On January 2, Raha Bahloulipour watched Sentimental Value, the latest film by the Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier, in her dorm room at the University of Tehran. It was the first film she viewed in 2026, and she liked it very much. I know this because Raha was, like myself, an avid user of the film-cataloging app Letterboxd. With its tag system and diary, she jotted down when, where, and in what context she watched movies and what she thought of them.
Letterboxd has introduced its first wave of exclusive digital film rentals for the company's previously announced Letterboxd Video Store. The inaugural collection is themed Unreleased Gems and includes four movies that received awards or acclaim during a film festival. The titles will be available to watch from Letterboxd from December 10 through January 9. Each film is limited to certain geographic markets and the prices will also vary both by title and country.
In a recent blog post, the company shared further details about "Video Store," which will feature a range of films. The selection will include "festival standouts" that haven't yet been widely distributed, films that have been largely unavailable but frequently watchlisted by users, recent restorations, and other special limited-time releases. Launching a video store feels like a natural evolution for Letterboxd, allowing users to rent movies instantly without having to navigate away from the platform.
Once a humble app feature, Letterboxd's Four Favourites has mutated into our era's cinematic confession booth. Users choose (and can endlessly reshuffle) their top four films on their profile, while clips of celebrities and civilians alike performing the same ritual play out to Letterboxd's 2.4 million Instagram followers. It's now a social-media genre of its own: the red carpet backdrop, the jaunty music, the snappy edits, the cheerful pings as posters slide into place.
