This year, for my New Year’s resolution, I chose to make it my goal to watch at least 100 new movies. In order to hold myself accountable with this somewhat daunting task, I turned to the app, Letterboxd. Letterboxd is a social media-like platform that allows users to post reviews and connect with other movie-lovers online. Established in 2011, Letterboxd has gained significant traction over the last 12 years and currently hosts over ten million users.
Letterboxd is an app that is used by both the public and some of current cinema’s favorite stars. According to the New York Times, Margot Robbie created an account among a myriad of others involved in the film industry. While Letterboxd works as a social media platform like Instagram & Facebook, where you can friend people & keep up with recent activity, it has an almost vintage-feel to it. As described by The Washington Post, the founders of Letterboxd shared that their original intention for the app was to “make it a little bit of a home for yourself [for] sharing what you liked, what you didn’t like, and keep that record for yourself.” The app is often described as less superficial than massive platforms, where the focus isn’t necessarily on your life or your looks, but rather what you just watched at the theater & what you thought about it. It provides a refreshing sense of community while still allowing for individualism – without the imminent threat of social comparison that the massive realm of media has quickly generated over the last decade.
Letterboxd is easy to use, allowing users to display their four favorite films on their profiles. This aspect of the platform is currently being incorporated in real life – on the red carpet – by asking actors what their current four favorite films are. Right now, my profile displays “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “La La Land”, “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” and “Alice in Wonderland.” By incorporating a feature on the app into their interactions with actors on the red carpet, the company is able to further fester a sense of connection through a love for movies.
The app allows for users to create diaries, tracking their activity through recent watches, reviews, and ratings. Letterboxd makes it easy to decide what movie to watch next by also including a feature that allows users and editors to craft lists of similar movies. Some of these lists feature themes such as “1001 Films to See Before You Die”, “Martin Scorsese – favorites” and movies that are featured in the “Harvard Film PhD Program.” By compiling these lists, a further sense of community across the film world is able to form, making movie-going more of a hobby & educational process all at the same time.
Overall, Letterboxd is a refreshing attribute of today’s digital age, allowing users to connect with their favorite directors and actors through film and connecting with their own friends through the medium. Further, Letterboxd is a fantastic way to pick your next watch, by having thousands of reviews by viewers. It helps to make film a personable medium, placing emphasis on the importance of connection in our everyday lives.