Letterboxd vs IMDb: Where to Log the Films You Watch (2026)
Letterboxd is a film diary with a community, IMDb is a database with a rating list. Prices, privacy, export and which to use, plus how to move years of IMDb ratings.
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Use Letterboxd if you want a diary of the films you watch, with reviews and friends. Use IMDb if you want the reference database and a private ratings list scored out of ten. Both are free to start, they do different jobs, and plenty of people already have years of ratings on IMDb that can move across in minutes.
If you also watch series or read and listen to things, there is a third answer, and it comes up below.
Years of IMDb ratings, a Letterboxd diary, or both? Achriom imports IMDb ratings or your watchlist (films, series and games) and a Letterboxd zip, CSV or username into one shelf. Private until you choose otherwise, free with no item limit.
Bring in my history →What each one is for
IMDb is where you look a film up. The cast, the crew, the trivia, the full credits. Rating a title there is a side feature on top of that: you can score any released title from 1 to 10, and your ratings page is your list.
Letterboxd is where you write down that you watched it. You log a film with the date, say whether it was a rewatch, add a rating, maybe write a review, and the entry lands in a diary that you can scroll back through years later. The community is built around that act.
That difference decides most of the rest. One is a reference shelf you sometimes rate things on. The other is a journal you keep.
IMDb
IMDb’s own help pages are plain about the rating side. You rate from 1 to 10 once you have an account, ratings are private by default, and you can switch them public in your list settings. Series can be rated as a whole or episode by episode, though IMDb says the episode scores are not used when it calculates the series rating.
The lists are more capable than people expect. You can have up to 999 lists, and the watchlist, lists and check-ins can each hold up to 12,000 items. A list is private or public, and IMDb forces a list private if it contains links to other sites.
IMDb is free for non-commercial use and paid for by advertising. The paid IMDbPro is aimed at industry professionals, so a film fan can ignore it.
What IMDb is less good at is memory. A rating there is a number against a title, with no watched date or rewatch beside it.
Letterboxd
Letterboxd describes itself as the social network for film lovers, and the diary is the heart of it. Each entry can carry a watched date, a rewatch flag and tags, with a rating and a review on top. One detail worth knowing before you join: Letterboxd’s own help says diary dates and watched status stay public even when a review is private.
Ratings run in half-star steps up to five, a coarser scale than IMDb’s ten points.
Film information comes from TMDB, which Letterboxd credits in its footer. It is built around films, so a series you are binging has no episode-by-episode home there.
Price. The free account does the diary, ratings, reviews and lists. Pro adds annual and all-time stats pages, no third-party ads, favorite streaming services with filtering by what is available on them, and a few organizing tools such as cloning lists. Patron includes all of Pro and adds custom posters and backdrops, a profile listing in the Patrons directory and early access to some features. The App Store lists Pro at $18.99 a year and Patron at $48.99 a year. Letterboxd’s site says subscriptions are billed annually, but the pages I could open there do not list the amounts, so check the price on the web before you pay.
Moving years of IMDb ratings into Letterboxd
This is the question behind a lot of these searches, and it is easy. In IMDb, open Your Ratings, click the three dots at the top right and choose Export. You get a ratings.csv. The watchlist has its own export at the bottom of the page, and each list exports separately.
Letterboxd’s importer reads the IMDb file directly. A few cautions from its own instructions. Imports cannot be undone, files are limited to 1MB (split larger ones and keep the header row in each part), and you should only create diary entries from the dates if the IMDb dates really are when you watched the films. IMDb does not export reviews, so those you would copy by hand.
Going the other way is the same idea. Letterboxd gives you a zip of CSV files from letterboxd.com/data/export, covered step by step in how to export your Letterboxd data.
The third option, if films are not the only thing you keep
Achriom starts from a different place. It is a library for films, shows, books, albums, anime, podcasts, games and manga, and the films sit on a shelf beside the rest.
For this particular choice, the useful part is what it will take in. The import dialog accepts IMDb ratings or your IMDb watchlist (films, series and games), and a Letterboxd export zip, CSV or username, so you do not have to pick which history counts. If you connect a Letterboxd profile, the diary with its dates, rewatches and ratings is synced daily, so a film you log on Letterboxd today is on your Achriom shelf the next day. New activity at the source adds a title, and something you deleted in Achriom does not come back.
A few things that matter to a person leaving a ratings list behind.
- It is private until you say otherwise. Nothing is public until you turn on a public profile in Settings, and you can turn it off again in one tap. Each review can be public or only yours. Follower counts stay private.
- Free, with no item limit. Every import is free, and so are half-stars, notes, the did-not-finish shelf and export of the whole library as CSV.
- Series are tracked properly. Season and episode tracking, episode ratings, continue watching and a calendar of upcoming episodes are there, which is where a film-only diary stops.
- You can ask your library questions. The librarian answers things like ”80s horror I haven’t watched”, and with ten items in, Achriom builds a Taste Portrait that shows the pattern in what you rate highly. The free plan includes 10 librarian messages a month. Pro is $9.99 a month or $99 a year and takes that to 200, with deeper Taste readings.
What it is not is Letterboxd. If your main pleasure is a film-first community of reviewers and the culture around it, the place where those people write is Letterboxd, and Achriom does not replace that. See the best Letterboxd alternatives and a private take on Letterboxd for how the options compare.
Do not choose between your histories. Bring in the IMDb ratings and the Letterboxd diary, then see what the two add up to. Free to start, no card.
Import both free →Letterboxd vs IMDb vs Achriom
| IMDb | Letterboxd | Achriom | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Looking titles up, with a rating list | A film diary and community | A library across eight kinds of media |
| Your rating | 1 to 10 | Half-stars up to 5 | Half-stars |
| Series | Rated as a series or per episode | Built around films | Season and episode tracking, calendar |
| Privacy | Ratings private by default | Diary dates stay public | Private until you publish |
| Your data out | Ratings, watchlist and lists; not reviews | Zip of CSV files, reviews included | Whole library as CSV |
| Cost | Free, ad-supported | Free; Pro and Patron yearly | Free, no item limit; Pro $9.99 a month or $99 a year |
Which should you use
Achriom, if films are one of several things you keep
If you watch series as well as films, read and listen too, or you hold a Letterboxd diary and an IMDb ratings page and want both, start here. The imports cover the history you already have, the shelf is private until you publish, and you can ask it questions once it is full.
Letterboxd, if the diary and the community are the point
If you want to write about films and have other people read it, use Letterboxd. Keep it as your film journal and let a sync carry the history onward if you also want a wider library.
IMDb, if you want the reference and a quiet ratings list
If you mostly look things up and rate in private, IMDb is already doing that for free. Nothing forces you to log anywhere else, and you can export your ratings whenever you decide to.
You can use two of these at once. For how Letterboxd compares to a TV-side tracker, see Letterboxd vs Trakt, and for a wider field see the best movie tracking apps and tracking movies across streaming services.
Common questions
Is Letterboxd better than IMDb for tracking movies? For a diary, yes. Letterboxd records the date you watched, whether it was a rewatch, a rating and a review. IMDb is stronger as a reference database, and its ratings page is a list of scores.
Can I import my IMDb ratings into Letterboxd? Yes. Export ratings.csv from Your Ratings on IMDb, then upload it on Letterboxd’s import page. Imports cannot be undone and files are limited to 1MB.
Is IMDb free? Yes. IMDb is free for non-commercial use and supported by advertising. IMDbPro is the paid product for industry professionals.
Does Letterboxd cost money? The free account covers the diary, ratings, reviews and lists. Pro adds stats and removes third-party ads, and Patron adds custom posters and backdrops. The App Store lists Pro at $18.99 a year and Patron at $48.99 a year.
Are my IMDb ratings public? Not unless you make them so. IMDb says ratings are private by default, and you can make them public in your list settings.
What if I track more than films? Achriom keeps films, shows, books, albums, anime, podcasts, games and manga in one library, and imports IMDb ratings, an IMDb watchlist and a Letterboxd export or username.