If you are looking for a user-friendly platform where you can follow the movies you have watched and chat with other people who also love watching movies, Letterboxd is all you need.
Letterboxd is an intuitive “movie-tracking” platform where you can share your impressions of the movies you have watched, and help other people find the movie(s) to watch. If IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes come to your mind right away, that is OK.
But, this platform is a little different and definitely worth exploring and using. So let’s take a look at what Letterboxd has to offer to people who love watching movies.
What Exactly Is Letterboxd?
Letterboxd is a platform that saw the light of day 10 years ago, in 2011 to be precise. Although it was relatively unnoticed for many years, its popularity rose sharply last year during the coronavirus pandemic. The number of users has doubled and is growing every day. Why is it like that?
Because people were locked up at home and watched movies. At one point, they decided to seek something new to look at and probably stumbled upon this platform. What we like about Letterboxd is that it all revolves around you and your movies. Here you will enter which movies you have watched and which ones you would like to watch.
Based on that, you will also find new movies that might suit your taste. You can also write your own movie reviews, share them with others, ‘win’ awards, and the like. In essence, the main point of Letterboxd is to help you find quality movies to watch, so you will see other people’s recommendations and maybe be interested in a particular title. The simplest would be to describe Letterboxd as a social network and a central place for film lovers.
How Does Letterboxd Work?
The platform is designed to be extremely intuitive and easy to use. Once you register as a user (registration is free, but there are subscription packages as well), you can start bookmarking the movies you have watched. There is a “Films” tab with a long list of movies. If you don’t want to go through the list of the same, you have a search bar to search for titles.
Once you find a movie you have watched, you don’t have to go into the details of the same to indicate that you watched it. Just hover your mouse over the image and a menu will open for you. Click the eye-shaped icon to mark it “Viewed”. If you do decide to go into the details of the film though, you will see a lot of information about it.
You will see the number of people who marked this movie “Viewed”, how many people liked it, where it is on the list in terms of popularity, and the like. You can even bookmark it and put it on your “Watchlist” for later. Also, you will see where you can watch the movie, and you can also watch the movie trailer.
Not to mention that you will also see who directed the film, who starred in it, and the like. If you want IMDb details, you have that too. Just click on the icon and it will take you to the mentioned website.
Create Watch Lists and Logs
As we said, this is a tracking page for the movies you watched, but you can also give your rating and opinion about the movie. In addition, you can make various lists for movies (for example, by genre or by some of your own criteria) and write a diary entry.
Yes, that is one interesting concept. When you make a note in your “Diary”, you can do all of the above: write a review, bookmark it whether you like it or not, give it a rating, and even specify whether your entry contains spoilers or not. This “Diary” section comes with some additional options.
You can mark the date you watched the movie, with whom you watched it… in short, make your ‘memory’ of this movie, and tag the person you watched it with if he/she also has a profile on this platform. Maybe you were on a date with someone and went to see this movie. Maybe the film will remind you of some time 10 years ago when you first saw it in the company of a loved one and the like.
Why Are Letterboxd’s Ratings Different?
Letterboxd gives moviegoers and ‘casual’ viewers a chance to share their opinions about the movie they watched. This does not affect the opinion of professional critics who are in a separate category. But sometimes you cannot trust the assessment of professional critics about whether a film is good or not and whether it is worth your time or not. This is because they look at the film from a different perspective and evaluate aspects of the film that may not be important to you.
You have a similar grading system on Rotten Tomatoes. On the one hand, you have a critical rating, while on the other hand, there is an audience rating. These ratings sometimes vary widely. So it is best to look at both ratings and decide for yourself whether you want to spend 90 minutes on a particular movie or not.
Letterboxd Nurtures the Film Lover Community
Letterboxd appreciates and nurtures this film community and encourages open and fair discussion of various film titles. This will make it easier for you to discover a new movie and see if you want to watch it or not.
When you become a Letterboxd user, you will also have your profile with a catalog of your movies and your activities. If you want, you can also put a picture on your avatar, and write a short introduction in which you will introduce yourself.
This network, although it may not seem so, has all the elements of a social network. It is not just about judging films, it encourages communication within the community. Sometimes you will not agree with the rest of the community, sometimes you will. And that is completely normal.
Why Does This Social Network Also Have Subscriptions?
Letterboxd comes in three variants: Free, Pro, and Patron. The first ‘tier’ costs you nothing and you can access an unlimited number of movies, write as many reviews as you want, rate movies, compile lists, and the like. But you will see various advertisements on the website and there is nothing you can do about them if you have a “Free” account.
The second level of the account, if we can call it that, is the “Pro” subscription. It costs $ 19 a year and you will not see commercials with it, and you will get some useful additional features.
The third, and most expensive user level is the “Patron” subscription which costs $ 49 per year. With it, you get everything that is in the “Pro” package plus additional features. Of course, you don’t have to pay for either of them, but know that you have the option to unlock additional features and hide ads if you wish.
Is Letterboxd Worth a Try?
Short and clear – yes. If you are a fan of movies and spend a good part of the day or week on movies (or take a break that way from, let’s say, gambling at the best online casinos in your country – most-trusted of them are listed by the link), Letterboxd might like you.
It is a great platform for tracking the movies you have watched.
It also gives you a sense of belonging to a community with whom you share certain values and with whom you enjoy the same hobby. Plus, if you like writing reviews on movies, this is a better option than writing long statuses on Facebook which 99 % of your friends don’t care for.
Lastly, let’s mention that Letterboxd also has mobile apps for Android and iOS that are, at least to us, great even if you just use them to list the movies you watched. We definitely recommend Letterboxd.
