In the course of the pandemic lockdown interval in 2020, a lot of folks received deep into hobbies. Baking, drawing, no matter – mine was films. Clearly, I already loved movies as a lot as the subsequent individual, however not too long ago I might been way more more likely to bounce from present to point out. Throughout lockdown, I actually received into the artwork of the film – the construction, the shape, the cinematography, the auteurism. Popping out of lockdown, this translated into me turning into a fixture at my native movie show, the place I nonetheless go thrice per week recurrently.
Homescreen heroes
That is a part of an everyday sequence of articles exploring the apps that we could not dwell with out. Read them all here.
Final 12 months, I watched 200 films. The primary film I noticed that 12 months was The Matrix Resurrections, the final was Carol. My most-watched administrators have been Stanley Kubrick, Paul Verhoeven, and Sam Raimi (5 every). I do know these items not as a result of I’m a strolling movie encyclopedia, however as a result of I can simply look them up in Letterboxd. This app has been invaluable for serving to me maintain monitor of all my ideas, and in fixing essentially the most annoying factor about having many streaming providers.
Letterboxd is a film database, private journal, and social community multi function. The fundamental use of it’s easy: whenever you watch a film, you’ll be able to log whenever you watched it, and it retains a diary for you. Simple.
However then you’ll be able to add a star ranking to the film in order for you, or Like that exact film, or each. Or you’ll be able to add a written overview. However once more, we’re nonetheless preserving it easy, and only for your self.
However whenever you have a look at a film within the app, you will see you can view different folks’s evaluations, and you may “Like” them or touch upon them, and in the event you assume they write enjoyable and insightful evaluations, you’ll be able to observe them, and what they watch will present up in your principal ‘feed’ display. Now we’re getting social!
Possibly somebody you adopted reviewed a film you have by no means heard of actually extremely – you’ll be able to add it to your Watchlist throughout the app, making it simple to maintain monitor of all the things you actually imply to observe, however do not get round to.
While you have a look at a film, you’ll be able to see its forged and crew and you may then faucet on them to see all the things else they’ve completed. While you uncover some cool director you did not know earlier than, you’ll be able to simply add their stuff to your Watchlist.
And you can also make private lists of films – collections, ranked lists, no matter you need. You may add names and feedback to those lists, so that they really feel like one thing personally curated.
All of those mix to make Letterboxd the app I really like most proper now. If somebody asks me what my favourite films of the 12 months are, I can hop to my “Better of 2023” checklist to ensure I do not neglect something. If somebody asks once I noticed a selected film, I can inform them. And also you may assume “Who would ever ask somebody that?” However when folks learn the way typically I’m going to the theater, they all the time ask one thing like this.
I can use it to discover and discover new films, to increase how I really feel about films I already know by getting different views, and to maintain either side of this organized in a approach they would not be in my head.
Some great benefits of going Professional
The whole lot I discussed above is free on Letterboxd. However I additionally pay for the Professional model for 2 causes. One nerdy, one sensible.
The nerdy cause is stats. As a Professional consumer, for the worth of $19.99 / £16.49 /AU$27.99, at any level, I can dig into my movie-watching stats. Who’s my most-watched actor of the 12 months? Which cinematographer has the best common rating ranking on their films from me? What was my one hundredth film watched in 2022? Being a Professional consumer permits you to discover all of this, and god assist me, I adore it.
However being a Professional provides you one thing even higher: the answer to the massive streaming drawback that I discussed. You may inform Letterboxd which streaming providers you’ve, and everytime you view a film on it, it’s going to inform you if it is out there on any of them. Not solely that but when one thing is in your Watchlist and it will get added to a service you’ve, you will get a notification.
It is so easy. It is hardly some super-genius function nobody else might ever conceive of. But it surely’s magic as a result of it places all the things proper there in a single place. I’m going to Letterboxd to find films I did not know. I’m going there to work out what to observe subsequent. I’m going there to see if I can see a film on my providers. I’m going there to journal my ideas after a film.
You may get as into Letterboxd as you wish to get, which I like about it – use it completely privately, or deal with it as a completely social community. I maintain issues usually non-public, however I wish to observe my real-life pals so I can know what they consider issues, and I observe explicit critics who I believe have related tastes to mine, or who simply all the time have one thing fascinating to say about stunning movies.
It is like Reddit and IMDB blended into one however with out the worst components of each.
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