Why deep down we like rewatching the same old movies and shows - especially during the pandemic

When the pandemic struck, Julia Heney found comfort in the afterlife.

Well, a show about the afterlife. Almost by accident, the 32-year-old Chicago resident fell into rewatching “The Good Place” after shutdowns began.

“It’s just so soothing to me,” Heney said. “You can turn it on and, in any episode, they’re going to try to be good. No one is going to be violently murdered. There’s no huge, scary scenes that will pop out at you with the unexpected.”

“I just keep looping it,” she said. To the point that’s it become something of a joke in her house. Her boyfriend will walk into the room and say, “‘Oh, I see you’re watching your favorite show again.’ “

Many have escalated their rewatching of favorite movies and TV shows during the pandemic, finding them to be creature comforts while stranded in their homes indefinitely, especially with the evergrowing number of streaming services making this content just a click away. All this rewatching raises the question: What makes something rewatchable in the first place, beyond the simple fact that you liked it?

People’s reasons for rewatching - and their methods of doing so vary. For some, the timeless activity has taken on a more creative form. Take Brooklyn resident Natasha Padilla, who began hosting a virtual “Zoom(ovie)” night with friends every Saturday, choosing various themes such as Christian Slater movies or summer flicks. Eventually, she began digitizing old VHS tapes from her closet, only to find herself rewatching classic MTV award shows and ‘90s commercials featuring Cindy Crawford and Little Richard. (Her takeaway? “Everyone was shilling for some kind of sugar.”)

Or Maggie Mertens, a 33-yearold freelance writer in Seattle who teamed up with her college friend and fellow journalist Megan Burbank to dive back into “Gilmore Girls” “to deal with the stress” and to give “us something else to talk about.” They took things a step further and started a newsletter on Substack called Gilmore Women, in which, as its tagline states, they “discuss everything that’s wrong with every episode of ‘Gilmore Girls’ & why we still love it.”

“It’s literally the show I would watch when I was a heartbroken teen,” Mertens said in a Twitter direct message when asked why they chose “Gilmore Girls.” “So something about it just being so familiar, I think. And reminding me of simpler times, maybe?” But, like many older programs, aspects of it haven’t aged well, so the newsletter allows the two to explore those issues while relishing in “this world where the drama is about feelings and family connection and not ALL the big-picture world problems outside.”

Movies are also getting revisits, and not everyone is reaching for soothing fare. Many of those cinefans are chronicling their treks into the past on Letterboxd, a social media platform dedicated to publicly journaling movie-watching.

The communal aspect of the platform proved particularly enticing during isolation. David Larkin, the company’s “business guy,” as he describes himself, said the rate of commenting among its 3 million users nearly doubled in 2020. And because users follow one another, one’s rewatch of, say, “Erin Brockovich” might prompt others to follow suit.

Larkin followed many personal rewatch journeys while embarking on a couple of his own. He screened all of Michael Mann’s movies, from “Heat” (a rewatch for about the 12th time) to “Blackhat” (an unfortunate first-timer). (Oddly, this is the same path this reporter took back in April.) Another found him going back through the movies of Sidney Lumet and appreciating them in a new light.

“He made three movies almost in a row about corrupt cops in New York. It was so interesting to watch them sequentially and see how the themes got more complex and morally ambiguous,” Larkin said. “It was a great opportunity to rewatch some of your favorites and be more thoughtful about them.”