By Natalie C.
Have you ever felt you needed a place to rant about an underrated movie, keep track of all of your favorite films or discover stories that you just can’t find at your local theatre? Well, look no further than Letterboxd!
What is Letterboxd?
Letterboxd is a social media platform that allows you to rate, review, log and discover movies all in one place! It was developed in 2011 by two Auckland, New Zealand-based web designers, Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, when they wanted to create something that would not only satisfy their small web-development team’s desire to work on a project of their own, but also fill in the “gap” of movie-related social media networks (Marsh). As the Letterboxd website puts so succinctly, the platform is essentially “Goodreads for film.”
What are its features?
Letterboxd allows you to easily log a movie by writing a review, giving it a star-rating, adding it to your “liked” films and/or specifying the date you watched it (where it will be added to your diary, which is a personal, chronological catalogue of all your watched movies).
In addition, you can discover films by perusing other Letterboxd users’ public movie lists, lineups of films that pertain to a certain theme (such as “comfort movies” or “films directed by women”). Once you see a film that intrigues you – either by its cover or its synopsis – you can click the small clock beside the movie and add it to your watchlist, a collection of movies that you can refer back to whenever you’re stumped on what to watch next!
Finally, you can make your Letterboxd experience a tad more social by “liking” reviews of a movie you just watched, recommending movies in the comment section of a popular movie list or creating a movie list of your own and sharing it with your film-loving friends and family!
How do you like it and what are your favorite aspects of it?
I’ve been using Letterboxd for over a year now and it has become one of my go-to platforms! I adore the neat layout of the website (if you’re one to put all of your apps on dark mode, you’ll love Letterboxd’s design!) as well as the aesthetically-pleasing way film posters are arranged in lists and on your profile (it looks even better when you order films by the rainbow like me!)
My favorite aspect about Letterboxd is that I can keep track of what I watch and when I watch it, as having a place to organize the movies, I’ve seen, allows me to have a satisfying – almost fulfilling – feeling once I’ve finished a movie! In addition, the watchlist feature ensures that I never run out of movies to watch! Without Letterboxd, I wouldn’t have discovered so many movies – many of them new favorites of mine! – and garnered a new appreciation and interest in film. Suffice to say, my quarantine would’ve been way duller without Letterboxd!
Finally, would you recommend Letterboxd?
If you’re someone who has a passion for film or wants to know more about film-making, I would highly recommend Letterboxd! And, even if you’re someone who just wants to watch movies simply because you like watching movies, I think Letterboxd is a great way to not only find more movies to watch, but also gain a greater understanding of what you like and don’t like in a film. In the end, you’ll either end up finding your favorite movie of all time or one that you can have fun roasting with your friends!
Works Cited
Marsh, Calum. “Is Letterboxd Becoming a Blockbuster?” The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/movies/letterboxd-growth.html. Accessed 11 Mar. 2021.
