Why you should be on Letterboxd: A social media for film lovers

Have you heard of Letterboxd? By now many of my friends have, due to the fact that if any conversation about film happens, I instantly recommend it to people. It has got to the point where some friends refuse to get it just to annoy me, but if you are reading this section right now you should really be on Letterboxd.

Letterboxd is a social media which offers a new way of being able to discuss films with each other, as well as a new way to hate your friends. You can log films you have seen, review them and read your friends’ reviews. Think of it as Goodreads for films. From that brief description, you can probably understand why anyone who claims to watch films as a hobby should be on it.

The remarkable amount of free time that a break-up brings led me not only to scroll through the many films I had seen in my life in order to log them

In a genius way to cheer me up after a break-up, one of my best friends and long-time film watching buddy recommended it to me. The remarkable amount of free time that a break-up brings led me not only to scroll through the many films I had seen in my life in order to log them, but also to watch more films and reignite a hobby that had taken a back seat during my first year aside from the very occasional trip off of campus to the cinema.

As soon as you have any numbers linked with friends, followers, likes, on a social media, it suddenly become competitive. The same is no different with the amount of films you have logged on your Letterboxd. I am currently on 458 films logged and the will to boost those statistics, as well as the fact that I can call it “exec work” to pretend I’m not procrastinating, mean that my Easter will probably not be very productive for my degree. Add the icing on the cake which is the potential for university to be cancelled next term and hopefully that number will reach half a century by the end of term 3.

Another very helpful function which Letterboxd provides is the ability to add films to your watchlist. If you receive a recommendation from a friend, the ability to track said recommendation is, frankly, invaluable. Like any (respectable?) social media, you can follow your friends and anyone else whom you value the opinions of. I can tell you that having the prestigious title of Film Section Editor for The Boar has earned me a big total of 12 followers who are all eagerly waiting for my opinions on the latest blockbuster hits. It’s a shame that the blockbuster hits themselves have all been delayed.

Being able to read reviews of people who usually have similar opinions to yours via Letterboxd is usually a good indicator of how much you may enjoy a film yourself. Of course, the other side of this is that you can write small reviews of your own to put up on Letterboxd. For me personally, I just use this to give initial thoughts about the film or talk about my opinion in a much more informal way than when I would write an article. Or if I’m lazy I put a link to my review here.

As a social media for films, it offers a more conversational tone to any discourse that takes place. This, in my mind, is a point in its favour due to the fact that as great as articles are for conveying information, they don’t do as much in the way of offering a dialogue.

As a social media for films, it offers a more conversational tone to any discourse that takes place. This, in my mind, is a point in its favour due to the fact that as great as articles are for conveying information, they don’t do as much in the way of offering a dialogue. Meanwhile a social media offers a more approachable way of being able to engage in other people’s views, even if that does come with the caveat of opening the floodgates for toxic comments and moments of heated film discussion. The most heated discussions I’ve had regarding Letterboxd, however, are when my brother messages me asking why I haven’t liked his reviews yet.

In this digital age, we rely on memory a lot less but this does mean that we forget much less. Why do I need to learn the route to a friend’s house in North Leamington when I could just use google maps? Why do I need to remember the phone number belonging to a lovely lady in POP! if I can just save it in my phone? Similarly, I can read through my Letterboxd reviews (having had it for less than a year) and remind myself of films that I had forgotten seeing. There are countless films I will end up forgetting that I have even seen many years down the line, yet the advantage we have over the generations before is that we don’t need to remember them. I’ll have a star rating, review and comments on the review to try and remind me what I thought about the famous picture “They Nest”.

That is why my experiences of Letterboxd have led me to write this article. The ability to interact with others, the weirdly competitive nature of it and the ability to preserve my library of films that I have seen are things that make it worth getting an account for anyone who watches films on the regular (even if it is to procrastinate off of “real” work). Being able to connect in such a way over a hobby shared by many people is a great way for us to connect at a time where COVID-19 looks more and more likely to be splitting us apart, I hope anyone who gets an account via my recommendation finds a similar enjoyment with it.