In late 2011, at a friendly web conference held in Brooklyn, New York, Matthew Buchanan debuted Letterboxd, which he had created in Auckland, New Zealand with co-founder Karl von Randow and a small team. Designed to foster a community of film lovers who would share, log, rate and watchlist films, this early iteration attracted enthusiastic beta members.

Ten years and five-million-plus members later, we were curious about what a ‘life in film’ looks like for those early adopters who now have a decade of movie-watching habits recorded—and what that data might tell them about themselves.

From a shared passion for the world of cinema, to a place to make friends, and a way to access memories, ten film fanatics lovingly (and critically) describe what it is to have the fabric of one’s life threaded through a social-media platform made for sharing our love of movies. Here’s to the next ten!

Dave Vis

Letterboxd profile: dave (curator of the Official Letterboxd Top 250)

November 12, 2011 was the day. Not that I remember it like the birth of my kids, but it’s been in my Letterboxd bio ever since. The site was in its beta phase at the time, so how my good friend here in Holland got a couple of invitation codes for this New Zealand film geeks’ website is still a mystery to me.

From those early days of browsing through lists of thousands of films just to tick more ‘watched’ icons, to following new people with interesting takes on films, I instantly loved it. The list-making fetishist in me soon got his way also, especially when the facility to sort titles by average rating was added. I just felt I needed a Letterboxd Top 250 just as IMDb had one. I’m still quite humbled that I was asked to curate it as the Official Letterboxd Top 250, with over 58,000 likes now.

Letterboxd was also important for my personal film-watching experience. The Letterboxd community—the heart of the website—introduced me to so many classics, art-house gems and foreign films I would never have seen if it wasn’t for them. The Top 250, user reviews and direct contact with other members put so much incredible stuff on my radar. So I want to thank the Letterboxd team for their inspired initiative and all beloved members for their input in making this the best film platform there is over the last ten years. Here’s to ten more!

Jacob Powell

Letterboxd handle: jacobunny

3,551 films, spread over 6,451 hours, by 2,045 different directors, from 104 countries.

Is this what a decade looks like? I enjoy statistics. In my day job, I’m a librarian. I enjoy putting objects in order: books on shelves, DVDs and Blu-rays in my large cupboard; arranged by subject category, author or director, and date of release. I used to track my movie viewing via a mish-mash of half-filled spreadsheets and a clunky piece of DVD library software, so when Letterboxd appeared in my Twitter feed in mid-2012, I had to check it out.

My ‘in real life’ movie crew expanded into a community composed of enthused filmheads from across the globe (including a few favorite actors and directors) who enrich each others’ cine-lives. My taste has always been eclectic, but engaging with some of the thematic ‘challenges’ that float about the Lettersphere has pushed me to be more purposeful in my viewing choices—a strong example being the #52filmsbywomen prompt. In recent Covid-constricted times, I’ve found myself in the midst of a few Letterboxd-based group-viewing projects (many thanks to my proactive friend Doug Dillaman).

And yet, for me, the primary appeal of the service lies in its core functionality: I want to be able to log my viewing, and my thoughts about my viewing. This piece of applied technology enables me to access the memories and detail I need when my brain can’t recall them. To contribute to conversations, to reference in my writing, or simply to bask again in a specific cinematic experience. To address my opening question: my Letterboxd account literally preserves the glorious, fresh-eyed minutiae of my last ten years of film-watching. I have loved my time here.

Khoi Vinh

Letterboxd handle: khoi

If I’ve really been on Letterboxd ten years then it must’ve come into my life during the foggiest stretch I’ve ever experienced. At the time, I had a toddler, twins on the way, a new business getting off the ground, and my wife and I were looking for a new house. Frantic times.

So the start of my Letterboxd journey is a dim memory at best. Nevertheless, somewhere along the way it flowered into something more, and became one of the most essential parts of my online life. These days, I fire up the Letterboxd app on my phone, load up the Letterboxd site on my laptop, and/or launch the iPad app every single day—and some days I do all three. At this point, I use Letterboxd more than Twitter or Facebook or any other social network, and not just because Letterboxd isn’t actively undermining society.

The thing about Letterboxd is that the signal-to-noise ratio is high. Remarkably high. It’s often hilarious, frequently insightful, and even sometimes deeply emotionally moving. And it’s all about a shared passion for the world of cinema, for the triumphs of artists attempting to put good stuff into the world. That’s what the Internet should be, by the way. Thank you, Letterboxd, for doing it the way that you do.

Lola Landekić

Letterboxd handle: lola (also editor in chief of Art of the Title) 

When did I join Letterboxd? Has it been so long? A deep fog rolls in when I try to recall a time before I ritualistically logged the films I watched, tapping that green plus sign encased in a circle after the credits have rolled away and the lights have come up. By now, the platform has become a repository of some of my favourite memories.

Over the years, as I watched films with my family, best friends, fleeting flings, long-term loves and, most of all, by myself, my stalwart companion has been Letterboxd. I’ve spit out specks of disgust and yawps of joy, pithy one-liners and long, flowery reflections. I’ve been able to watch with intention. I look at my data and I say to myself: More films by women! More films by people of color! More horror! And then I build myself a path.

In her essay “On Keeping a Notebook”, Joan Didion wrote: “Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.” And so I use Letterboxd to keep track and to keep notes, to make jokes and to make lists, to remember films, but mostly to remember myself. I remember what it was to be me.

Mark Cunliffe

Letterboxd handle: man_out_of_time

I’ve my friend Michael Mackenzie to thank for introducing me to Letterboxd. He knew I liked film and told me about this site that was in beta currently that I might be interested in. A decade ago was a bit of an empty period for me. I’d recently been made redundant, so there wasn’t much going on in real life, and I was also finding my online life a bit stale too. All I had was my regular movie watching—now here was a way of recording that activity. The opportunity to pen reviews provided an outlet for my creativity and passion for writing.

If it wasn’t for Letterboxd, I’d never have become a regular reviewer at sites like The Geek Show and We Are Cult. I’d have never appeared on podcasts, and I’d certainly never have got my freelance gig at Arrow writing booklet essays for prestigious releases like Children of Men and The Day of the Jackal. What Letterboxd did was appeal to my love of film, my ability to chat about it with friends, and sharpen it until it became a skill as much as a pastime. Letterboxd genuinely gave me confidence in my own voice and opinions, something that has never previously come easy to me.

Letterboxd also introduced me to a great community of like-minded, intelligent, passionate, and funny souls, each of whom has, in turn, introduced me to films and filmmakers I probably would have never considered if it wasn’t for the opportunities on this site.

Ultimately, Letterboxd has provided me with my most comfortable internet ‘home’, a place in a rewarding community. And all I have to do to keep my place is witter on about my love for Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, social realism, kitchen sink, old TV plays, etc. Thanks for having me for a decade. Here’s to the next ten years.

Rob Weychert 

Letterboxd handle: robweychert

I never used to think of myself as much of a collector. Decades of confined apartment living taught me to cultivate a certain minimalism, to avoid sentimental attachments, to reduce and consolidate. When the Information Age came for physical media, I held on a little longer than most, but by the time I finally stopped buying CDs, my entire collection had already been ripped to MP3 for years.

I didn’t even bother to digitize most of my DVDs before I sold them off unceremoniously. To some traditional collectors, this may have seemed like a lack of devotion, but this process helped me realize I wasn’t attached to the artifacts of music and film, I was attached to the experience of them. So now I think of myself as a collector of experiences.

We all accumulate experiences, of course, just like we accumulate objects. But a collection—at least the kind that interests me—is much more deliberate than an accumulation. The best collections are curations, and a curator puts a lot of thought into what they value about their collection and what would make it more complete. To this end, I can think of no finer tool for managing a collection of experiences than Letterboxd.

I’ve been a film lover my whole life, but if Letterboxd hadn’t come along, I think it’s safe to say I would never have been quite so intentional about it. I’ve kept up with friends’ moviegoing adventures. I’ve written hundreds of wannabe Pauline Kael reviews. I’ve cross-referenced my film diary entries to find interesting patterns and connections. I’ve fallen down cast-and-crew-research rabbit holes. I’ve methodically sorted and filtered aggregated community ratings to assemble my October schedule of new-to-me horror.

Through it all, Letterboxd has been my cinephilic command center. For the past ten years, it’s been indispensable, leaving no film-watching experience unexamined, and as a result, the collected experiences that live in my Letterboxd account are so much richer than a bookcase full of Blu-rays could ever be. Matthew, Karl and the rest of the crew have made something truly special, and I can’t wait to see what new discoveries and friends I make in my next ten years on Letterboxd.