following a festival lineup from your couch

for cannes/sundance/tiff szn when you're not there and film twitter is lying to you

mark the fest's actual start/end dates, not just the days everyone's posting

check if it has a public streaming arm (Sundance runs one some years, Cannes never has)

i waited for a Cannes stream that doesn't exist. wasted an afternoon refreshing

follow trade press (Variety, Screen Daily, IndieWire), not just film twitter

note press/industry screening times vs the actual public premiere

wait for the review embargo to lift before trusting an early reaction thread

cannes barely has embargoes so early reactions there are more reliable than sundance's

track acquisitions during the fest (deadline and thr both run live posts)

drop hype for anything with no distributor a week after the festival ends

i got attached to a title in 2024 that never got picked up. still haven't seen it

bookmark the official awards page instead of relying on a recap thread

confirm dub vs sub before committing, festival cuts are almost always subtitled only

set a 6-9 month release window expectation, not "coming next month"

pick one critic whose taste tracks yours and follow their whole lineup, skip the aggregate score

a 60 on some tracker means nothing when it's 12 critics averaging wildly different taste

check the title's home-country release date, it usually lands before the US one

ignore the walkout/booing headlines, they run every single year regardless of the film

save the trailer for after you've read zero spoiler-heavy reviews

rewatch tax doesn't apply if the trailer already told you the ending

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