Why Do We Love Rewatching Things?

Since today is Groundhog Day, a day where the real shadow everyone sees is the one the movie has over the original groundhog, it made me think how often we find ourselves watching movies and television shows we have already watched. I of course did what any sane person would do this morning, got up, took my dog out for his morning business and then found Groundhog Day just starting on AMC and began to watch. This isn’t the first time I have watched this, far from it. And it won’t be the last.

Since today is Groundhog Day, a day where… Okay, just kidding, you are not in an infinite loop, today is the day after Groundhog Day. But that doesn’t mean we don’t like repeats. I figure that there are three main components to why people enjoy rewatching things over and over and over… (Okay, I’m done).

First is that it’s familiar. It’s a comforting thing to watch something again, already knowing whats going to happen. It can even be a tradition, watching Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day, watching A Christmas Story around Christmas. It brings back fond memories of past times watching it, and it can be a ritual that is shared with others, friends or family. It can even help you if you don’t have those people near you to have the familiarity wash over you and feel a presence that you haven’t had in a while.

A more fun aspect of rewatching something is to catch details that you may not have caught the first time. Some movies almost require it, Inception for instance has so many little twists and turns that beg you to press play again once its over to try and discover more little secrets it may be hiding. Other movies have nice little homages, winks to the audience or in jokes that you just don’t know to look for the first time through. I personally love rewatching Back to the Future and finding little details like the Mall being named Twin Pine Mall at the beginning, but Lone Pine Mall by the end due to events that take place during the film. It’s these little subtleties that make revisiting a film a delight.

Finally, watching something that we have already watched can be such a stress free activity. Sure, watching something for entertainment should never be very stressful to begin with, but sometimes you just want to relax, through something on in the background to let your brain just shut off. I have watched shows like Scrubs or Psych, or movies like A Knight’s Tale plenty of times just to have something on in the background of other tasks. It’s not that i don’t care about these shows, its more that I have seen them so much that I don’t have to see every frame to know exactly what is going on. It’s almost as if its playing in the background of my mind while I do something else, attempting to be productive. I know that we all have shows or movies like these and they are great to have when we just need some stress free stimulation.

Watching something new can be exciting but sometimes falling back on old favorites is just as fun. I love revisiting the stories and characters and getting to know them even better or just being able to relax and know that I don’t have to focus to hard or fear missing out on something. I do also acknowledge the irony of writing something about repeat viewing after complaining about the Beauty and the Beast remake yesterday, which if you haven’t read yet, please do, id love to know what you think.

So now my question for you. What are some movies or TV Shows you like to watch over and over again and why? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment on social media or Tweet at my @Luckbuckets on Twitter or comment down below or on the facebook post that brought you here.

Happy watching!