letterboxd, the vexing and sometimes OK film logging website

I've been using letterboxd again after chatting with some younger cinephiles...if the whole thing were just the Activity page and your friend's ratings/reviews I would unabashedly love it. unfortunately ppl who are not my smart friends exist

anyway, do you use it? or read anyone on it? or? etc

i think i started referring to letterboxd as the new tumblr five years ago, so now that it has been written about in the nyt and has an ilx thread it is no longer cool, sorry

was the NYT thing recent? my acct is like.....five years old and has been dormant almost as long, lol

yeah it was like last month?

This was all very recent on the Last (x) Movies thread, so I'll cut-and-paste it into here.

Have people shared Letterboxd accounts on ILX anywhere? Mine is https://boxd.it/ENrV. I used it sparingly in the past but am logging every movie i watch in 2021.
― na (NA), Wednesday, January 20, 2021 7:07 PM (two weeks ago)

I think I've shared mine before, but here it is again: https://letterboxd.com/jer_fairall/
― edited for dog profanity (cryptosicko), Wednesday, January 20, 2021 7:27 PM (two weeks ago)

Have shared mine before: https://letterboxd.com/PollyPrecoder/
― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Wednesday, January 20, 2021 7:43 PM (two weeks ago)

https://letterboxd.com/souleraser/
― flappy bird, Thursday, January 21, 2021 3:25 AM (two weeks ago)

Mine's just two lists of favourite movies; this thread is actually my Letterbox for what I watch.
https://letterboxd.com/hunsecker/lists/
― clemenza, Thursday, January 21, 2021 3:30 AM (two weeks ago)

I like looking at those lists.
― Dan S, Thursday, January 21, 2021 9:26 PM (two weeks ago)

i generally like it. though the excessive listing and gag reviews can get tiresome, it's a great way to know what my friends/people with opinions I respect are seeing, and general attitudes. though of course, this is the internet, so you're gonna get a lot of challops all the time

i was very upset i could not find the original breakfast at tiffany's list today

I mainly only use it for 1. writing gag reviews and 2. 'liking' actually good reviews / getting movie recs from ppl I trust for whatever reason

my favorite letterboxd writer, bar none, is nathaxnne: https://letterboxd.com/unawarewolf/

Mainstream or not it remains one of the only good websites because it doesn’t have Sharing, any activity from people you don’t follow is below the fold and optional, and the most genius design choice is you can use it however you want: star ratings, likes, reviews, diary entries, and lists all sort of slot together nicely and each aspect is optional. Just don’t tell yourself it’s “a community” or any of that garbage, it’s just a good website.

The other good websites are Bandcamp and Lichess. This is my theory of websites.

post feels kinda otm to me. it is def one of the few places on the internet where i feel very little stress

I feel some stress when I read certain types of exceptionally dumb or bad faith shit that gets a lot of shares/likes tbh

but yknow I should really just get tf over it

a few things I don't like about letterboxd

- we all know this, the TV non inclusion or semi sometimes inclusion is bad and silly and completely arbitrary
- certain types of bad takes rewarded
- a minor thing, but as with RYM, odd preferences/fetishes for certain types of content or certain stylistic or formal features. sometimes it's interesting other times it's just annoying

definitely wish that they allowed TV and episode reviews. or hell, spin off another site for that and video games. the personal logging is what i most like about it, i guess

i use it mostly as a tracker of stuff i've watched and don't really "engage with the community" but it's a really well-designed site that is a pleasure to use if you just want to track some films and make or read a watchlist.

I would be fine with one entry per series, only added once it's finished airing / being released. that also means no MCU reviews :)

i am furious that i cannot write a review of true detective season 2 on letterboxd but someone can write about the queen or the queen's gambit or twin queens the return

it's so silly

one other thing that's dumb: apparently if you log a movie without rating it, you drag down its rating

what? that's stupid. no rating should not = 0 rating.

I can't personally prove that but I have heard it alleged

The other good websites are Bandcamp and Lichess. This is my theory of websites.

what about ilx i can has cheezburger

A friend of mine worked there and it was a train wreck as you might imagine

1. !!

2. "A group of investors acquired the website in September 2007 for US$2 million"

3. oh

looool

having worked at some sketchy ass train wrecks, I salute silby's friend

brad thank you for the nathaxnne tip, anyone else have accts they like?

I've been using Letterboxd for years, but literally the only thing I use it for is to maintain the film diary I've been keeping since 1992. So I just go on and log a movie and leave. I don't do ratings or write reviews. I do follow a handful of people, but I honestly don't spend much time there. I do like being able to look up when in 1997 I saw The Ice Storm or whatever.

we all know this, the TV non inclusion or semi sometimes inclusion is bad and silly and completely arbitrary

The rule I made in 1992 (when I was 12 lol) was that I only logged movies that had, at some point, been released theatrically (regardless of where I personally saw them). So no TV movies, no straight-to-video, no Netflix-only. (But film festival releases are OK.) The last year has made me rethink that, though. Esp. since there's lots of stuff in the Letterboxd database that would be easy enough to log, if I wanted to.

here's mine: https://letterboxd.com/adamt/

Oh hey, look at that. I just assumed this thing was already passe and that's why no one ever talked about it. I use it pretty regularly, mostly to keep track of what I've watched/intend to watch (because my brain is sieve-like with respect to keeping track of such things), partly to read what others think of what I've watched (I follow some of y'all, I'm PlooplePop). I guess there's a social media aspect to it but I don't really engage with that as such.

Oh right, the polite way of doing this: https://letterboxd.com/plooplepop/

xp i would definitely rethink the TV/STV/streaming exceptions. i mean, even decades past, there were notable TV movies, sadly never to be seen or heard from again!

i don't find Letterboxd vexing at all! it's fun! my movie watching habits got way better since i started using it. i like the challenge of trying to write funny blurbs, which has kinda gamified movie-watching

My frustration is actually less about the hot takes and more the dudes who seem to watch only hyper-canonical stuff and dutifully give everything five stars. Then I remember I was 18 once, too.

I think the site is best for finding out about off-the-beaten-path films rather than engaging with long reviews that could be blog entries - I'm sure there's ppl out there who do that well but I've not found much so I stick with Xgau-style capsule reviews in both reading and writing.

The stats are super fun tho my regular viewing of shorts means my most watched actors always end up being Mel Blanc or Buster Keaton.

100% would not want TV to be included, far too many places online to talk about that shit. I do agree the currently available TV should be removed tho.

Anyway: https://letterboxd.com/Reifferschizzle/

The lists (+ the presence of hyper-obsessive users) are one of the best features imo. Would you like to see all of the hard sci-fi films written by first-generation Italian Americans between '75 and '80? There's probably a list for that.

https://letterboxd.com/glumdalclitch/

If Letterbox had a recommendation engine I'd be all in, but outside of meme lists and pithy gag reviews I'm not sure I've much use for it. I've been using Movielens for the last decade for movie discovery and it hasn't done wrong by me so far.

I use the Activity feed as my de facto recommendations guide

i’m like nearly on the verge of paying for a subscription just for those sweet sweet activity feed filters

The fav streaming services feature is also good, and they’ve started sending notifications when something on your watchlist appears on one of your services.

I'm really unclear on what the actual benefits of a paid membership are. Like, if it included the ability to get really fiddly with the filters or, say, compare the content of different lists, I'd pony up in a heartbeat.

doc casino is an excellent letterboxd follow btw

As are you! ILXors unsurprisingly showing the other users of that site how it's done.

I would go "pro" just to check it out but I don't want it to say "pro" next to my name, that's nerd shit

some of my other favorite writers:

- claire diane: https://letterboxd.com/fieldmouse/ (doesn't update often, but when she does, watch out. responsible for the most beautiful film criticism i've ever read, this review of nightmare on elm street 3: https://letterboxd.com/fieldmouse/film/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-3-dream-warriors/ )

- scumbalina: https://letterboxd.com/scumbalina/ (if you want earnest well-written discursive five star reviews about shot-on-video horror, look no further)

- sydney: https://letterboxd.com/campbart/ (a lot of the writers i love on letterboxd have an almost stream-of-consciousness thing going on, but sydney's reviews are all precision, and she has the best taste on earth. currently going through a bollywood thing, very cool to keep up with)

- j0siah m0rgan: https://letterboxd.com/josiahmorgan11/

j@ke c0le and j0sh l3wis are also very good but are very popular on the site. m@tt lynch ostensibly shares a lot of my taste and priorities but i think he's just terrible. i don't exactly know why i'm google-proofing but simon did it earlier and it seems like a good practice lol

one of the appeals of letterboxd when i joined was finding all of these trans writers writing these beautiful reviews that explore both their own identity and the hidden or not-so-hidden depths of trashy horror films. i assume that is not covered in the nyt piece but that's the no. 1 reason the website is so so valuable to me

My updates have gotten extremely sporadic, but here's me: https://letterboxd.com/ephender/

brad thank you for those, most of the ppl I'm encountering online who use it are like 19 which is.....cool but not all the time lol

haha that's cool

see also films that begin with a row of books and then focus in on a copy of the story we're about to see

lol great list

pretty much the kind of thing letterboxd was made for

Here's the NY Times 21st Century list in Letterboxd form
https://letterboxd.com/hetchy/list/the-new-york-times-100-best-movies-of-the/

I've seen 63 out of the 100, but nothing on my final ballot of 10 was on the NYT list which I'm kinda proud of
https://letterboxd.com/quartzcity/list/ny-times-21st-century-movies-final-ballot/

Out of the 1100+ ones I've seen, narrowing it down to an initial 40 was easy. I like this list more than I do the final 10
https://letterboxd.com/quartzcity/list/ny-times-21st-century-movies-initial-list/

I'm somewhat surprised to see that I have seen 67 of them.

as I posted elsewhere, I've seen 94. the ones I haven't -- Amour, Fish Tank, The Gleaners and I, Memories of Murder, Ratatouille, and Toni Erdmann -- were already on my Letterboxd watchlist but now taking priority.

If y'all wanna follow me: https://letterboxd.com/AlfredSoto/

Nice! It's time I did something with my account, rather than compile lists and look at other people's reviews.

You're right on re: Falcon and the Snowman, btw. I can't stand Penn in that one!

pretty surprised I've seen 91 of the nyt list

one's i've not seen:

whiplash
best in show
aftersun
everything everywhere
act of killing
past lives
lotr
interstellar
black panther

I love Aftersun

Me too.

NYT Best Films of the 21st Century

83/100
I'm embarrassed about some of the ones I've put off watching. Toni Erdmann, A separation, Portrait/Lady/Fire, Memories of Murder...

Sea wanna ekz

I just found out today that the reason Sean Oneal hasn't been writing AVClub Newswire bits for months is b/c he's EiC of StarWipe. His style has transferred over intact.

http://www.starwipe.com/article/charlie-sheen-falsely-accused-building-sex-robot-y-817🔗

I just found out today that the reason Sean Oneal hasn't been writing AVClub Newswire bits for months is b/c he's EiC of StarWipe. His style has transferred over intact.

http://www.starwipe.com/article/charlie-sheen-falsely-accused-building-sex-robot-y-817🔗

Don't know if this review has been posted.

https://letterboxd.com/dkw_skidoo/film/phantom-thread/1/

well, now I’ve read that

I regret to inform Matty Yglesias is now on letterboxd

I was going to joke that letterboxd is going to have to add a way to block other users now, but apparently they already have that

dream feature for letterboxd suggestion: option to block me from seeing any review shorter than two full sentences. This would exterminate probably first two pages of reviews for any new film, which 99% of the time are zero effort shit posts referencing an actor/actresses other films, or about wanting to fuck them, or wanting people in the film to fuck each other, and would be better off confined to tweets, or a dustbin.

Should I bother learning who Matty Yglesias is?

Most definitely, definitely not

I know Letterboxd isn’t designed to be a find something to watch engine but I wish it would let me completely hide Marvel etc. slop when I am using it to find something to watch.

I spent a good amount of time creating a Letterboxd watchlist of ~1,000 films so that now when I'm looking for something to watch, I just search within the watchlist. (I add new titles when I become aware of them, and Letterboxd automatically removes titles once I've watched them.) The whole idea was to avoid the experience of browsing a streaming service looking for something to watch and clicking past a bunch of stuff I had zero interest in.

Should I bother learning who Matty Yglesias is?

― cryptosicko, Monday, 29 September 2025 bookmarkflaglink

Most definitely, definitely not

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 29 September 2025 bookmarkflaglink

No no let's hear more about this guy. He writes good film crit.

I know Letterboxd isn’t designed to be a find something to watch engine but I wish it would let me completely hide Marvel etc. slop when I am using it to find something to watch.

Where are you searching, specifically? Letterboxd has tons of filters for most things...

yeah, "what to watch" is best done via your own watchlist, or well-curated lists made by others. you can set up "favorite" streaming services, and then in the filters options, you can filter a list by "service > any favorite," and then you'll see only the stuff that you should be able to pull up and watch right now. I should do this more tbh!

Don't know if this review has been posted.

https://letterboxd.com/dkw_skidoo/film/phantom-thread/1/

― xyzzzz__,

A review without mentioning a single character or scenario.

There's a lot of this type of self important nothingness on letterboxd. Give me the one line joke reviews over that shit tbh.

We all have our tastes

Anyway it gets to a lot of what I disliked about the PTA films I saw. Wouldn't have gone back to him if he hadn't started filming Pynchon books.

What's wrong with masturbation?

Nothing. The problem is often how the fans think there's more to his films than wanking.

Yeah, the masturbation metaphor is very embarassing, writer clearly reaching for a clever way to say "self indulgent" and, having failed, thinking some flowery closing paragraph about wanking will do the work for them.

If Phantom Thread had shown Daniel Day-Lewis wanking in his midcentury drag, it would cease being merely one of the 2010s sharpest films and become immortal.

lol

"He doesn't really care how people connect, or even how they break apart"

Or perhaps this seems like his central interest?

"Spaces are either introduced with ostentatious tracking shots or some anonymous corner, without anything to negotiate their orientation"

Aw this guy got confused

lmao Alfred

"Spaces are either introduced with ostentatious tracking shots or some anonymous corner, without anything to negotiate their orientation"

This is precisely the wrong conclusion to draw from the opening sequence in OBAA.

is there anything in this review that couldn't be said about the review itself? (I didn't read it really)

i prefer reviews that were written after watching the movie rather than before

Well, that makes sense but hear me out

re: the what to watch conundrum, find some lists you like or build out your own watchlist and let this thing pick something from the list of your choosing: https://watchlistpicker.com/

I've let it guide my choices a couple weeks and I ended up with a really enjoyable array of shit I'd never have grouped together myself.

Where are you searching, specifically? Letterboxd has tons of filters for most things...

Sci-fi or horror for a recent decade for instance. You get superhero slop or anime all over the place because the fans give it all 5 stars no matter what. Or just dramas, now it includes a bunch of streaming shows. I’m never going to watch an animated Spider-Man movie but to make it disappear from searches, I have to “watch” it.

There aren’t really filters to eliminate all that. And I’m using the search to make a watchlist! That’s where wading through everything is annoying.

You can filter out TV stuff.

Not on the website, browsing options are year/rating/window of popularity/genre/service (limit list to favorite services)

if I click on sci-fi my options are then limited to year/decade, services and how I want the list sorted

Sort by least popular and the superhero slop will be near the bottom (nb I make no guarantees for what will be at the top).

I've always found this list useful. https://letterboxd.com/justtru/list/top-250-narrative-feature-films-under-15000/

It's how I discovered this amazing film
https://letterboxd.com/film/anantaram/

or this one which kept the old rule
https://letterboxd.com/alyacat28/list/top-300-narrative-feature-films-under-5000/

Not on the website, browsing options are year/rating/window of popularity/genre/service (limit list to favorite services)

After clicking on sci-fi, then click the little eye icon under the word FILMS and there should be a bunch of filter options.