For the last ten years, whenever a specific issue or niche need comes up, our societal response has been: “there’s an app for that.” For film buffs and movie lovers, we’ve got an app too: the increasingly popular social media network Letterboxd. The word itself comes from the term “letterboxing”, the process of transferring a wide screen film onto a narrower screen while retaining the aspect ratio (so you see those black bars on the top and bottom of the picture).
These days, though, the meaning is largely synonymous with the social media website/app first founded in 2011. The simple, high concept pitch of Letterboxd is that it is “Goodreads for movies”. But it offers so much more. Here are some of my favorite features on Letterboxd.
Free Features
Diary
When someone asks “seen anything good lately?” my automatic response is to pull up my Letterboxd diary to see what I’ve watched. Letterboxd makes it easy to log movies as you watch them, and you can quickly specify the date, rating (out of five stars), whether it is a rewatch or your first time, and add a review. All of those are optional, so if you want to forgo all that, you can also just click “watched” so that you can track what you’ve seen without having to note all the other specifics. So simple, so easy, and so essential. As an added bonus, for crazy people like me who have been tracking and logging movies on spreadsheets for years, Letterboxd also has an option to import your spreadsheets and automatically log each entry. To quote Patrick Star: “We’re not cavemen! We have technology!”
Search
For years, my go-to option for looking up movies was IMDB. That’s still a solid choice, but while the data on IMDB is comprehensive, it’s also messy and almost overwhelming, with tons of ads and videos to scroll through. On Letterboxd, in addition to the basic information like cast and crew, release year, and runtime, at a single glance you can see not just the average user rating and your own rating, but, crucially, the distribution of those ratings. In other words, you can see whether that three star film is actually rated three stars by everyone, or half of them rated it 5 stars and the other half 1 star. You can also see how popular the movie is – how many members have watched it, how many likes it’s gotten, and how many lists it appears on. On the left hand side, it also lists all the streaming services where the movie is available.
Reviews
Letterboxd is a pretty low-key site, but if it’s known for one thing, it’s for the pithy, quippy, meme-worthy reviews. There are entire Twitter accounts devoted to this. You’ll rarely find full length pretentious reviews here, but the tendency is towards pure entertainment. Any Letterboxd user knows the feeling of finishing a movie, logging it on your Letterboxd diary, and then facing the eternal struggle of having to decide between writing a witty, snarky review or a meaningful one (especially if it’s a good film). There is also an extremely helpful click-through option for spoiler-filled reviews.
Lists
We aren’t just in the age of memes, we’re in a time where lists and listicles reign supreme. Lists are an incredibly effective way to group movies and to search for movies. Are you watching a movie with your parents and want to avoid uncomfortable sex scenes? Looking for movies directed by women? Or good animated films? Letterboxd has got your back. Each list will also show you exactly how many movies on that list you’ve already seen, and the ones you haven’t seen will pop out as the rest are darkened. You can browse through lists that others have made, or put together your own. Even better, you can filter each list by a number of variables such as date, genre, rating, length, and popularity.
Socialize
Letterboxd is social media, just without the infinite baby pictures posted by your college friends whose names you’ve forgotten. It’s a fun way to share what you’re watching, or what you’re interested in seeing. It’s also easy to give and get recommendations from others. The only thing I love as much as watching movies is talking about movies. Letterboxd provides a great conversation starter with your friends, as well as an easy way to follow your favorite film critics, podcasters, or even bloggers (hell, it could even replace your favorite dating app). It is arguably the most versatile and inclusive space for film discussions today.
Letterboxd Pro Features
There are plenty of worthwhile features on the free version of Letterboxd that will streamline your movie watching and give you options that you’ve never had before. If you’re enjoying Letterboxd after a few months, it may be worth upgrading to a Letterboxd Pro membership for just $19.99 a year. As a tip, every year on Black Friday, there is a sale price of just $12 for Letterboxd Pro. That’s less than the price of a single movie ticket! You get a bevy of additional features, including no ads, but my two favorites are listed below.
Stats, Stats, Stats
How many hours of films have I watched (this year or in my whole life)? What is my favorite decade of films? What are my most rewatched movies? Which directors and actors have I seen the most of? Of the movies I watch, what languages are they in and what countries do they come from? How many movies do I watch per week? You might have never asked yourself these questions, but Letterboxd nevertheless has these answers ready for you. Countless stats (provided in graphs, charts, and other easily digestible formats) are provided to you based on each calendar year as well as your all-time statistics. It makes for great fun for statheads to pore over, but it also reveals your own watching habits and patterns, and allows you to share those with others as well. To paraphrase Don Quixote, “show me your Letterboxd stats, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
Filter by Streaming Service
Your “watchlist” is available at the free level, and like many other websites and apps out there, you can easily add movies that you want to watch so that you aren’t scrolling Netflix endlessly while your food gets cold. The real game-changer here is that the Pro level lets you filter your watchlist, as well as any other list on Letterboxd, by your favorite streaming services. In other words, you can add all the streaming services that you have, and then automatically sort lists to see what’s currently available to you all on one platform. This is seamlessly integrated with Just Watch, and for someone who averages a movie a day, this is a life changing feature. As an added bonus, you’ll even get notifications whenever movies on your watchlist become available to stream!
Whether you’re a casual movie fan who just wants to keep track of what you’re watching and what to watch, or a cinephile looking to learn more about obscure filmmakers and participate in interesting film chatter, Letterboxd has it all. Feel free to follow me if you haven’t already, and happy Letterboxing!
