Before “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was, well, everywhere, it was on Letterboxd. Before Martin Scorsese took TikTok by storm, he was logging films on Letterboxd. Before the internet crowned Ayo Edebiri as the People’s Princess, she reigned as royalty on Letterboxd.
The app started small: the cinephile‘s counterpart to the bibliophile’s Goodreads. It was a way for film fans to keep track of their recent watches and thoughts. Twelve years in, the app boasts more than 14 million users — up by 4 million in just eight months.
A once-niche corner of the internet, Letterboxd has become an unstoppable force. While its users still skew young, its reach has broadened to distributors, filmmakers, studios and theaters striving to bring audiences back to the movies. “We see ourselves as this little cog between the filmmakers and the audience,” Letterboxd co-founder Matthew Buchanan said.
The company has never used traditional marketing, instead relying solely on word of mouth, Buchanan said. The site’s membership spike began at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when people were “turning to movies for company and for sanity.” Buchanan ultimately attributes the exponential growth to its virality, coupled with the efforts of the editorial and social teams.
“It’s bigger than all of us now,” Buchanan said. When Letterboxd Editor in Chief Gemma Gracewood attended the premiere of A24’s “Love Lies Bleeding” in March, she finally found herself face to .