Sometime this year, I went on a night out and had a chat with a stranger. We had a great conversation, and at the end he asked: “What’s your Letterboxd?” I had to say no.

Two things went through my head: 1) When did Letterboxd become a thing in flirting? 2) Why does it feel more intimate than giving out my number or Instagram?

Letterboxd’s impact has gone beyond how we consume movies. They are everywhere: on socials, red carpets, and apparently IRL social settings too. But more than that, it’s become a signal of who we are. Our taste in movies has become an identity marker. And how did we come to this, you may ask? Well, it all began with logging a movie. 

If you’re blissfully unaware of the world of cinephilia, Letterboxd is a film-logging app where you can record and rate the movies you’ve watched, create lists, and see what others have to say about them. The app took off during the COVID-19 lockdowns and has since continued its meteoric rise, growing from 1 million users in 2019 to 28 million in 2026.

It’s not a conventional social media platform per se. It doesn’t have an algorithm-driven feed or the chat function of Instagram or Twitter, but you can still like or comment on people’s reviews or logs, and you can follow (or stalk) people’s profiles. The focus, first and foremost, is on the movies. 

The app has made it easier for audiences to be more adventurous in their film discovery. More esoteric movies are also getting the spotlight they deserve, like Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 film Harakiri. It also hosts a myriad of hyper-specific lists; they have one for when you’re feeling lost in your 20s, when you’re crashing out over a crush, or a list of movies where white people are obsessed with jazz. 

But as with any habit-tracking app (like Goodreads or Strava), Letterboxd is gamifying the act of watching movies. The app shows how many movies you’ve watched in a year and produces a summary of your viewing habits at the end, called “Year in Review.” I have to admit that there is a certain dopamine hit when you see that number increase. One person has logged about 1,500 movies this year alone. But it’s a slippery slope that can turn a personal film diary into a race to watch the most movies and become the “biggest” cinephile. 

Of course, is it still a diary if you don’t write anything in it? For decades, film criticism was largely a top-down system, dominated by professional critics for newspapers and established publications. Even modern sites like Rotten Tomatoes still silo professional critics’ scores from those of average moviegoers. But Letterboxd has created a space where everyone’s reviews coexist. 

There is, however, a trend in Letterboxd reviews. While traditional publications tend to prefer long-form critique, Letterboxd tends to reward pithy one-liners. The funnier or more referential it is, the better it tends to perform. A “he’s bald and he’s torturing people who have hair” review of Superman (2025) garnered over 100 thousand likes. 

I’ve never been short on laughs when going through the reviews of a movie on Letterboxd, especially if it’s a bad one. But there are valid concerns that these types of reviews are overshadowing more in-depth criticism, marginalizing users who are looking for thoughtful analysis rather than punchlines. But users who post long-form reviews still exist, like Indiewire’s David Ehrlich and film podcaster Cinema Joe. 

The Guardian talked to someone who said that writing reviews on Letterboxd is “a little bit of an addiction.” Hey, I’ve been there. I remember watching Poor Things (2023) and thinking what I wanted to write in my reviews barely midway through the film. I had a self-imposed intervention after that. 

The movie-watching experience used to just be mine. I’d watch movies in the middle of my English class (sorry, Ms. Greta) without thinking about what rating I’d give simply for the love of the game. Now, thanks in part to Letterboxd, watching a movie has become a participatory act, one that’s increasingly public.

The app’s most popular feature is the Four Faves, a section where users can showcase four of their favorite films. This is the quickest way to signal their taste, and, by extension, who they are. Because we’re so accustomed to forming quick impressions online, we treat the Four Faves as an identity marker. We think we know a person through four films, flattening all their complexities and contradictions into a digestible first impression.

There are stereotypes like the “Film Bro,” whose top four might include a Quentin Tarantino movie, or the “Pretentious Cinephile,” whose highbrow, niche films are chosen solely to signal intellectual superiority. These stereotypes only exist because we’ve collectively agreed that four films are enough to infer personality and taste. 

I’m not saying I haven’t made snap judgments about people based on their Four Faves; I saw a guy’s Four Faves once and immediately went, “Red flag.” But the Four Faves is only the first impression. Even if it flattens a person’s identity and taste, the whole profile is a tapestry. The diary can tell you all the films they’ve watched, who they watched it with, what moves them. 

I think maybe that’s why I kind of freaked out when the stranger asked me for my Letterboxd. It’s surprisingly personal.