Letterboxd Is Looking For a New Owner

According to Semafor (via Manton Reece), the company that currently owns a majority stake in Letterboxd — a social network popular amongst cinephiles and movie lovers for tracking what they’ve watched and getting recommendations à la Goodreads — is now looking to sell the platform.

The Canadian holding company Tiny has spoken to potential buyers, from CNBC and MS NOW parent company Versant to the Hollywood startup The Ankler, about the platform, which plays host to a community of millions of movie buffs and has turned into an entertainment media player that produces videos and licenses films.

Tiny approached The Ankler in 2025, and when they couldn’t agree on sales terms, instead pursued a series of events, newsletters, and a sales partnership. The investment bank Liontree is now marketing the deal.

I’m not at all surprised if this news has Letterboxd users worried. This sort of transition rarely seems to go all that well these days. It’s easy to imagine some private equity firm swooping in, proceeding to enshittify the site, and then cutting out having made a tidy little sum in the process, leaving Letterboxd users with a hollowed out version of something they used to enjoy.

That sort of concern is precisely why I built my own personal Letterboxd in the form of my site’s “Cultural Diet” section, which has actually become one of my favorite aspects of Opus in recent months. Even so, I’ve found Letterboxd invaluable at times for tracking down information about obscure films, and in particular, Godfrey Ho’s manic ninja movies.

Of course, not everyone has the time or wherewithal to build out their own movie-tracking system, which means that I hope whatever fate befalls Letterboxd, it can still retain the charm and utility that’s made it so popular since its launch in 2011.