If you’re a big movie buff, cinemagoer or simply just like to comment on things, then Letterboxd is for you. But what exactly is Letterboxd?
Letterboxd is available as an app on your phone, or you can visit the website here.
What Is Letterboxd?
Launched in 2011, Letterboxd is a platform that allows you to track the movies you have watched, rate them, publish reviews and create lists of your favourites from throughout the year.
Letterboxd describes itself as the “Goodreads for movies” and we think that sums it up perfectly.
Despite being around for over a decade, the app rose to fame during the Covid pandemic. With everyone stuck at home and eventually watching all of those films they’ve always put off, Letterboxd became the cinephiles’ social media.
How Does Letterboxd Work?
To use Letterboxd, you must first make an account, which is free, although you can pay for additional features. Once you’re in, you can scan through the “Films” tab, which has an extensive list of movies. You can then mark off ones you have seen, awarding them stars or writing a review.
If you cannot find a specific film in the designated tab, you can use the search option to look for it.
Once you have clicked onto a film, you are given a heap of information about it. This can include how many people on the app have watched it, how many likes it has, reviews of the film and even how many lists it appears in.
Icons:
- Eye – Watched films
- Heart – Likes Films
- Clock – Added to watchlist
Letterboxd Ratings
What is special about Letterboxd is that it combines professional critics’ opinions with that of cinephiles and casual movie watchers.
Many online ratings of films go off professional critics, which can often be misleading or not a true representation of the film’s nature, as critics are often looking at different things to the average filmgoer.
Rotten Tomatoes is slightly similar in this respect, as it differentiates professional critics from general audience reviews.
However, even this doesn’t give a true representation of what everyone thinks collectively of a film. Letterboxd puts everyone’s opinion into the mix, creating a true average rating.