Talk to strangers about movies

Film arguments need someone who has not already heard your opinion. Strangers give you a fresh audience for the take your friends are tired of, and they bring cinema from their own country that never reached your feed — the fastest way to widen a watchlist.

• Endings that split the room and what actually happened
• Films you rewatch every year without fail
• Sequels, remakes and franchises that should have stopped
• Performances that deserved awards and did not get them
• World cinema worth crossing the subtitle barrier for

• “A movie you can rewatch forever?”Use this
• “Most overrated film of all time?”Use this
• “Best plot twist you never saw coming?”Use this
• “Last film that genuinely moved you?”Use this
• “A film everyone loves that you just did not get?”Use this
• “What should I watch tonight?”Use this

• Ask about the last thing they watched, even if it was bad. Bad films make better conversations than favourites, because everyone has an opinion about what went wrong.
• Follow up with “would you rewatch it?”. It separates films people admire from films people love, and the reasons are usually personal.
• Go sideways from the film: the director’s other work, the book it came from, the actor who carried it. It keeps things moving once you have covered the plot.

Always ask before spoiling anything from the last year or so, and remember a stranger may be halfway through the series you are about to discuss. Film snobbery rarely goes down well either: “you haven’t seen that?” sounds like a test. Keep it curious rather than competitive.