Watching movies is one of my favorite things to do in my free time. I love being able to tune out the world and spend about two hours getting totally wrapped up in another one. In the last three years, my movie-watching experience has been elevated exponentially because of an app called “Letterboxd.”
Letterboxd is a social media app for film lovers. You can rate and review movies you watch, view other people’s thoughts, discover new movies, and more. It’s very similar to the app “Goodreads,” but for movies instead of books.
Letterboxd can be enjoyed socially or independently. You can keep track of the movies you’ve watched by marking them as “watched,” give all of your favorite films a “like,” and compile a watchlist. My favorite feature is the diary which allows you to log every film you watch. The first thing I do after finishing a movie is open up Letterboxd, rate the film on a scale of 1-5 stars, and write a review. I even have a “Letterboxd Rating Guide” in my notes app in case I’m torn on how to rate a movie. Usually, my review is something short and silly, but sometimes a film will bring the film geek out of me and I’ll write a whole essay. The app is for entertainment so don’t feel intimidated to write an intellectual review.
Letterboxd is also super fun from a social aspect. After adding your friends, you can see whenever they log a movie as well as their thoughts on it. This can be super helpful for discovering new films. The app also makes watching movies with friends even more fun. Whenever my roommate and I finish watching a movie, we immediately craft our reviews and then reveal them to each other afterward. Another feature I love is that each user can display their four favorite films on their profile. I personally think that you can tell a lot about a person by this.
There are too many features to mention all of them, but another one of my favorite additions to the app is the “Year In Review.” At the end of the year, you get a recap of everything you logged that year. They tell you how many films you logged and reviewed, how many hours you spent watching movies, your most-watched actor, and your most-watched director.
Everything I mentioned is included in the free account, but there are also paid subscriptions that allow you to access more features. Letterboxd is independent and these subscriptions really help them out.
If you love watching movies, I absolutely recommend Letterboxd.