Canadian company Tiny acquires film review platform Letterboxd for $50 million

The Canadian holding company, Tiny, has acquired the film reviews and social media platform, Letterboxd, for a reported $50 million. Letterboxd, founded in 2011 by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, has amassed approximately 10 million users who uses the platform to log films they've watched, write reviews, and interact with other users' entries, pretty similar to other alternatives such as IMDb or Trakt.tv. Known for its simplicity and stability, Letterboxd provides a journal-like experience for users, free of algorithm-driven content, making it a preferred platform for film enthusiasts and critics.

Letterboxd also offers features such as watchlists influenced by friends' reviews and a company-run blog with essays, interviews, and more. The platform operates on a freemium model, offering a free ad-supported tier and a $19 yearly subscription for an ad-free experience and access to year-end watch data lists. We should expect this to remain the same, at least for a while, as the companies have announced that Tiny's acquisition is not expected to alter Letterboxd's business model, with founders Buchanan and von Randow remaining in charge. However, a potential change could be the addition of TV show reviews, which is a quite logical step considering what their closest competitors offer.