The Letterboxd platform, popular among cinephiles for recording and evaluating films, started sending its annual retrospective, known as “Year in Review”. The personalized summary compiles each user’s viewing statistics over the past year and is distributed gradually via email, a method distinct from other platforms that integrate functionality directly into their apps.
To be eligible and receive the long-awaited email, users must have met a minimum requirement: register at least ten films with a viewing date corresponding to the past year. Este criterion ensures that the analysis is based on a sufficient volume of data to generate relevant insights into each person’s cinema consumption habits.
The rollout officially started in the first days of January, following the Estados Unidos time zone, which means that users in different parts of the world can receive their statistics at different times. The platform takes this approach to manage the high volume of submissions, asking users to check their inboxes and spam boxes over the next few days.
letterboxd wrapped for all of us 🟠🟢🔵pic.twitter.com/xBjhgnwZ1s
— alex (@barnesinthecut)January 2, 2026
How sending a personal summary works
The “Year in Review” from Letterboxd is a direct and exclusive communication, sent to the email address that the user used to register on the platform. It is essential that email notification settings are enabled to ensure smooth receipt. Caso otherwise, the summary may not be delivered.
The shipping process is staggered and started on January 2nd. Devido to the global user base, delivery is not simultaneous for everyone. Relatos in online communities indicate that emails arrive in waves, and may take a few hours or even a day to reach all eligible profiles.
Members with paid subscriptions, like Pro and Patron, already have continuous access to detailed statistics throughout the year through a dedicated section on their profiles. However, they also receive the “Year in Review” email, which presents the data in a consolidated form and with a special design, ideal for sharing.
Patience is a recommendation from the user community, as the anxiety to check the data is high. The platform usually completes shipping to all eligible users within a few days, consolidating the event as a milestone start of the year for film lovers.
What your Year in Review reveals
The email content is rich in detail and offers a complete insight into the user’s cinematic journey over the last year. The summary starts with the total number of films recorded in the diary, providing an overview of activity. Além Additionally, it calculates and displays the total hours spent watching movies, a metric that often surprises users when quantifying their screen time. The report also highlights the number of reviews written, encouraging interaction and expression of opinions on the platform. One of the highlights is the revelation of the most watched actor or actress, which is determined by the frequency with which they appear in the credits of the films watched. Da In the same way, the summary indicates the favorite director of the year, based on the number of his works that were watched. Outras curious information includes the week with the highest number of films watched and the day of the week on which the user most attended the cinema or watched films at home. Para complete, the “Year in Review” offers a detailed division by predominant genres, allowing the person to identify whether their year was marked by dramas, comedies, horror films or documentaries, for example, offering a mirror of their tastes and preferences.
Essential requirements to receive the email
The main criteria to qualify for the “Year in Review” is to have journaled a minimum of ten films with a specific viewing date within the previous year. Essa rule is essential for the system to compile accurate annual data.
It’s crucial to understand the difference between “marking as watched” and “registering” a movie. Apenas marking a film as seen, without adding a date, serves to catalog the history of films that the person has seen in their life, but does not count towards the annual retrospective. Somente dated records are considered.
Films that were recorded privately or that remained as drafts in the diary are also disregarded in the final statistics. The analysis only takes into account public and properly completed entries, ensuring that the summary reflects the activity shared with the community.
A retrospective of the community and its differences
In addition to the individual summary, Letterboxd also prepares a general community retrospective, which is released later, usually around January 12th. Este report is different in that it does not focus on data from a single user, but rather on global trends observed among all platform members around the world. It is a collective celebration of cinema, showing which productions and artists stood out on the global stage.
This community panorama reveals the films with the highest average scores, the most popular productions, the best-rated documentaries and other categories that reflect collective taste. The lists are compiled based on thoughtful evaluations to guarantee a fair and representative result, becoming an important reference for cinephiles looking to discover the highlights of the past year according to the opinions of other lovers of the seventh art.
How to correct data before summarizing
For users who notice inconsistencies in their data or who forgot to correctly date their films, the platform offers a way to correct the information. The process involves exporting the data through the settings section on the Letterboxd website, which generates a file in CSV format.
Within the exported CSV file, whether reviews or watched films, the user must locate the column called “Date” and rename it to “Watched Date”. Após save the change, the modified file can be imported back to the platform on the import screen, updating records in bulk.
Preparations for the next retrospective
To ensure you receive the retrospective next year, it is recommended that users check the notification settings in their profile on Letterboxd. It is important to ensure that the option to receive emails and news from the platform is activated.
Keeping your movie diary updated throughout the year is best practice. Registrar each film with the correct date immediately after watching it avoids the accumulation of tasks at the end of the year and ensures that “Year in Review” is as faithful as possible to the reality of your cinematic habits.
The Popularity of Annual Retrospectives
Letterboxd’s “Year in Review” fits into a larger cultural trend of personalized digital retrospectives, popularized by services like Spotify Wrapped. Esses annual summaries have become a phenomenon because they allow users to visualize their own consumption habits in a playful and shareable way, generating conversations and connections on social networks at the end of each year.
