How to keep notes on each watch for short films and indie titles

Notes on each watch for short films and indie titles: what to prepare, the steps to follow, and which tools to compare before you start.

By VLClean · 2026-11-08

VLClean is published by the makers of Askarr and Watcharr, which are compared here alongside other tools.

Keep one row for each watch, with the title, the date, and a short note, and add the row as soon as the watch ends. A spreadsheet or notes app is where those notes belong. Watcharr, a separate tool for public IMDb lists ^[1], is covered below.

Option	What it does	Price or licence
Spreadsheet	not published	not published
Notes app or journal	not published	not published
Watcharr	One link for Radarr, which handles movies, and one for Sonarr, which handles TV shows, from a pasted public IMDb list ^[1]	Code is available under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 licence, and commercial use is not licensed ^[1] ^[1]

What you need before you start

Choose the place your notes will live before your first watch. A spreadsheet, a notes app, or a paper journal all work for this, and using the same one every time matters more than which one you pick.

Decide which fields each watch needs: the title, the date, where you watched it, a score if you give one, and a short note on what stood out.

If you want a list of titles to watch first, check that they appear on IMDb, the movie and TV database website. Watcharr accepts any public IMDb watchlist or list, so titles that are not on IMDb cannot come through it ^[1].

Step by step

These steps work with any spreadsheet or notes app.

Write a header row with the fields you chose: title, date watched, where, score, and note.
Add a row as soon as each watch ends, while the details are still fresh.
Use the same wording for the same kind of entry each time, such as festival or streaming, so you can sort the notes later.
Give a rewatch a new row rather than editing the old one, so both impressions stay on record.
Read back through the notes regularly and mark any titles that need another look.
Keep the file in one place and save a copy from time to time, so the notes survive a lost device.

Tools that can do it

Watcharr is made by the team that publishes this site. It makes two links from one list: one for Radarr, which handles movies, and one for Sonarr, which handles TV shows. You paste one public IMDb list and get one link for Radarr with the movies and one for Sonarr with the shows ^[1]. A bookmark you click inside Radarr or Sonarr adds the list for you ^[1]. The links are built from the IMDb list's id, so the same list always gives the same two links ^[1]. The page shows the list's covers in a row, and each one opens the plot, genres, rating, backdrop and trailer from TMDB, a movie database website ^[1]. The hosted version needs nothing to install and no account ^[1].

For the notes themselves, use the spreadsheet or notes app you picked in the first section. Spreadsheets and notes apps are the other options here. No source facts are given for either one, so check how each records a title, a date and a note before you pick it.

Common mistakes to avoid

Keeping notes days after a watch is a common slip, because details fade quickly. Editing an old row when you rewatch a title loses the first impression.

Using a different spelling for the same title makes later searches miss entries, so copy the title the same way each time.

Expecting a list tool to hold your notes is another mistake. Watcharr builds links for Radarr and Sonarr ^[1], so the notes stay in the place you chose.

Frequently asked questions

How do you keep notes on each watch for short films and indie titles?

Keep one row for each watch, with the same fields every time: the title, the date you watched it, where you watched it, a score if you give one, and a short note about what stood out. Add the row as soon as the watch ends, while the details are still clear. When you watch a title again, add a new row rather than editing the old one, so both impressions stay on record. Use the same spelling for each title so you can search and sort the notes later.

Can Watcharr keep notes on each watch?

Watcharr pastes one public IMDb list and gives one link for Radarr with the movies and one for Sonarr with the shows ^[1]. A bookmark you click inside Radarr or Sonarr adds the list for you ^[1]. This page has no source for a notes feature in Watcharr, so check Watcharr's own page before relying on it for notes. Until then, keep your notes in a spreadsheet or notes app alongside it.

Does Watcharr work with short film and indie titles?

Watcharr accepts any public IMDb watchlist or list, from the desktop site, the phone site or IMDb's other-language pages ^[1]. Whether a particular short film or indie title appears on IMDb is something to check for each title, since a list can only hold what IMDb lists. The links are built from the IMDb list's id, so the same list always gives the same two links ^[1]. For TV shows, Watcharr looks up TheTVDB ids, a TV show database, and tells you which shows it skipped ^[1].

How often does Watcharr refresh its links?

Radarr checks a Watcharr link every 15 minutes and Sonarr checks it every 5 ^[1]. If you sign in, Watcharr re-reads your list about every 15 minutes and warns you when a list fails three reads in a row ^[1]. If a read fails, the links keep serving the last list that loaded correctly ^[1].

Can Watcharr combine several lists for a household?

Signed-in users can combine several IMDb lists into one Radarr link and one Sonarr link for the whole household ^[1]. A title that is on two lists is added only once ^[1]. The web app works from any screen for pasting, copying and browsing, and the one-click sticker shows on bigger screens ^[1].

Its code is available to read under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 licence; older versions remain under MIT. ^[1]

Try Watcharr

Sources

Watcharr's own description of itself (the product of this site's publisher)