Originating in Auckland New Zealand, founders Matt Buchanan and Karl von Randow started the Letterboxd site back in 2011 as an equivalent of GoodReads, but for films. They envisioned a place where ordinary users could review and rate films at their own leisure. It has been dubbed as ‘the twitter for cinephiles’ and in many ways it is in that very smart and astute observations are made about films. This has it’s own downsides in that instead of reviewing films in the traditional sense, users scramble to post the most succinct and smart-alleck one liner to a film in order to gain likes. For example on the new Bridget Jones film, just three emojis “🇬🇷🧮🦆,” a reference to a gag in the film, has amassed nearly 4,000 likes within hours of the film releasing. And one of the most liked reviews of all time on the site is one from Barbie that has 94,000+ likes simply stating “s(he’s) bro(ken).” Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert would be turning in their graves, but on the other hand it means people without a platform can have their voices heard.
The company managed to remain under the radar until COVID, when its user base exploded as people doubled down on their film watching. Users jumped from 1.8 million in March 2020 to 10 million in September 2023, and is now at 17 million at last count at the end of 2024. Users are drawn to the site, yes for reviewing purposes, but also it is a really fantastic way of recording your film viewing history and acts as a personal diary. Like Spotify,. users can compile playlists of films for a particular genre or even mood. It is the micro features that really stand out that cinephiles really enjoy, and of all people they like the user experience and the aesthetics of the site.
Once Letterboxd moved onto the red carpet and had a presence at film festivals that is when it started to gather momentum. It started using its signature profile feature of showcasing your top 4 films in public, asking celebrities, actors, directors and filmmakers for their own Top 4, recording the interaction and sharing it. It turned into a lovely social experiment, watching well-known people crumble trying to sort through their favourite films to just pick four. Letterboxd has gone from strength to strength and is now planning on adding TV shows to its platform, how that will affect the user experience is anyone’s guess, but if anyone doesn’t like it there definitely will be many one liner reviews about it.
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