If your group chat keeps sending you screenshots of five-star ratings and one-line reviews that are funnier than the movie itself, that’s Letterboxd — the social app that turned tracking what you watch into a genuine hobby. It’s part diary, part watchlist, part community, and it’s become the go-to place for casual moviegoers and film obsessives alike to log everything from Oscar winners to so-bad-it’s-good rentals.
Table of Contents
This guide walks through everything a first-time user needs: setting up your profile, logging and rating films, building a watchlist, making lists, following people, and deciding whether the paid tiers are worth it.
Quick Answer
Letterboxd is a free app and website (with optional paid Pro and Patron tiers) for tracking, rating, and reviewing movies. Sign up, search for a film you’ve seen, give it a star rating (and a review if you want), and it’s automatically added to your profile. Use the Watchlist to save films you want to see later, and the Diary to log the date you watched each one.
Getting Set Up and Logging Your First Film
Download the app for iOS or Android, or head to letterboxd.com, and create a free account with an email address or a Google/Apple/Facebook login. Once you’re in, fill out your profile with a photo, a short bio, and your ‘Four Favorites’ — a curated set of four films that appears at the top of your profile and says a lot about your taste before anyone reads a single review.
To log a film, tap the search icon and type the title. On the film’s page, tap the star rating (you can rate in half-star increments, from 0.5 to 5) to mark it as watched and rated. If you want to say more, tap ‘Log’ to add a written review, mark it as a rewatch, tag it, or add the specific date you watched it — that date is what populates your Diary.
See something you want to watch later instead? Tap the clock icon on the film’s poster or page to add it to your Watchlist, which lives on its own tab on your profile until you log the film as watched.
Lists, Following, and Building a Film Habit
Lists are where Letterboxd gets fun beyond basic logging. From any film page or your profile, you can start a new list — ranked or unranked, public or private — for anything: ‘Movies to watch with my dad,’ ‘Best of 2026 so far,’ or a director’s entire filmography. Lists can include notes on each entry and are shareable with a link.
Follow friends or interesting reviewers to build an activity feed of what people around you are watching, rating, and adding to their watchlists. The lightning-bolt icon in the app shows this activity in real time, and it’s often the easiest way to find your next movie — seeing that three people you follow all rated the same obscure horror film five stars is a stronger recommendation than any algorithm.
Beyond the core logging tools, Letterboxd also runs a Journal section with film writing and filmmaker interviews, and in December 2025 it launched Letterboxd Video Store, a curated digital rental service for hard-to-find and unreleased titles — worth exploring once you’ve got the basics down.
Tips and Common Mistakes
Don’t feel pressure to write a review for every film — a star rating alone is a complete log entry, and most users mix short one-liners with the occasional longer write-up. If you’re stuck on what to watch, use the ‘shuffle’ option on your Watchlist to let the app pick for you instead of endlessly scrolling.
A common early mistake is backlogging years of viewing history all at once, which can feel overwhelming — it’s fine to start fresh from today and add old favorites gradually. Also remember that ratings and the Diary are separate: you can rate a film without logging a watch date, which is handy for films you saw long before joining.
If you like the app, Letterboxd offers optional Pro and Patron subscriptions, billed annually (there’s no monthly plan), that add extras like personal stats pages, ad-free browsing, custom profile backdrops, and (for Patrons) custom posters on films, lists, and reviews. None of it is required to use the core app — it’s a nice-to-have for power users, not a paywall on the essentials.
Explore more: more culture and entertainment guides.
Letterboxd FAQs
Is Letterboxd free to use?
Yes. Signing up, logging films, rating, reviewing, building watchlists, and making lists are all free. Pro and Patron are optional paid upgrades, billed annually, that add extras like stats pages and profile customization.
How is Letterboxd different from IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes?
IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes are primarily reference and aggregate-review sites. Letterboxd is built around your personal, social experience — it’s less about an official critic score and more about tracking your own taste and following what people you choose are watching.
Do I need the app, or can I use Letterboxd on desktop?
Both work fully. The mobile apps (iOS and Android) are convenient for logging a film right after you watch it, while the website at letterboxd.com has the same core features plus a few extras, like bulk-adding films to a list.
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