Can This App Make Movie Nights More Social?

Lights! Camera! Letterboxd!

As a teenager and young adult, going to the cinema was a stimulating outing with friends and significant others, sometimes paired with dinner, but always filled with lively conversation. Sharing your initial reaction to a film with the person next to you as the credits rolled was cinema therapy. Not only does watching movies in the presence of others build bonds, it can help alleviate post-flick depression syndrome when someone’s there to help process your emotions.

Since the pandemic brought Hollywood to a halt almost five years ago, “third places”—a space outside of work or home, including malls and movie theaters—have been in decline. Lockdown proved many of us could successfully work from home, so there goes water-cooler chat about the blockbuster or rom-com you watched over the weekend. Now that two-thirds of U.S. adults are home waiting for new content to drop, it’s no wonder social platforms have emerged as a preferred place to discuss visual media.

In the early days of social, we became a nation addicted to “checking in” and publicly sharing everything—from watching TV to enjoying the new Lady Gaga single—thanks to location-based apps Foursquare and GetGlue. Both met basic human needs. We sought validation from others and hoped to be “rewarded” in the form of bragging rights, badges and stickers for doing mundane things we were going to do anyway.

These apps have since checked out, but I wonder if the desire to check in ever really died. Instead, it has evolved with the rise of Letterboxd, a network for film lovers that has continued to flourish since the pandemic. The app is busy, amassing 14 million users as of June 2024. And when fans are asked to share their #LastFourWatched weekly on #LetterboxdFriday, each post can garner over 1 million views on X.

This kind of engagement is what I miss about the early days of social media. It doesn’t feel forced or sponsored. Folks are proud to contribute screenshots for strangers and share their views. It’s fun.

One of my friends, an author and cinephile, referred to the app as “a place where you can find your people,” and he’s found several users who fit into this category. He’s bonded with folks who share an appreciation of obscure films, and I learned that “liking” someone’s review could be interpreted as flirting. He certainly wouldn’t be the first person to add his Letterboxd info to a dating app profile.

I enjoy learning what friends have watched and rated, organizing my watchlist and reading reviews. I will text contacts for further analysis, making the experience truly social. I also like that you can share what you’re watching to Instagram Stories—similar to Spotify’s treatment of music—prompting friends to like and comment.

On Reddit, the question, “Why do you use Letterboxd? has answers ranging from an appreciation of the interface to the community vibe being a “huge selling point” and place for “showing off my favorites.” Someone else pointed out “it’s the only social media I don’t hate.”