of GoDaddy’s cost — and since I was still within 30 days of renewal, I received a full refund from GoDaddy.
The migration to DreamHost required additional work: updating DNS records, switching registrars, renewing SSL certificates on Cloudflare, and tightening security. So far DreamHost has been excellent, with far better customer support than GoDaddy.
I also took the opportunity to make some improvements to filmsbytheyear.com — increasing the font size across the site, making layout changes to the film index, and adding a “Clear all” button below the search boxes so users no longer have to clear filters manually.
Here Is the List of New YouTube Uploads and Index Entries
1896 Pompiers : sortie de la pompe – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted) 1896 O Vira – new index entry and YouTube upload from IMDb’s list of films released in 1896 1897 Gugusse et l’Automate – new YouTube upload 1897 Review of Artillery – new index entry and added to online AM&B Photo Catalogue 1898 La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ : V. Résurrection de Lazare – new YouTube upload for The Year 1898 in Film playlist (unlisted) 1902 Review of Cadets at West Point – new index entry from Paper Print Collection Catalogue 1903 A Romance of the Rail – new YouTube upload for The Year 1903 in Film playlist 1904 Excursion en Italie : Naples : une excursion au Vésuve en éruption – new index entry and YouTube upload from my digital archive 1945 Youth Aflame (Hoodlum Girls) – new index entry from Jon Whitehead’s rarefilmm.com 1974 Columbo (TV Series) Season 3, E05 Publish or Perish – added to index Amazon 1975 Columbo (TV Series) Season 4, E04 Troubled Waters – added to index Amazon 1976 Columbo (TV Series) S05E04 A Matter of Honor – added to index Amazon 2022 Slow Horses (TV Series) S01E01 Failure’s Contagious – added to index Amazon 2024 Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – added to index
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 index 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
Coming Soon
The Year 1898 in Film – Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from November with 244 films in the playlist so far.
The Year 1903 in Film – Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from September with 166 films in the playlist so far.
Maudite soit la guerre (War Is Hell) (1914) – translating Dutch subtitles to English. Have finished 34 of 49 minutes.
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 633.
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.
