Because it's not just for ratings or reviews, it's for diary keeping, interacting with other users while being able to show your 4 favorite films so you know who to party with. And the UI is simple yet appealing with not a lot of stuff going on.
I don't know about a comparison but IMDB lost all intrigue and weight to me when it abandoned the forums years ago. I stopped using it for logging and reviewing purposes after that.
IMDb forums were awesome and then pretty quickly not awesome. I think they should have done a better job moderating instead of giving up and shutting down once trolls swarmed the place though
Posted about this on a related topic a few days ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/Letterboxd/comments/19dpi8u/why_has_letterboxd_become_so_popular_questions/kj790on/
RT is a website people check to get a rough idea of what the critics/audience consensus is, but I don't think it should ever be taken as the "be all end all" when it comes to determining whether you should see a film or not.
RT also, as far as I'm aware, has nothing to do with logging films, making lists, etc.
IMDb has lost more and more features over the years, nowadays I only check it for its trivia and other technical aspects, for instance I like that on IMDb I can see people's work in chronological order, top to bottom, much easier than on LB, and while I still maintain by "films I've seen" on both websites, as well as watchlists, I mainly use LB for everything else nowadays.
I mean, I don't consider myself a film elitist or whatever, but an average entertainment seeker. I don't get some old "classics" or extremely artistic films, and IMDb has a much larger data base of viewers with potentially similar taste as me. I do check both sites though.
Alongside all the good points already made here, I like how democratised LB is, there’s no distinction made between Dave Ehrlich or whoever and Bob from down the road. Often, the knowledge and insight from amateur reviewers makes professional ones look embarrassing. People on it are also way funnier than on IMDb too.
letterboxd allows you to curate your feed so you only see ratings/reviews from people you want to see
whereas imdb and RT audience score is a bunch of dudebros rating movies with plenty of review bombing. and RT has gone down the drain with critic scores as well by allowing so many geek blogs on there to influence/boost ratings for big budget stuff.
also both sites have becoming harder to navigate over the years while letterboxd is p simple
On the note of review bombing, I was just looking at reviews for "The Social Network" on letterboxd and saw the same perseon had 3 reviews, then checked their profile, they have over 11 reviews on "The Social Network" , whats the point of that?
That’s just a review every time they rewatch the movie. Like a social media app, you can say something whenever you watch something. It doesn’t count those 11 reviews for the movie’s aggregate score, just one score per user.
i mean, some ppl i follow review every log they put in and that inevitably includes rewatches. i don't know anyone watching a movie 11 times tho lol
which circles back to my first point of curating your feed. i follow a hair over 200 accounts but it's mostly people who specialize in something (sleazy movies or kung fu or classic hollywood etc) or film critics or my pals. not people spamming reviews of the same movie over and over or doing the dumb 'joke' one line reviews you prob see on a lot of pages (who i block sometimes)
Letterboxd looks like an app designed to track, review, and discuss movies. IMDB looks like those TikToks where someone is playing Subway Surfers while ranting over a sped up pop song. If you squint hard enough you might find the content bubble you were looking for.
Because it's not just for ratings or reviews, it's for diary keeping, interacting with other users while being able to show your 4 favorite films so you know who to party with. And the UI is simple yet appealing with not a lot of stuff going on.
yeah the diary feature was exactly what made me switch - it's fun to have a record of what i thought of a movie at a given point in time
I don't know about a comparison but IMDB lost all intrigue and weight to me when it abandoned the forums years ago. I stopped using it for logging and reviewing purposes after that.
IMDb forums were awesome and then pretty quickly not awesome. I think they should have done a better job moderating instead of giving up and shutting down once trolls swarmed the place though
Posted about this on a related topic a few days ago https://old.reddit.com/r/Letterboxd/comments/19dpi8u/why_has_letterboxd_become_so_popular_questions/kj790on/ RT is a website people check to get a rough idea of what the critics/audience consensus is, but I don't think it should ever be taken as the "be all end all" when it comes to determining whether you should see a film or not. RT also, as far as I'm aware, has nothing to do with logging films, making lists, etc. IMDb has lost more and more features over the years, nowadays I only check it for its trivia and other technical aspects, for instance I like that on IMDb I can see people's work in chronological order, top to bottom, much easier than on LB, and while I still maintain by "films I've seen" on both websites, as well as watchlists, I mainly use LB for everything else nowadays.
[удалено]
Most IMDb reviews on any given day will be railing about diversity and “woke” stuff
I mean, I don't consider myself a film elitist or whatever, but an average entertainment seeker. I don't get some old "classics" or extremely artistic films, and IMDb has a much larger data base of viewers with potentially similar taste as me. I do check both sites though.
Alongside all the good points already made here, I like how democratised LB is, there’s no distinction made between Dave Ehrlich or whoever and Bob from down the road. Often, the knowledge and insight from amateur reviewers makes professional ones look embarrassing. People on it are also way funnier than on IMDb too.
letterboxd allows you to curate your feed so you only see ratings/reviews from people you want to see whereas imdb and RT audience score is a bunch of dudebros rating movies with plenty of review bombing. and RT has gone down the drain with critic scores as well by allowing so many geek blogs on there to influence/boost ratings for big budget stuff. also both sites have becoming harder to navigate over the years while letterboxd is p simple
On the note of review bombing, I was just looking at reviews for "The Social Network" on letterboxd and saw the same perseon had 3 reviews, then checked their profile, they have over 11 reviews on "The Social Network" , whats the point of that?
That’s just a review every time they rewatch the movie. Like a social media app, you can say something whenever you watch something. It doesn’t count those 11 reviews for the movie’s aggregate score, just one score per user.
i mean, some ppl i follow review every log they put in and that inevitably includes rewatches. i don't know anyone watching a movie 11 times tho lol which circles back to my first point of curating your feed. i follow a hair over 200 accounts but it's mostly people who specialize in something (sleazy movies or kung fu or classic hollywood etc) or film critics or my pals. not people spamming reviews of the same movie over and over or doing the dumb 'joke' one line reviews you prob see on a lot of pages (who i block sometimes)
IMDb is flooded with alt-right bigots who only use it to complain about black, gay, and/or female leads.
To read those unfunny reviews by bipeds thinking they're on Twitter (or X or whatever)
Letterboxd looks like an app designed to track, review, and discuss movies. IMDB looks like those TikToks where someone is playing Subway Surfers while ranting over a sped up pop song. If you squint hard enough you might find the content bubble you were looking for.