Letterboxd programs a new generation of cinephiles

The Future. In a handful of years, film-focused social platform Letterboxd has evolved from a niche product to one of the most important platforms in Hollywood, minting itself as a taste-making service and a film-fan hub. Its success may be foundational for a new era of film clubs, like the Wes Anderson-curated Galerie, that hope to bridge digital and IRL communities. Soon, going viral on Letterboxd could even be make or break for a certain crop of movies to find success at the box office.

Watchlist flex
Letterboxd is the hottest film club in town.

• It now has 10 million active accounts, a 5x growth since 2019 — and half of the users are under 35, with half of them between the ages 16 and 24.
• And their movie-watching-and-listing focus isn’t primarily on new movies (only 24% of logged films annually are new) — it’s instead a haven for users to share what older films they’re checking out.
• That’s been a major boon to the repertory cinema market, especially in LA — the Academy Museum and the American Cinematheque have both reported an uptick in ticket sales from young people due to the platform’s popularity.
• Letterboxd has used that older-movie love as a key advertising bargaining chip, serving ads for a filmmaker’s new movie to the people who routinely watch their previous work.

Letterboxd has become so influential that it’s even minted a few, for lack of a better word, influencers, who are also some of the biggest names in moviemaking. Edgar Wright, Ava DuVernay, and Mike Flanagan are on there, driving even more people to sign up to see what they’re watching.

And the most followed account? Well, that just so happens to be the master himself, Martin Scorsese (who’s now also a reigning champ on TikTok). Being the most-followed person on any platform in your 80s is about as rare as… well… a career like Scorsese’s.