Everyone’s A Critic Now (Thank You Letterboxd)

I joined Letterboxd back in December of 2021, following a friend’s suggestion for me to download it before we watched a film together. Now, nearly four years after it first occupied a space in my entertainment folder on my phone’s homescreen, it has become one of my most-used apps.

Letterboxd is, at its core, a film-logging app. Consider it a sibling to the IMDb app, or a cousin of Goodreads. Users log, rate, and write reviews for films they’ve watched. I hesitate to use the word “cinephiles” to describe the users, because not everyone on there is a die-hard cinema viewer. Many users are just people who enjoy keeping track of their film-watching. A better spreadsheet or notes app alternative, one might say. But that’s not the point of this article. I’m not selling you the Letterboxd app (I’m not sponsored, even if I wish I were); instead, I’m writing about how its current popularity reveals how culture itself has shifted.

Before Letterboxd, film critique used to be reserved for those with established platforms – an elite few with access to print columns or academic journals. Their words shaped what we consider good or important cinema. But now, with Letterboxd, anyone, with or without credentials, is able to speak about film and be heard. This democratisation of criticism has changed how we engage with art. A quippy one-liner can be just as well-received as a multiple-page-long review from a critic. Now, engaging with film is no longer gatekept behind awards and professional reviews.

This form of engagement is often quick, and thus, meaning is less likely to be dissected and discerned. Oftentimes, it’s a quick one, two-liner about how the film made you feel, or a quote deemed iconic by the reviewer. Susan Sontag, in her essay Against Interpretation, argued that overanalysis and constant criticism prevent us from fully experiencing art. She asserts art is meant to be encountered with body and soul before breaking it down into meanings and dissection. Letterboxd, interestingly, operates in this in-between space. It doesn’t reject interpretation, but it captures it in its rawest form. A reviewer writes: “Makes you so sad and happy and comforted all at the same time” for the film Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). Another writes: “The most fun and lighthearted horror movie ever made” for The Truman Show (1998).

Despite its brevity, these are expressions of feeling that preserve the immediate impact of art, the kind Sontag wanted us to hold on to. 

Logging the film becomes a part of the film experience. When a film ends, users get to convene with fellow watchers and read, comment, and interact with others who may have felt something similar. It blurs the line between consuming culture and participating in it. This has also changed how taste operates. Consider Robert Pattinson’s recent remarks on Letterboxd: "When I was a child, everyone had a shelf of CDs that represented you, but I think that expression was a little lost due to digitization. Now there is a way to expose yourself that is very cool & that could motivate a great change in the meaning of cinema in particular & culture in general."

I completely agree. A person’s profile can reveal what they value, what they obsess over, what they find beautiful, and what they think is overrated. For me, Letterboxd allows me to present myself as who I want to be seen as. My tags, lists, top 4 and reviews all serve to reflect me. My tastes make up my personal identity. 

My top 4 and last 4 (at time of writing)

The way we build this portrait is deeply shaped by mediatisation. Our everyday life is increasingly entangled with media systems that shape how we perceive, value, and express culture. Letterboxd now acts as the previously revered film critic, helping to dictate what’s considered tasteful, and what films gain traction. Taste has always been social, but here it becomes algorithmic. Films with a certain aesthetic – independent, arthouse, foreign – often accumulate cultural capital on Letterboxd. At the same time, blockbuster favourites, rom-coms, and other “mainstream” genres continue to thrive, sometimes ironically, sometimes sincerely. This layered performance of taste creates a complex ecosystem. Identities are formed through the films logged, and subsequently, what becomes representative of the films becomes an extension of you.

This isn’t a bad thing. The rise of participatory platforms has opened space for new voices and interpretations, even if it also reproduces hierarchies in subtler forms. Independent films gain unexpected audiences, and casual film viewers become active participants in meaning-making. In this sense, Letterboxd sits at the intersection of personal and collective culture – where private reflection meets public discourse. It gives agency to the audience, now no longer restricted to just a consumer of the film, but a meaning-maker as well.

My friends' recent watches on the Letterboxd homepage

Letterboxd started as a way for me to just track my films. As someone who enjoys looking over her stats, it is a very useful platform. But over time, it became a way of articulating what I love about cinema. Writing about films has made me a more attentive watcher. I notice more details in a film – the mise-en-scène, the silence between lines – because I know I’ll want to remember them later. Sometimes I read my older reviews and see not just what I thought of a film, but what I was feeling at that point in my life. It reflects me.

Letterboxd began as something small – a tool to fill a community gap. But it’s ended up showing how culture evolved. Mediatisation isn’t some distant concept; it’s in the way people log a film at 2 a.m. and those words become part of a bigger conversation. A film trending on Letterboxd can gain a second life years after release. Algorithms, jokes, serious reviews, throwaway one-liners – they all shape what gets seen and remembered. The old borders between fan and critic, between what counts as great or average, become messier. Taste has never been more performative or more alive. Everyone has a hand in defining what matters.

Letterboxd reflects not just what I watch, but also who we’ve become as audiences, and how we make meaning together now. That, more than anything, keeps me coming back to it.