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Pros
- Deep movie database
- Rich social elements
- Fantastic community writing
- Curated collections, blogs, newsletters, and podcasts
- Streaming guides
- Free tier and wallet-friendly paid tier
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Cons
- Occasionally difficult to navigate
- Patron tier is more of a donation than a meaningful feature
Letterboxd Specs
Operating System | Android, iOS |
Product Category | Social Media Network |
Product Price Type | $0.00 |
Web Interface |
A significant part of the movie viewing experience is the resulting discussions, regardless of whether you prefer watching blockbusters in theaters or hidden gems on video streaming services. Social media app Letterboxd lets you join a large online film community where you can share your thoughts with and read the opinions of others. Quality curation, strong writing, and excellent features even at its free tier make Letterboxd an Editors’ Choice-worthy app that every cinephile should download.
Getting Started With Letterboxd
Letterboxd is a website you visit on your browser. It’s also an app you can download to your Android and iOS device, as well as on Apple TV. You don’t need to create an account to check out the site. I read Letterboxd reviews for months as a lurker. However, you must sign up and make a profile to create lists and write reviews.
![Letterboxd](https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/reviews/00KJnr1PjsOm1Wmx4jxKgBt-2.png)
The vast majority of what Letterboxd offers is available for free; I never felt as though I was denied a significant experience. However, neat perks come with the low-cost, $19-per-year subscription. This removes ads, lets you see additional profile stats, and adds extra search filters. All users have access to video streaming guide functionality powered by JustWatch, which lets you see where movies are streaming. Subscribers, though, can tap JustWatch’s premium search features.
Letterboxd also offers a Patron tier at $50 per year. For the price, you can customize movie posters, receive a special shout-out from Letterboxd’s creators, and access beta features. Consider it more of a way to donate to the site and show your support.
I primarily tested Letterboxd on mobile. The app is attractive without being as pretentious as you might think for a site named after an aspect ratio. The app attempts to pack in as many features as possible while staying legible, and everything is intelligently laid out. Still, it's a bit tricky to navigate the app due to the menus within menus. Like a great film, Letterboxd is dense but not overly confusing.
![Letterboxd](https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/reviews/00KJnr1PjsOm1Wmx4jxKgBt-3.png)
Building Your Movie Lists in Letterboxd
Letterboxd wants to be the home for all your film takes, from Criterion art house classics to Disney’s latest slop. It’s like a more modern IMDb. In fact, you can export your IMDb ratings and lists and import them into Letterboxd as a CSV file. Creating your own movie catalog is a core part of the experience, and it couldn’t be simpler.
On mobile, you press the big green plus button to add a film. Letterboxd pulls from the open source The Movie Database platform so basically anything you can think of is on there or will soon be added. I immediately decided to spread the good word about Black Dynamite and Speed Racer. The detailed search tools let you filter by release date, country, highest rated, cast and crew, and other options. Once you find and save a movie, it appears in your profile as a watched film.
![Letterboxd](https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/reviews/00KJnr1PjsOm1Wmx4jxKgBt-4.png)
That’s all you have to do, but there is way more you can do, like specify which date you saw the movie, note whether or not this was your first time viewing or a rewatch, give the film a rating out of five, or just Like it by pressing the heart button. And you can write a thorough text review with blog-style formatting options, spoiler tags, and the ability to link to, say, your own movie review channel.
Your profile's diary displays the films you've added. You can also create your own lists to sort your movie takes into different categories. I saw a popular Weirdo Movies For Beginners list that read like an intro to schlock. You can share your entries to social media, including your Instagram stories, or make them private for just you and your friends. Finally, under your Watchlist, enter films you want to see, either because they aren’t out yet or you just haven’t gotten around to them.
![Letterboxd](https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/reviews/00KJnr1PjsOm1Wmx4jxKgBt-5.png)
Exploring the Letterboxd Community
Letterboxd is a fun way to form and collect your cinema opinions. However, it really takes off once you engage with the broader Letterboxd community. If you follow other people, you can see their activity in a separate feed. This can take the form of a new review or a new list. You can leave comments to join in on the conversation, too.
Since it’s full of cinephiles, the Letterboxd community has a reputation for having a “Film Twitter”-like snobbish attitude. Yet I rarely saw outwardly hostile words toward mainstream opinions from other users. And compared with the trash discussions found in any online comment section, Letterboxd's reviews—from both respected critics and random users—read like literature.
Letterboxd has all of the great community features you would want from a streaming video service like Mubi, only without the actual videos to stream. That said, you can find Letterboxd-produced content in the Journal section. Here you’ll discover reports from film festivals, curated collections celebrating diverse filmmakers, and interviews with actors and preservationists. There’s even a Letterboxd podcast. All of this makes the site feel more substantial, even if the community is still the focus.
Letterboxd Is a Community for Cinema
A healthy art ecosystem requires not just people making art, but people discussing art. As a result, I had a great time exploring Letterboxd. I wish I could’ve automatically dumped decades' worth of movie opinions right into the app while devouring thoughts from others. Whether you subscribe or not, Letterboxd’s awesome features have fostered a terrific community for celebrating cinema. For that, it earns an Editors' Choice award.
For more on film, check out five reasons why you may want to ditch your video subscription and keep cable, read how streaming has ushered in a new trash TV golden age, and learn why companies must preserve their streaming catalogs. In addition, check out our recommended streaming video guides if you don't know what to watch.