Our annual sale on Pro and Patron memberships is here: Ella Kemp reports on the statistical probability that a film lover’s Letterboxd life is vastly improved through numbers (and the ability to game them when it comes to your favorite actor).
There’s generally a Letterboxd list that will allow you to see where you’re at. The official lists have been a good push in the direction of some cinema blindspots…. There’s always an astonishing film out there waiting to be discovered.
—Michael Scott, Letterboxd member since 2012In today’s world, small wins mean everything. Finding the great joys and tiny satisfactions in the simplest things—in some worlds that might be the smell of fresh cut grass, the first barbecue of the year, a perfect date, a really cute cat. But in this world, our world, it can look like some really, really satisfying green circles. Completed green circles. The circles that show your progress through a major cinephilic list on Letterboxd.
These circles make up just one of many Letterboxd statistical advantages that Pro and Patron members gain from a subscription, in order to learn more about their viewing habits. These stats help you dig deeper into what you enjoy watching and what you’ve not yet got around to. Whether that’s noticing which of our official lists you’ve almost completed, tracking how many movies you’re watching each week (whether on-average or precisely), it’s a compulsion and a pleasure, with little rhyme or reason except for the fact that it feels good. (I, for some reason, check my stats after every single watch.
For other folks, there is the ability to build much more of a system, and one that works whatever your mileage. That might be to bring more actors into the fold, so that they can make their way up the list of your most watched movie stars of the year. “I’m only watching for the Andy Serkis stats,” writes Victoria, three times, in her half-star review of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (her stats show sixteen watched movies starring Serkis for the all-time numbers, thirteen of them in 2023).
“I watched this to get Myrna Loy on my stats page,” writes Piccolo “Sam” Rudolf in their 2021 three-star review of The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, realizing mid-review that the stats, fundamentally, can also have a mind of their own: “UPDATE: Myrna Loy is not on my stats page because apparently, Cary Grant was waiting in the wings too.” As of today, this member has seen 41 Myrna Loy movies, five of those this year. “UPDATE: Myrna Loy is NOW on my stats page,” that review concludes. How satisfying.
I love looking back after a few months to see how much progress I’ve made on my Watchlist and how much or how little I’ve added to it. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something in a world where I rarely even feel like doing the dishes.
—Letterboxd crew member and podcast host Slim.
Sometimes, though, our activity can reveal more than we’d like beyond the ebb and flow of the theatrical release calendar. I find this in years of big franchises making their return, when suddenly my numbers suggest I have an intense love for a particular cinematic universe (much love to Mr. Wick and Mr. Jones and all their great achievements this calendar year). It’s strange to see them seated above my evergreen loves and hates—you know, the satisfying stuff I’m into.
Letterboxd member Leon Santana would not stand for this, and so logged a one-star viewing of Spy Kids in 2019 for very good reason: “If you look at my stats for [directors] in 2019 before this movie, Robert Rodriguez had a high rating from me because I recently watched Sin City and rated it pretty high. Other than Sin City, I Hate Robert Rodriguez, I couldn’t stand watching him rated high on my stats page… so I had to go watch another movie by him to knock him off… I haven’t seen Spy Kids since [I was] a kid but I remember that it sucked badly. I watched it again, gave it a low rating and boom, Robert Rodriguez won’t appear on the high rated directors stats for 2019 for me, hahahahaha.” Mr Rodriguez, if you’re reading this, you can use your Letterboxd stats to build a better world of your own.
Beyond the politics of who’s in and who’s out, stats help members travel the world. “My Letterboxd country stats: 📈📈📈” writes Phil in his review of Samsara, which filmed in twenty-five countries over five continents, with locations including Brazil, China, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, USA.
The numbers (and the themes and nanogenres) also reflect what’s happening at home. Our editor-in-chief Gemma Gracewood enjoys the chaos of hers, never trying to game them because they reflect the beautiful unpredictability of family movie nights. “As the parent of a seven-year-old, it brings me great joy to have ‘epic heroes’, ‘fantasy adventure’ and ‘superheroes in action-packed battles’ alongside ‘legendary musicians’ and ‘surreal and thought-provoking visions of life’ in my most-watched themes,” she tells me. On the other end of the spectrum, Letterboxd bestie, Patron member and tired dad David Ehrlich retorts: “Couldn’t care less. I have children.” And that’s fine too!
One member who cares deeply about his stats, especially those enigmatic green circles, is Melbourne-based Michael Scott. With the ever-changing nature of some of our all-time lists, not all Michael’s circles are green right now. (Letterboxd Top 250, you unknowable master—and the top 250s of movies directed by women, Black filmmakers, horror aficionados and more, all swayed as new releases flood in.) But Michael has seen all-green days, and will again. Right now, his circles are as close as they’ll ever be.
These loops contain all of Roger Ebert’s Great Movies, the 1,001 To See Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1,000 Favorites, Sight & Sound Greatest Films, the Oscar Best Picture Winners and more. Michael has seen them all. “I just wanted to see more of the green rings,” Michael says of his quest, which began around June 2021. Once he realized he had already made a significant dent in the lists—having already seen 1,300 of the 2,600 or so films comprising all of them—his “completist urge coupled with a slightly obsessive personality” saw an opportunity for a challenge.
At Letterboxd HQ, our podcast mastermind Slim also enjoys the sense of progress in his stats too. “I love looking back after a few months to see how much progress I’ve made on my Watchlist and how much or how little I’ve added to it. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something in a world where I rarely even feel like doing the dishes.”
With film criticism as his side hustle back in 2012 (when Letterboxd began, and Michael’s own account too) the “feels like work” stage of watching movies is what lies behind the activity of our Pro Completist. Bumping up stats is a challenge, for sure, but now there’s more satisfaction than labor in it for him. “I have always watched a lot of films. I’ve always sought out specific directors and tried to see everything I can of their work,” Michael says.
“When I joined Letterboxd,” he continues, “it gave me a usable way of recording that and easily tracking progress. I’ve always been partial to any article that claims to detail ‘The Best Films You’ve Never Heard Of!’, which has never actually been the case. And Letterboxd has been a great way to rack up my watch history against those. There’s generally a Letterboxd list that will allow you to see where you’re at. The official lists have been a good push in the direction of some cinema blindspots.”
This circle completionist also uses the word “treasure hunt” (very fitting in the year of our Asteroid City Scavenger Hunt, but an eternal phrase when it comes to the joys of digging deep into cinema to unearth something new). “Some of the films have been difficult to track down. It’s been a matter of juggling physical media, film festivals, library collections, VPNs and dubious public access streamers. But that’s been part of the fun,” Michael says. “There’s always an astonishing film out there waiting to be discovered.”
So whether your satisfaction comes from the irrational need to see, like me, which weeks you watched two movies in and which weeks you watched 25 in (we love a virtual film festival!), or, like our West Coast editor Mia Lee Vicino, when you gotta know how many Colin Farrell movies you’ve watched so far (it’s 31, her answer is 31). Or even if, in our world of personality tests and mood boards and starter packs, you just need the dopamine hit of a bit more green in your world, like Michael—the unbroken circles of life in film move us all.
Stay tuned for more how-to guides from the Letterboxd crew and drop us a line (jour[email protected]) if you have a suggestion for a how-to topic.
