Letterboxd: A Cinephile’s Wet Dream
Image Courtesy: Instagram
Imagine you go to your local cinema to see this new sports/romance/drama movie that just came out. It’s got one of your favorite actresses, not one, but TWO love interests, and a great score. Plus, the trailer looks promising. It turns out to be the most intense, life-altering, sexiest film that you’ve ever seen. So much so that just texting your friends about it isn’t enough. No, you need to put your thoughts about it on the internet, somewhere for many other film fanatics to see, like-minded or otherwise. But where? Where can you write about how great the movie was? You need people to know how badly you want to take up tennis. And you’re dying to know what they think about that scene. But you have no clue if a place like this could even exist.
I’m here to tell you that it does. Welcome to Letterboxd.
If you’re not a cinema connoisseur like myself (or if you really just can’t be bothered with social media), then allow me to explain. Letterboxd is a forum for movie lovers to rate, review, and discuss films. It’s a place for community engagement through lists, following features, and curated content, allowing users to discover films and reviewers based on shared interests.
One of my favorite parts of the site is the functionality of it. Once you finish watching a film, you simply type the name of it into the search bar to find it. From there, you can look over other reviews, research the cast and crew who worked on the film, and rate it yourself. The site also provides information on where you can watch the films, something that has proved very helpful for me during my current Universal Classic Monster marathon.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
After reviewing, any one of your followers can read and comment on it. Hell, if it gets super popular, it might even show up on the first page of reviews for the film itself. Since Letterboxd is for film enthusiasts, by film enthusiasts, you can have real conversations about what you think. No need to explain the whole plot, or what you think the definition of “cinematography” is. Just give your truest thoughts, and you could have a stimulating debate on your hands. And the fact that you don’t have to take it super seriously is something I appreciate about Letterboxd. Unlike most other social media platforms, I don’t feel the innate necessity to review films for other people’s benefit. I can just be myself. The majority of the reviews I write are just my thoughts during (or directly after the film), dialogue from the film itself, or funny quotes I hear from the people who watch the films with me.
Lists and tags on Letterboxd are fairly simple: you can add films to a list of your own creation for just about anything you can think up, such as all-time favorites, rankings, and countless others. Tags on the other hand can be added to a specific review. If you repeat tags, they’ll start to make their own little list; a collection of films that emanate the vibes you felt when you watched them.
Image Courtesy: Instagram
Now that you’ve been properly educated on the basics of Letterboxd, it’s time to learn how to make an account yourself. When you go onto the site or app, you can sign up for an account with your email. Then, you can update your profile by adding a picture, biography, and your four favorite movies. After that, it’s time to start logging films. I made my account in December 2022, and since then, I’ve logged 167 films and reviewed 141 of them. Honestly though? Those are rookie numbers. Some of my Letterboxd mutuals have logged and reviewed over thousands of films, a few of which have had accounts for a shorter amount of time than me.
Reviews, lists, tags, likes, and countless other characteristics make Letterboxd such a beautiful site. I hope to see its continued rise in popularity amongst not only the film community, but everyone else as well. Go out there and make an account for yourself! Join the Letterboxd community today and have fun! (Oh and for those of you who were left wondering, my four different reviews for Challengers perfectly encapsulate my thoughts on the film.)
Strike Out,
Kaya O’Rourke
Saint Augustine
Editors: Maya Kayyal
Kaya O’Rourke is a writer for Strike Magazine, Saint Augustine. She’s a big fan of film and art houses, curating the perfect Spotify playlist for every occasion, and spending time with her cats. When she’s not shelf-reading at the library, you can reach her on Instagram at @kayaorourke.
