Letterboxd is being sold for obvious reasons. The movie app/website has absolutely blown up, and Canadian holding company Tiny Ltd, which bought a 60% stake in 2023, is looking to capitalize. Unsurprisingly, the sharks smell blood in the water. Per a report, Netflix is among those interested in buying the site. It should go without saying, but I’m going to anyway, that this would be a disaster.

Netflix Should Not Buy Letterboxd Under Any Circumstances

For all intents and purposes, we can assume Letterboxd absolutely is going to be sold. The hit movie website for logging, listing, and reviewing movies has plenty of wealthy suitors, which means someone’s going to take over. Tiny Ltd wouldn’t put its 60% controlling stake up for sale, see massive suitors come forth, and then decide not to sell.

So, the site is going to be bought by someone. The options are not good. Netflix is a top candidate, as are Sony, Paramount Skydance, RedBird, TPG, and Reddit co-creator Alexis Ohanian. Most of these are pretty awful. Netflix, Sony, and Paramount are probably the worst, and among them, Netflix is the most dangerous.

This would create a major conflict of interest. Any major movie studio owning a movie-reviewing website would be highly, highly problematic. It would be impossible to trust the reviews and scores of a movie that Netflix bought or produced.

Netflix bought Frankenstein, and it received an excellent 3.8 average score, indicating to potential viewers that this is likely a good movie worth watching. Netflix produced 6 Underground with its 2.6 average score, indicating to potential viewers that it may be worth skipping. Those average scores are not at all influenced, but how could we trust that the next batch of Netflix originals would also be organic if the distribution company owns the site?

There’s already speculation that Netflix is not entirely accurate with its internal analytics and site rankings. “Top 10 in the US” is a controversial list that no one seems to believe. We’re meant to trust that the streaming giant that hates theatrical releases would be totally honest in purchasing and running Letterboxd?

This logic applies to all movie studios. They should have nothing to do with a site that is largely predicated on reviewing films. The next Sony blockbuster’s reviews can’t be trusted if Sony owns the website that these reviews are housed on.

The reason I have honed in on Netflix is that they’re largely the most shady and controversial of the options, and because they are highly likely to be the winning bid. They nearly bought Warner Bros. with a massive financial offer, so that money is still lying around. They’re worth over $308 billion. Sony ($125 billion despite also having PlayStation) and Paramount ($11 billion) are not as financially blessed.

Netflix also has a lot of sway, evidenced by the company’s near-purchase of Warner Bros. That disaster of a crisis was averted. Could we be fortunate enough again to avoid the streaming titan’s monopolistic takeover? It doesn’t feel likely.

If we’re picking one of the options, it probably needs to be Alexis Ohanian. Reddit is a pretty successful website, and Letterboxd would likely stay mostly the same under his ownership. RedBird is just a private equity firm, so that probably wouldn’t be the end of the world, either. TPG is an asset management firm, so the same logic applies.

Those options wouldn’t derail what has quickly become one of the best and most used websites for movie lovers. But under no circumstances should Netflix, Sony, or Paramount be allowed to touch Letterboxd. It would be a disaster, ruining the credibility of most movie lovers’ favorite app.