There’s something special about showing someone your favorite movie for the first time

I have discovered there is a strange phenomenon that happens when you show someone one of your favorite movies for the first time.

You don’t really watch the movie. Instead, you watch them.

You know what’s coming. You know the joke. You know the reveal. You know the moment when the music swells. You know exactly when Marty McFly is going to hit 88 mph.

None of that is new, but their reaction is.

Sometimes I think watching someone experience a movie you love for the first time might be almost as much fun as seeing it for the first time yourself.

Movies were part of the family

I grew up in a house surrounded by movies.

My dad actually made a living making low-budget family films, so movies weren’t just something we watched. They were literally part of our lives.

That apparently rubbed off on the rest of us.

One of my brothers has been a working actor in Los Angeles for more than two decades. Another brother was a movie critic for a time. And whenever all of us get together, it is pretty much inevitable that at some point the conversation will turn to movies.

During COVID, we even started a monthly movie club. One brother would pick a movie. We’d all watch it separately, then get on a video call and discuss it.

Sometimes we talked about why we loved the movie. Sometimes we explained why the person who picked it had terrible taste and why we had lost a little respect for him. It was a healthy family environment.

My wife grew up in a very different house.

Movies weren’t exactly held in the same regard. Calling them a lower art form might even be generous. Calling them art at all may have been considered heresy.

I discovered the severity of the situation when we were dating.

She told me her dad loved Chevy Chase and had shown the family his movies growing up.

“Oh, so you guys watched ‘Fletch,’ ‘Three Amigos!‘ and ‘Christmas Vacation‘?”

She had never seen them. She hadn’t even heard of some of them.

Apparently, she knew movies like “Seems Like Old Times” and “Foul Play.”

I didn’t want to call her father a liar to his daughter’s face. But claiming to be a Chevy Chase fan without introducing your children to “Fletch” seemed like grounds for an investigation.

Watching the person instead of the movie

One of the unexpected joys of dating and eventually marrying someone who hadn’t seen many of the movies I loved was getting to introduce her to them.

“Fletch.” “Three Amigos!” “The Goonies.” “Jaws.” “Back to the Future.”

I’d seen these movies so many times I practically knew them by heart. But suddenly they were interested again in a completely different way.

I wasn’t watching Marty McFly anymore, I was watching her watch Marty McFly.

I knew what was going to happen. She didn’t.

Her reaction was something I had never seen before and would never see again. There is only one first time.

Nearly two decades into our marriage, I’ve managed to pull my wife onto the movie bandwagon. She’s not nearly as far gone as I am, but that’s probably healthier anyway.

Our kids, however? They’re movie junkies. For better or worse, that one is probably on me. Sorry, babe.

“Can we watch number two?”

As my kids have gotten older, one of my favorite things has been realizing they’ve finally reached the age when I can show them certain movies.

There was something genuinely special about sitting down with all three of them to watch “Back to the Future.”

My oldest daughter was about 15 and seemed fairly uninterested when we started. Dad was making everybody watch another old movie.

Then the movie started, and of course, she got sucked in. They all did.

By the end, they were completely invested in Marty, Doc, George, Lorraine, and whether lightning was actually going to strike that clock tower at precisely the right moment.

The credits rolled, and my oldest daughter immediately asked, “Can we watch number two?”

That was a good night.

I’ve had similar experiences showing them “Jaws” and “The Goonies.”

I’ll never forget watching “Batman Begins” with my son for the first time. His eyes lit up as he disappeared into that world. When it ended, he couldn’t stop talking about how amazing it was.

All I could think was, “Buddy, just wait.”

Then we watched “The Dark Knight.”

Turns out he liked that one too.

I’ve gotten to introduce them to “Star Wars,” Indiana Jones and, because a proper cinematic education requires range, “Tommy Boy.”

There are still movies waiting for them.

As they get older, there will be new milestones. Someday I’ll get to sit quietly while they try to figure out who Keyser Söze really is. Someday they’ll experience the Normandy landing in “Saving Private Ryan.”

And I’ll probably do the same thing I’ve done all along. Watch them, not the screen.

We’re trying to share a feeling

I probably get more excited about showing my kids some of these movies than I should. Part of it is certainly the obnoxious movie-critic dad in me hoping they’ll recognize that I have impeccable taste. That plan doesn’t always work. Just ask my wife about the time I showed her “Strange Brew.”

Sometimes you spend years waiting for your kid to be old enough to experience one of the defining movies of your childhood, only for them to shrug and say, “It was fine.”

Those are the moments when you begin reconsidering the estate plan.

But when they do love it, something funny happens. You’re excited for them, but you’re also remembering yourself.

Movies have a funny way of worming themselves into our personalities.

We remember the movies that left us in awe. The ones that made us laugh until we couldn’t breathe. The ones that scared us. The ones we quoted with our friends. The ones we watched with our parents, siblings, or kids.

Eventually, the memory of the movie and the memory of our lives become tangled together.

That’s why showing someone “Back to the Future” isn’t just showing them “Back to the Future.”

Somewhere inside me is the kid who saw it for the first time and couldn’t believe what he’d just experienced.

When I show it to my kids, I’m hoping, selfishly, I know, that they can feel a little bit of what I felt.

And every once in a while, they do.

Their eyes get wide. They laugh at exactly the right moment. They lean forward. They forget they’re watching some “old movie” Dad made them watch. And for a couple of hours, I get to see a movie I’ve seen a thousand times for the first time. It just happens to be through someone else’s eyes.