Letterboxd is launching a curated streaming service for indie films

Exciting news for anyone who’s already burned through the entirety of Netflix: There’s a new online movie rental platform coming to town.

Letterboxd, the movie-tracking app and the preferred social media of your most insufferable film-loving friend, announced this week that the Letterboxd Video Store is on the way.

The announcement was made Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival. While the company hasn’t revealed too many specifics just yet, we do know the upcoming streaming service will be called the Letterboxd Video Store and will feature curated “shelves” of handpicked titles.

Like other services such as Prime Video, Apple TV, or Google Play, users will be able to rent films on demand or during specified release windows. But don’t expect the usual lineup. These selections will be carefully curated by Letterboxd, spotlighting lesser-known films, emerging filmmakers, and titles from the festival circuit.

By showcasing movies that haven’t yet secured wide distribution, Letterboxd aims to position its transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) service as a “potential new path to audience connection for filmmakers and sales agents seeking visibility and momentum.”

Details around launch dates, availability by territory, and specific titles will be announced in the coming months. However, the company has confirmed that selections will be informed by “behavioral insight” drawn from its 20 million-strong community of dedicated film lovers.

Launched in 2011, the platform, often dubbed the “Goodreads for film,” remained a niche hub for cinephiles for nearly a decade. By mid-2020, it had only 1.8 million members. Today, Letterboxd has gone fully mainstream. Top reviewers enjoy micro-celebrity status, its “Four Favorites” trend routinely goes viral on TikTok, and users gleefully speculate about celebrities’ burner accounts.

“Every day, we see members recommending films to each other, adding to their watch lists and hungry to discover more,” Letterboxd CEO Matthew Buchanan said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “Letterboxd Video Store is our way of delivering for those film lovers, creating a dedicated space for films that deserve an audience.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/91335254/letterboxd-on-demand-video-store?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss