Choosing to Re‐Experience Movies and TV Episodes: Popularity, Motivations and Benefits of Volitional Reconsumption of Entertainment Media

ABSTRACT Volitional reconsumption—the deliberate choice to rewatch movies and television episodes already seen—is an increasingly common and economically significant form of contemporary media use enabled by on‐demand and mobile streaming. This article synthesizes research tracing how reconsumption has evolved from broadcast‐era reruns to a personalized, algorithmically‐supported behavior and clarifies the conceptual distinctions among repeat viewing, volitional reconsumption, familiar media engagement, and nostalgia‐driven use. Drawing on uses‐and‐gratifications and eudaimonic perspectives, we review findings showing that people return to familiar stories primarily for comfort and emotion regulation, social connection (including parasocial and relational reconsumption), identity continuity and nostalgia. Evidence shows that repeated exposure can produce diverse experiential outcomes, including satiation, escalating enjoyment, and deeper appreciation, supported by cognitive and neural processes that make familiar narratives easier to anticipate and interpret. At the same time, reliance on familiar content may limit encounters with novel or challenging narratives and can encourage “playlist pasts” shaped by platform design and algorithmic recommendation. These patterns point to the need for research that examines reconsumption across cultures and life stages, and in relation to individual differences and levels of engagement/transportation. We position reconsumption as a widespread and psychologically meaningful media habit that warrants sustained scholarly attention.