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 December 7, 2025
Here is the list of new YouTube uploads and index entries:
1896 Paris : les souverains russes et le président de la République aux Champs Élysées – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1897 Little Egypt [no. 3] – new index entry and added to online AM&B Photo Catalogue
1898 Encierro de toros – new YouTube upload for The Year 1898 in Film playlist
1898 What Demoralized the Barber Shop – updated index entry: the LoC’s YouTube channel has mistakenly labeled the 1901 film with the same title as the 1898 version. The 1898 version is held in the Paper Print as is the 1901 version. See below.
1901 What Demoralized the Barber Shop – new index entry and YouTube upload
1902 Visions d’art : 3. La Fée aux étoiles – new index entry and YouTube upload from my digital archive
1903 A Frontier Flirtation; or, “How the Tenderfoot Won Out” – new YouTube upload for The Year 1903 in Film playlist
1903 Resonding to an Alarm – new index entry from Paper Print Collection Catalogue – I was not able to find an entry for this film on the AFI or IMDb sites, nor is there a film with this title in the American Mutoscope & Biograph Photo Catalogue for July 1903, which is the copyright date given in Niver’s Paper Print Catalogue. Since the length is listed by Niver as only 18 feet (about 15–20 seconds of screen time), I suspect it may be leftover footage from the series of films A. E. Weed shot of the 9th Infantry Regiment in July 1903, omitted from the catalogue because of its brevity. The other films range in length from 50-97 feet. That, however, raises the question of why it was submitted for copyright at all. It may instead be an earlier film that had not been copyrighted at the time of its original production, a situation AM&B sometimes later remedied. As I work through the AM&B Photo Catalogue, I may yet identify the film from a description that matches Niver’s.
1919 The Hoodlum – updated availability in index to okru
1929 The Scar of Shame – updated premiere date and added link to okru
1940 Emergency Squad – updated index with new link to okru
1944 Goodnight Sweetheart – new index entry from Jon Whitehead’s rarefilmm.com
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E01 Captain Rogers – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E02 The Leather Funnel – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E03 A Terribly Strange Bed – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E04 La Grande Breteche – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E05 The Dinner Party – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E06 Money to Burn – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E07 In the Confessional – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E08 Unseen Alibi – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E09 Battle of Wits – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E10 A Point of Law – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E11 The Monkey’s Paw – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E12 The Ingenious Reporter – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E13 Death of an Old-Fashioned Girl – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E15 The Inspiration of Mr. Budd – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E16 An Affair of Honour – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E17 Farewell to the Faulkners – new index entry YouTube
1973 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E18 The Power of Fear – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E19 Where There’s a Will – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E20 A Time to Remember – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E21 Ice Storm – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E22 Come Into My Parlour – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E23 Compliments of the Season – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E24 Under Suspicion – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E25 Trial for Murder – new index entry YouTube
1974 Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (TV Series) E26 The Furnished Room – new index entry YouTube
1980 Sinfonía erótica – updated index entry with link to Blu-ray disc Amazon
1988 Les Français vus par (The French as Seen by…) TV Mini-Series: Ep2 The Cowboy and the Frenchman (David Lynch) – new index entry archive.org
1995 To Die For – new index entry from IMDb’s list of films released in 1995
1999 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 2, E2 Strangler’s Wood – new index entry
2000 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 3, E2 Blue Herrings – new index entry
2010 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 12, E6 The Creeper – new index entry
2019 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 20, E1 The Ghost of Causton Abbey – new index entry
2019 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 20, E2 Death of the Small Coppers – new index entry
2020 Midsomer Murders (TV Series)Season 20, E5 Till Death Do Us Part
2020 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 20, E6 Send in the Clowns – new index entry
2020 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 21, E1 The Point of Balance – new index entry
2020 Midsomer Murders (TV Series)Season 21, E2 The Miniature Murders – new index entry
2021 Midsomer Murders (TV Series)Season 21, E3 The Sting of Death – new index entry
2021 Midsomer Murders (TV Series) Season 21, E4 With Baited Breath – new index entry
2025 2000 metriv do Andriivky (2000 Meters to Andriivka) – new index entry PBS.org
Updates to the Film Index as of November 25, 2025
Here is the list of new YouTube uploads and index entries:
1896 Embarquement – new YouTube upload for The Year 1896 in Film playlist (unlisted)
1897 Little Egypt [no. 2] – new index entry and added to online AM&B Photo Catalogue
1898 Sleighing Scene – new YouTube upload for The Year 1898 in Film playlist
1902 Fille de bain indiscrète – uploaded better copy to YouTube
1903 Double Ring Act, Luna Park – new YouTube upload for The Year 1903 in Film playlist
1903 Rescue of Child from Indians – new index entry from Paper Print Collection Catalogue
1904 Ammunition Transport Proceeding Through a Mountain Pass – new index entry and YouTube upload from my digital archive
1907 Les Femmes cochers – uploaded better copy to YouTube
1908 Taming of the Shrew – uploaded longer and better quality copy to YouTube
1925 Lightnin’ (John Ford) – updated index with new premiere date and YouTube link
1939 King of Chinatown – new okru link
1944 Storm Over Lisbon – replaced broken to rarefilmm.com
1944 She’s a Soldier Too – new index entry from Jon Whitehead’s rarefilmm.com
1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E01 Revenge – new index entry
1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E02 Premonition – new index entry
1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E03 Triggers in Leash – new index entry
1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E04 Don’t Come Back Alive – new index entry
1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E13 The Cheney Vase – new index entry
1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E14 A Bullet for Baldwin – new index entry
1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E15 The Big Switch – new index entry
1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E16 You Got to Have Luck – new index entry
1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E17 The Older Sister – new index entry
1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 1: E18 Shopping for Death – new index entry
1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 2: E15 Crackpot – new index entry
1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 2: E16 Nightmare in 4-D – new index entry
1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 2: E17 My Brother, Richard – new index entry
1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 2: E18 The Manacled – new index entry
1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 3: E14 The Percentage – new index entry
1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 3: E15 Together – new index entry – directed by Robert Altman!
1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 3: E16 Sylvia – new index entry
1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 3: E17 The Motive – new index entry
1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 4: E13 Six People, No Music – new index entry
1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 4: E14 The Morning After – new index entry
1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 4: E15 A Personal Matter – new index entry
1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 4: E16 Out There – Darkness – new index entry – with Bette Davis
1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 4: E17 Total Loss – new index entry
1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 4: E18 The Last Dark Step – new index entry
1960 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 5: E15 Man from the South – new index entry – with Peter Lorre and Steve McQueen YouTube
1960 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 5: E16 The Ikon of Elijah – new index entry
1960 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 5: E17 The Cure – new index entry
1960 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 5: E18 Backward, Turn Backward – new index entry
1961 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 6: E14 The Changing Heart – new index entry
1961 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 6: E15 Summer Shade – new index entry
1961 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 6: E16 A Crime for Mothers – new index entry – directed by Ida Lupino!
1961 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 6: E17 The Last Escape – new index entry
1962 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 7: E13 The Silk Petticoat – new index entry
1962 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 7: E14 Bad Actor – new index entry
1962 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 7: E15 The Door Without a Key – new index entry
1962 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 7: E16 The Case of M.J.H. – new index entry
1963 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 8: E 15 The Thirty-First of February – new index entry
1963 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 8: E 16 What Really Happened – new index entry
1963 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 8: E 17 Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog – new index entry
1963 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 8: E 18 A Tangled Web – new index entry
1964 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 9: E 12 Three Wives Too Many – new index entry
1964 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 9: E 13 The Magic Shop – new index entry
1964 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 9: E 14 Beyond the Sea of Death – new index entry
1964 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 9: E 15 Night Caller – new index entry
1965 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 10: E 12 Crimson Witness – new index entry
1965 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 10: E 13 Where the Woodbine Twineth – new index entry
1965 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 10: E 14 Final Performance – new index entry
1965 Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The (TV Series) Season 10: E 15 Thanatos Palace Hotel – new index entry
1965 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Season 7: E39 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – new index entry and YouTube upload
This was scheduled to air on July 3, 1962 but considered too gruesome by the show’s sponsor Revlon or network censors. It was later included in the program’s syndication package distributed to affiliate stations after the final episode of the program, which was May 10, 1965. There is no record of the date it first aired so for the purposes of my index I’ve estimated its premiere date as June, 1965. The story and teleplay were written by Robert Bloch, the author of the screenplay of Psycho.
1985 Mitt liv som hund (My Life as a Dog) – new index entry from IMDb’s list of films released in 1985
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E01 The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E02 Murder in the Mews – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E03 The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E04 Four and Twenty Blackbirds – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E05 The Third Floor Flat – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E06 Triangle at Rhodes – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E07 Problem at Sea – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E08 The Incredible Theft – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E09 The King of Clubs – new index entry
1989 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 1, E10 The Dream – new index entry
1990 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 2, E01 Peril at End House – new index entry
1991 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 3, E01 How Does Your Garden Grow? – new index entry
1991 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 3, E02 The Million Dollar Bond Robbery – new index entry
1992 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 4, E01 The ABC Murders – new index entry
1993 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 5, E01 The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb – new index entry
1993 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 5, E02 The Underdog – new index entry
1994 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 6, E01 Hercule Poirot’s Christmas – new index entry
1995 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 6, E02 The Hickory Dickory Dock – new index entry
1996 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 6, E03 Murder on the Links – new index entry
2000 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 7, E01 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – new index entry
2000 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 7, E02 Lord Edgware Dies – new index entry
2001 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 8, E01 Evil Under the Sun – new index entry
2004 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 9, E03 Death on the Nile – new index entry
2006 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 10, E01 The Mystery of the Blue Train – new index entry
2006 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 10, E02 Cards on the Table – new index entry
2010 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 12, E01 Three Act Tragedy – new index entry
2013 Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV Series) Season 13, E01 Elephants Can Remember – new index entry
How I’m indexing TV Series for my film index:
1. Sitcoms, Soap Operas, Sketch/Variety Shows, Procedurals, Reality/Competition, Game Shows, Talk Shows, Children’s/Animated Series: One entry only—for the original premiere date of the series.
2. Anthology Series: I’ll make a separate entry for each episode, but only if I consider the series “quality television.”
Examples: Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the original Twilight Zone, etc. For series I don’t consider quality TV, e.g. Monsters (1988–1991), I’ll only make one entry for the premiere of the series. I realize this is subjective.
3. Single-season Serial (“Limited Series/Miniseries”): One entry—using the premiere date of the entire series, since most people binge these as a unit.
Example: Chernobyl (2019)
4. Multi-season Serials (Continuing Series): One entry for each season, using the premiere date of that season.
Example: Game of Thrones (season 1 premiere: 2011, season 2: 2012, etc.)
There are some anthology series with recurring characters that I will make entries for each episode such as Sherlock, Inspector Morse and as you can see, Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
I know a few people here are using my index to watch films in chronological order. What do you think of my scheme for TV series? Would you like an entry for each episode of Gilligan’s Island for instance or an entry for the premiere of each season of The Bevery Hillbillies? I’m certainly not going to watch each episode of I Love Lucy or The Carol Burnette Show but there are a lot of works made for television that rival or surpass films made for theatrical release which why I decided, some time ago, to include television programs in the index.
Coming Soon
The Year 1898 in Film – Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from November with 238 films in the playlist so far.
The Year 1903 in Film – Article and YouTube playlist. Currently adding films from September with 162 films in the playlist so far.
Dommens Dag (1918) – translating Dutch subtitles to English. Have completed 50 of 70 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 “5”. 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 548.
- 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.