A data study
IMDb vs Letterboxd
I matched 4,469 popular films across both sites and compared their average ratings to find out how the two crowds of voters differ. Every number below can be read in Letterboxd stars or on IMDb’s 10-point scale: pick one with the switch.
Chart 1
Letterboxd is the tougher crowd, until a film is actually good. Or it’s The Room
Each dot is a film. The higher it sits, the more Letterboxd users liked it compared with IMDb. Left to right is how well the film is rated overall. The dotted line is the trend: the better a film does overall, the more Letterboxd likes it (numbers below the chart). Hover or tap a film to see its ratings; click or tap again to open it.
* Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and Snow White were review-bombed on IMDb.
Letterboxd stretches its scale. It gives more to films it likes and less to films it doesn’t, while IMDb keeps everything closer to the middle. That is why the gap grows with a film’s overall rating, and why the guilty pleasures at the top of the chart stand out: they go against the rule. The line describes the bulk of the films; at the very bottom and the very top of the scale there are too few films to say.
The trend in numbers▾
- Slope of the trend
- +0.29: for every extra star of average rating, the gap moves 0.29 stars in Letterboxd’s favour
- 95% confidence interval
- 0.28–0.31. Re-drawing the set of films 1,000 times keeps the slope in this narrow range, so the trend isn’t a fluke of which films were picked
- Correlation
- 0.58 (0.62 by rank), a strong link for ratings data. The rank version only looks at the order of films, so a few extreme ones can’t inflate it
- Where the two sites agree
- At an average of 3.71★. Above it Letterboxd rates films higher than IMDb, below it lower
- Spread of ratings
- Letterboxd 0.58★, IMDb 0.44★: how far a typical film sits from the site’s average (standard deviation). Letterboxd’s ratings are 33% more spread out
- Films averaging 4★ or more
- Letterboxd rated 312 (81%) of 386 higher
- Films averaging below 2.75★
- Letterboxd rated 50 (10%) of 521 higher
Chart 2
Letterboxd loves guilty pleasures and 2000s comfort comedies. IMDb loves superheroes and Hollywood blockbusters
The 12 largest gaps in each direction, picked by the numbers alone and sorted by each site’s own rating. Above the dots: the Letterboxd and IMDb ratings in stars; on the right, the gap.
- Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 19923.654.28+0.63
- Uptown Girls 20033.153.96+0.81
- White Chicks 20042.953.58+0.63
- Jennifer's Body 20092.803.45+0.65
- Showgirls 19952.603.41+0.81
- Scooby-Doo 20022.703.37+0.67
- High School Musical 3: Senior Year 20082.553.23+0.68
- Freddy Got Fingered 20012.352.94+0.59
- Justin Bieber: Never Say Never* 20110.852.84+1.99
- The Cat in the Hat 20032.102.69+0.59
- The Room 20031.802.61+0.81
- Snow White* 20251.101.83+0.73
- Crash 20043.852.96−0.89
- Ghostbusters 20163.402.32−1.08
- Thor: The Dark World 20133.352.25−1.10
- Purple Hearts 20223.352.39−0.96
- Warcraft 20163.352.51−0.84
- Terminator Genisys 20153.152.21−0.94
- Bright 20173.152.30−0.85
- Justice League 20173.001.96−1.04
- The Kissing Booth 20182.951.66−1.29
- Green Lantern 20112.751.58−1.17
- After 20192.651.63−1.02
- Morbius 20222.551.58−0.97
* Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and Snow White were review-bombed on IMDb.
Chart 3
Letterboxd rates only 3 of 19 genres higher than IMDb: music films, musicals and war films
Average gap by IMDb genre, Letterboxd minus IMDb; a film counts in each of its genres. On the right: how many of the genre’s films Letterboxd rated higher.
Chart 4
The older the film, the more Letterboxd likes it
Average gap by release decade, Letterboxd minus IMDb. Up to the 1980s Letterboxd rates films higher; from the 2000s on, IMDb does. Under each decade: how many films Letterboxd rated higher.
Chart 5
Runtime barely matters.
Genre does
Average gap by runtime, Letterboxd minus IMDb. Past 90 minutes, action, adventure, sci-fi and fantasy films trail on Letterboxd at every length; dramas sit near zero at every length.
Chart 6
Letterboxd rated all 12 Wes Anderson films higher than IMDb did
Directors with at least 8 films in the set (105 of them); the 8 that Letterboxd favours most and the 8 that IMDb does. Under each name, their two most-voted films.
Chart 7
Letterboxd favours James Stewart and Robert Pattinson; IMDb favours Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson
Letterboxd rated all 10 James Stewart films higher than IMDb did. Lead roles only: the first three names in the credits, animation left out. Actors with at least 10 lead roles in the set (252 of them); the 8 that Letterboxd favours most and the 8 that IMDb does. Under each name, their two most-voted films.
IMDb ratings come from the IMDb Non-Commercial Datasets. Letterboxd averages come from two public datasets of Letterboxd film pages. A film is matched only when the title, year and director agree (or the runtime, where the director is missing); 82 films that could not be matched safely were left out.
Only films with 50,000+ IMDb votes are included. Letterboxd doesn’t publish vote counts in these datasets, so the cut uses IMDb’s.
11 films are left out because their rating on one of the sites was driven by a campaign rather than by viewers: mass one-star reviews (review bombing) or mass tens. Their gap would measure the campaign, not taste.
Show the 11 films ▾
Reis (2017), Sadak 2 (2020), Enes Batur: Imagination or Reality? (2018), Gunday (2014), Laxmii (2020), Adipurush (2023), Radhe (2021), Race 3 (2018), Karthikeya 2 (2022), Dil Bechara (2020), The Kashmir Files (2022).
For the same reason 46 more Indian, Turkish and Serbian films are left out. Their IMDb ratings come mostly from a large home audience that barely uses Letterboxd and often rates a film ten out of ten en masse to push it up IMDb’s charts. A sample like that isn’t statistically reliable, so the gap would show who voted rather than how the film is liked.
Show the 46 films ▾
The Kerala Story (2023), Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022), Shershaah (2021), Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), Animal (2023), K.G.F: Chapter 1 (2018), K.G.F: Chapter 2 (2022), Sita Ramam (2022), Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga (2023), Airlift (2016), Dasvi (2022), Baby (2015), OMG: Oh My God! (2012), Jai Bhim (2021), Soorarai Pottru (2020), Kantara (2022), Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024), A Wednesday (2008), Baahubali: The Beginning (2015), Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), Sooryavanshi (2021), Om Shanti Om (2007), Drishyam 2 (2022), Chhichhore (2019), Fan (2016), M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016), Coolie No. 1 (2020), Sanju (2018), Kalki 2898 AD (2024), Special 26 (2013), Tumbbad (2018), Master (2021), Fighter (2024), Andaz Apna Apna (1994), Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013), Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003), Do Patti (2024), Shaitaan (2024), Conquest 1453 (2012), The Mountain II (2016), Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2019), The Bandit (1996), My Father and My Son (2005), G.O.R.A. (2004), Winter Sleep (2014), Dara of Jasenovac (2020).
Data: IMDb Non-Commercial Datasets (Aug 2026); Letterboxd averages from public datasets (pkchwy, gsimonx37). 4,469 films with 50,000+ IMDb votes; 57 films with campaign-driven or home-audience ratings excluded. IMDb ratings halved to fit five stars.