Sony, A24 and The New York Times are all eyeing Letterboxd — at a price of over 300 million dollars
Movie-lovers’ app Letterboxd could soon change hands, as heavyweight film and media players eye a buyout.
If you spend any time at all scrolling through Letterboxd, you already know it's basically the world's digital film club — and now, according to a new report, some major players are lining up for a piece. The rumour mill is in full swing: Sony Pictures Entertainment, A24, and even The New York Times are all sniffing around for an acquisition. And the price? Eyewatering — over $300 million. Not bad for a site that began as an indie passion project. Whether that valuation actually makes sense… well, that's up for debate.
Letterboxd now claims more than 30 million members around the world.
Who Actually Owns It Right Now?
Here's where it gets interesting. Letterboxd isn't fully independent anymore — a few years back, the Canadian investment group Tiny nipped in and bought a 60% stake. The co-founders, Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, hung on to the other 40%. This year, the idea that Letterboxd could be on the market really heated up, with big media companies like Paramount Skydance and Netflix reportedly poking around. At stake is whether letting a major studio in through the front door opens the site up to blatant conflicts of interest. Do you stick around if Sony starts shoving their own films to the top of your recommendations? Some Letterboxd loyalists are worried; honestly, it's a fair shout.
The Letterboxd Story So Far
Letterboxd started as a private little beta back in 2011, but didn't really break out until the pandemic pushed bored film buffs online in droves. Just before lockdown, it had about 1.8 million users. By the following year, that number had doubled, and as of July 2026, it's ballooned to over 30 million members. Quite the glow-up for what was once a proper niche site.
Most people use it for free, but there are also paid tiers — Pro and Patron — for those who want fancy stats or to kick the ads off the site. Last year, Letterboxd tried something else: the Letterboxd Video Store. No subscriptions or streaming faff — just pay to rent a film direct from a rotating catalogue, much of it tailored using all those millions of members’ watchlists and reviews. Not just mainstream stuff, either: rare festival picks and near-impossible-to-find gems have been popping up there. As the official launch put it:
The announcement summed it up: "It’s like walking into your local video store and seeing the ‘employee picks’ shelf—and those employees are countless Letterboxd members across the globe."
One way or another, a sale looks pretty much inevitable. The only real question is which corporate behemoth ends up running your favourite app for arguing about films in the comments.