Five Ways to Get More From Letterboxd
Letterboxd is the best thing to happen to movie fans since IMDb, which is almost surprising considering how simple it is. Like Film Twitter’s answer to Goodreads, it’s a social network/online directory where you can rate or review films, pick a few of your favorites to highlight on your profile, and follow your friends and favorite critics. However, Letterboxd is more than just “what if social media and not movies?” Dig a little deeper and you’ll find some useful tools for managing your movie obsession.
If you haven’t used Letterboxd before, it’s available for Android , iOS , or the web . Anyone can access it to watch movies, read reviews, and view user ratings, but to create a watchlist or leave your own reviews, you’ll need to create a (free) account.
And this is where the fun begins. You can compile and publish your own lists of film groups by any classification, from World War II films in chronological order to films with the most kills . You can add tags to organize your collections of movies you’ve watched or want to watch, get recommendations from the community, and (with a paid subscription) even customize a display page for each movie and get notified when something on your watch list is streamed.
Here are five ways to get more from Letterboxd.
Create your own watchlists
A huge part of what makes Letterbox so appealing is that when you find a movie you want to watch, you can add it to your watch list to remember it for the future. (Just tap the big + button in the bottom right corner, then tap Watchlist.) This is also kind of the app’s biggest weakness. It’s nice at first, but as your watchlist grows, choosing something to watch from it becomes as difficult as endlessly scrolling through Netflix .
This is where custom lists can come in handy. Just below the Watchlist button, you’ll see an Add to Lists button, which allows you to create your own public or private lists. Instead of dumping everything into your standard watch list, you should create lists for different genres, different actors, different decades, or even purely based on atmosphere.
I can’t recommend this practice enough. It’s a few extra steps, especially when you first start creating lists, but it makes Letterboxd so much more useful. My partner and I use a shared list of movies we want to watch together when we have a movie night. I keep a separate list for horror movies that I know they won’t want to watch, and another list for my favorite movies that I know I can watch over and over again. This simple feature turns Letterboxd into your personal Spotify for movies, albeit one where you have sole control of the “algorithm.”
Get better recommendations with public lists
Your own lists are a great way to organize your collection of movies you’ve watched or want to watch, but you might not even have to create them since Letterboxd users love creating and sharing their own lists. If your favorite streaming service’s almighty algorithm isn’t making good recommendations, check out Letterboxd’s public listings.
When I say that users love making lists like this, I mean it. Take for example this list of movies ” for those who want to feel something ,” which not only has great reviews like Up or Parasite , but is also organized by poster color . Or this creative list that pairs classic romance films with their modern counterparts to help you find old movies you might enjoy.
Because these public lists are created by real people, if you find someone whose tastes you like, you can follow them. If someone puts a ton of effort into creating one list, chances are they have others you might also like. Unlike most algorithm-driven social media apps, Letterboxd makes it easy to see a real human connection with another person.
Organize your collections using tags
Individual lists are better than one giant watchlist, but tags are a better organization system in my opinion (though they both serve their own purposes). You can create your own tags when adding or editing a movie review—as many as you like—and assign those tags to as many movies as you think necessary.
Tags are best for identifying genres or general features of films, but they don’t necessarily need a separate list. For example, you might want to label some of your movies as “helpful” or “harrowing” depending on what ends up happening to the dog .
You can also get more creative by using tags. For example, one of my favorite tags is “mental health metaphors” for films that have interesting allegories of mental illness; or “eat the rich” is a very specific subgenre that is surprisingly resilient . I even have a “ha ha what the fuck” tag for those movies that are too obscure to explain .
You can add tags by selecting “Watch or Record” a movie, but you can leave the review text blank. By adding additional tags, you can browse and sort your movies using them. On your profile, you’ll find a tab for your tags and can view all the tags you’ve created and watch all the movies that match them.
Get notified when movies are released to stream (with Pro subscription)
The free version of Letterboxd is pretty good, but the Pro subscription takes it one step further. The Pro tier costs $19 per year, which averages out to about $1.58 per month. (Although there is no monthly plan, only an annual plan.)
At the Pro tier, you won’t see any ads on the service, which is already a benefit – sometimes Letterboxd’s ad placement is so weird that it hides key features of the site. (Helpful tip: Scroll through the ads on your profile to find your reviews and listings!) If you use the app frequently, getting rid of the ads is already worth the price of admission.
The star of the show Pro, however, is the streaming services filter: add the streaming services you use, and every time any movie on your watch list hits one of those services, you’ll get an in-app notification.
Choose your posters and post your name (with Patron subscription)
One tier above the Pro tier is the Patron subscription, which costs $49 per year. This is the level you need if you feel so Letterboxed that you want to provide additional support to the developers. And rightfully so: it’s incredible how much of this app’s features are completely free.
At the Pro level, you get a couple of additional perks. You can customize the poster displayed for movies you’ve registered or added to your list. These alternative posters will be visible to you, as well as to all other users who have allowed viewing of other posters in their settings. You can also add backgrounds to your profiles, listings, and reviews to make them look more vibrant.
By the way, since this is a social site, there will also be a blue “Patron” badge next to your username (Pro supporters get an orange “Pro” badge). It’s nothing more than a cosmetic addition, but it’s a good way to feel like you’re part of a community of movie lovers sharing what they love. If you’re obsessed with movies and want to share that passion with everyone else, Letterboxd is for you.