Get the latest gossip

The Letterboxd Page That Became Something Much More

Yes, Charlie Shackleton’s “Paint Drying” is a real film (all 607 minutes of it), but its page on the popular film cataloging site has turned into a repository for far more than ju…

With that simple yet emotionally raw post, M unwittingly christened a corner of the movie-focused social network(so popular that even Martin Scorsese is now a member) as a place for users to share personal updates that range from the mundane to the startlingly confessional, along with polls, contests, commentary on non-movie pieces of media (music, video games, TV series), and anything else that doesn’t fit within Letterboxd’s format of logging movies and writing reviews of them. “Given that ‘Paint Drying’ itself was able to be made and able to be as long as it is due to crowdfunding, the Letterboxd community gathering a crowd around this film’s page just feels like a continuation of that spirit,” Gracewood said. But Carmi’s experience and the overall “Paint Drying” phenomenon point to how valuable Letterboxd has become for its users as it’s grown, as more than just a repository for star ratings on the latest blockbusters or arthouse releases.

Get the Android app