Is the Ubiquity of Letterboxd Ushering in a New Era of Celebrity Culture Curation?
It is, in effect, one of an actor’s jobs to tell us what to watch. But what do we learn when stars tell us what they’re watching? The glossy curation of celebrity book clubs—with people like Dua Lipa, Emma Roberts, and Kaia Gerber becoming Gen Z’s answers to Oprah and Reese Witherspoon—has lately given way to a different kind of cultural curation: the Wild West of celebrity Letterboxd accounts.
Of course, no conversation about that movie-logging platform would be complete without a reference to The Bear and Bottoms star Ayo Edebiri. What began with a very relatable reaction to Gone Girl in 2018 (“I just want Rosamund Pike to only do this movie now and forever I guess”) soon grew into a full-fledged internet phenomenon, with Buzzfeed rounding up 41 of Edebiri’s funniest movie reviews last year. (Top-ranked is her take on Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, which begins: “Florence Pugh and her deep ass voice can punch me in the neck. I’d die for her.”) Of course, Tina Fey was right when she told Bowen Yang that authenticity can be “dangerous and expensive” for a famous person, and Edebiri largely stopped posting reviews once she started winning awards (sob), but there was something really wonderful about her unvarnished voice as a reviewer…not to mention her dad’s.
But Edebiri is by no means Letterboxd’s only celebrity fan: There’s a whole Reddit thread devoted to tracking celebrities who track movies on the app, from Oscar-winning Anora director Sean Baker (he sees…everything!), to pop star Charli XCX (her Nosferatu review is poetry), and…British MP Jeremy Corbyn? (I’m particularly obsessed with his entry about the 1974 film version of The Great Gatsby: “Shows the barrenness of greed and wealth.” Well, yes!)
At a time when King Charles III is insisting that he listens to Beyoncé, seeing what a famous person is watching and responding to, almost in real time, whether for fun or research, is just cool. Take Rachel Sennott on Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid: “Omg I think of myself as an anxious person but this movie made me feel French.” Funny! Or Hari Nef on White Chicks: “last night, i wept so violently that i vomited; my boyfriend held my hair back. then he was like, ‘should we watch white chicks?’ we did, and it made me feel better.” Sweet! (Though he’s not on Letterboxd—publicly, anyway—Steven Soderbergh’s riveting and chaotic “Seen; Read” lists scratch the same itch. Isn’t it nice to know how much he likes Hacks? And that he got really into Jaws lore last year?)
Even if you’re too cynical to take advice from celebrities on what jeans to buy or what high-protein diet to follow, it’s nice to be able to let the stars guide you through the always-expanding constellation of Hollywood blockbusters and indie sleeper hits out there. Just make sure to move fast, because at this rate, Letterboxd is bound to become as cheugy as, well, the word “cheugy” before too long.
