In the same way that there are songs I could (and do) play over and over again for hours, there are movies that bear back-to-back-to-back viewing. When the selection of new releases at the video store disappoints, I know that I can always turn to the dust-covered archives for something I’ve seen many times before and want to see again and again. And again.

Some movies are unarguably great and deserving of a second or even third viewing. They win Golden Globes and Academy Awards; gathering critical acclaim and making millions.

Others go almost straight to video and simply keep us entertained.

I’m thinking “Rambo: First Blood” with Sly Stallone. Julie Roberts in “Sleeping with the Enemy.” Kurt Russell escaping LA for “Breakdown.” The list includes anything by Roman Polanski. As much as I loathe Harrison Ford as far and away the worst actor on the planet, making David Caruso seem Brando by comparison, in the hands of the exiled dwarf Director from Paris, “Frantic” made Harry not only credible, but tolerable. Even while holding a teddy bear to hide his package.

There are others. “True Romance” along with “Five Easy Pieces” and “No Country for Old Men” qualify on the basis of a powerful scenes that make watching from beginning to end worth the awkward pauses. “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” and “Fatal Attraction” will be best film friends, forever.

What makes a movie watchable, even when we know in detail what is going to happen?

Nothing new or surprising, it turns out. A good and simple story with strong and quirky characters who establish clearly and quickly and who good or bad, we can “get inside of.”

When “what’s my motivation” is the question, a wonderfully watchable movie answers it clearly and with gratifying consequences. We can’t wait to see what happens next, even though we know in great detail what it is.

A highly watchable movie invites us to see and be all of the characters. We know exactly what each rotten scoundrel or suffering heroine is thinking. We may despise or like them, but we have no doubt who they are and what drives them.

Accompanying the repeatedly watchable movies we have the eternally watchable actors who guarantee that however bad a movie may be, there will be at least one performance worthy of a few bucks across the counter at the video store or another payment on the Netflix account.

Nicholson, of course. But also Gene Hackman, J.T. Walsh and the only man to have appeared in every movie ever made, the incomparable Brian Dennehy.

And if you ever get to the point where you’ve exhausted your file of favourite movies and actors and really can’t take another two hours and ten minutes of “Terms of Endearment” or a minute more of Meryl, there is still one last refuge: the Cult section for an evening with Alejandro Jodorowsky appearing as himself in “El Topo” or “The Holy Mountain.”

Take that, Pixar.