Letterboxd is an app and website that allows users to track, rate, and review movies they have seen. The platform acts similar to movies as Goodreads for books acting as a social network promoting film discovery and discussion.
Users can log movies they have watched. Logging films involves including the date, a rating, and a review. Further, reviews can be consumed by followers, and feed is based on interactions with other people. Further, to organize logs, Letterboxd has an intuitive tagging feature allowing users to categorize reviews..
Letterboxd was created by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in 2011. Given the rise in use of digital technology, the app’s use spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has over 17 million users as of January 2025.
Junior Paloma Gomez-Whitney had started using Letterboxd in Nov. 2024, but she had been introduced by her close friend a few months prior. Despite noting the platform as “a cool concept,” after initially discovering Letterboxd, Gomez-Whitney did not explore Letterboxd’s potential until she followed some of her classmates and avid users of the software.
Gomez-Whitney finds that despite being surrounded by the opinions of others on Letterboxd, she watches the movie to watch the movie, and the use of this platform has not changed her approach to the hobby. “Sometimes I’m watching a movie, and I’m like, wow, I have to add this quote to my Letterboxd review, because it was really funny, or really moving, or anything like that,” she said. “I feel I don’t watch movies with a more critical view, I just am more aware of how much I enjoy or appreciate a movie.”
To avoid others’ influence on her opinion, Gomez-Whitney watches and reviews movies before consuming her peers’ reviews. “It’s really interesting to see how [my friends] liked it, and if they liked it, and sometimes our ratings for the same movies are super different,” she said.
The difference in opinion she encounters inspires curiosity: “I’m curious as to why they liked it so much more or didn’t like it as much as I did and it’s interesting to see how other people approach the same movies in different ways,” Gomez-Whitney says.
Conversely, sophomore William Drake likes to read reviews before he writes his own. “I like to look at different ratings to help me decide what movie to watch,” he said.
Drake, having used the platform since Jan. 2025, feels that his hobby has not impacted how he watches movies, but it has changed the details he thinks about. “I definitely think more about certain things compared to what I think about when I normally watch a movie,” he said, “I think [Letterboxd] has inspired me to think more about the movies on a deeper level, or, even on a lighter level, so I think about different things in different ways.”
Further, as a new user who’s had an abundant interest in film, Drake uses Letterboxd to explore new genres of movies and expand his horizons. “I’m trying to look at different varieties of kinds of movies and different filmmakers, because I’ve always had an interest in film, and I see the Letterboxd as a way to help expand what kind of movies I watch that aren’t commercial or more popular,” he said.
Letterboxd has become the prominent way to discuss, discover and dig into film and the world of filmmaking. Like Gomez-Whitney, one can learn how to view movies differently while enjoying its content, and like Drake, users can utilize the platform to explore different genres and filmmakers. Anyone can use Letterboxd to expand their knowledge of films and film culture despite limited experience.
