Here's Everything Steven Soderbergh Watched (And Read) In 2022

Steven Soderbergh is one of our finest filmmakers, one that has given us some of the best films of the 21st century, and he is also an avid TV and movie watcher.

While some directors have an annual tradition of sharing their list of favorite movies of the year, Soderbergh takes things a step further. Every year, the filmmaker releases a massive list of every single TV show, movie, short and play he watched, as well as every book and short story he read. Spoiler alert: he watched a lot.

What's most fascinating about his list is how it tends to give us a quick glance into Soderbergh's mind, offering fans a chance to theorize about what movies and shows may influence his next title, and see the connecting dots between each thing he watches. For instance, a viewing of "Mad Max: Fury Road" seems to have inspired a reverse marathon, as Soderbergh watched the original "Mad Max" a couple of days later, followed by "The Road Warrior" but curiously, he left out "Beyond Thunderdome." Likewise, he went on a bit of a Nixon rabbit hole in June, reading "Watergate: A New History" by Garrett M. Graff right after watching "All the President's Men," only to then watch the TV show "Watergate: High Crimes in the White House." 

The list also gives fans a look at his filmmaking progress. Soderbergh is renowned for his quick turnaround, sometimes delivering multiple films a year. We can see in the list how often Soderbergh watches early cuts of his upcoming movies, and how early — like watching the third "Magic Mike" movie just two months after principal photography began.

Granted, there's one constant in Soderbergh's list — his love of reality TV. The filmmaker's most-watched title wasn't some prestige show or classic movie, but the TV show "Below Deck," which has been on his list for a couple of years. The Bravo reality show follows a charter yacht crew, and Soderbergh once described to Rolling Stone how he was hooked by the show's approach to problem-solving at work.

Perhaps the most surprising thing on the list, however, is that one of his most-watched films of 2022 was the 1977 film "Sorcerer" (seen above), directed by William Friedkin. The film follows a group of outcasts transporting dynamite out of a South American village while it sweats nitroglycerin. Though the film was poorly received at the time of release, it has gained supporters through the years, and that would seem to include Soderbergh, who watched the film three times last year. Could it be informing an upcoming movie or show he has in the works?

Elsewhere, the list reveals that Soderbergh is more polite than critics who use Letterboxd, as he doesn't feel the need to humble brag about getting to watch movies early by writing "embargoed" under every film he logs ahead of release. For instance, he watched "Magic Mike's Last Dance" — and presumably its 30-minute dance finale — a total of five times throughout the year.

Better yet, Soderbergh was lucky enough to have seen David Fincher's new movie, "The Killer." The film is set to reunite the director with "Se7en" screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker and follows Michael Fassbender as an assassin losing his grasp on reality. Soderbergh not only got to see the film already, but he saw it four times in the span of a single week in August. The only other time that Soderbergh saw that many great films in such a short time last year was December 10 when he watched "The Menu," The Fabelmans" and "Decision to Leave" in a single day.

You can check out the full list in its entirety right here.