The streaming landscape is drowning in sameness: Netflix’s algorithm slop, Disney+’s IP recycling plant, Hulu’s prestige dramas that all look the same. Even the niche players like Shudder, Criterion and MUBI have settled into comfortable, predictable grooves. If your soul craves actual cinematic oddities, films that feel like they were smuggled out of a banned festival or discovered in a forgotten studio vault, then congratulations: Letterboxd is about to become your new drug dealer.
On December 12, 2025, the beloved social network for film obsessives launches Letterboxd Video Store, a rental-only platform that promises to be the weirdest, most cinephile-brained streaming service ever built.
This isn’t another subscription tier. There are no monthly fees, no bundles, no “watch everything forever” illusion.” It’s a digital video store in the purest Blockbuster-after-midnight sense: you pay per title (usually $3–$7), you get 72 hours to start watching and 48 hours to finish once you hit play, and many films disappear from the catalog forever after their rental window closes.
The initial lineup is pure catnip for people who have “weird cinema” tattooed on their soul:
- The complete works of deceased Filipino exploitation legend Cirio H. Santiago in 2K restorations
- A 4K scan of the infamous 1978 Australian tax-shelter horror Patrick with the original mono mix nobody has heard since the VHS era
- The uncut 169-minute director’s version of Walerian Borowczyk’s *The Beast* (yes, the one with the bear scene)
- A collection of 16 mm prints from the American Genre Film Archive, including the only known surviving copy of 1975’s The Devil’s Cleavage
- Newly subtitled Georgian absurdist comedies from the 1980s that have literally never been available outside Tbilisi archives
Some titles will be “pop-up rentals” available for exactly one week. Miss the window? Tough luck; it’s gone until Letterboxd negotiates another screening right, which might be never.
The idea was born from Letterboxd’s “HQ Watchlist” project, where staff members have spent years tracking down holy-grail titles that exist only in private collections or crumbling film-lab vaults. When co-founder Matthew Buchanan realized they were sitting on a treasure trove of rights nobody else wanted, the obvious move was to weaponize it.
Early numbers are already insane: during a closed beta in October 2025, the 1982 Canadian slasher Visiting Hours sold more rentals in 48 hours than it earned in its entire original theatrical run. A restored print of Lucio Fulci’s *The Beyond* with the original Italian audio track crashed the test servers twice.
There’s no algorithm pushing you toward the next thing. Instead, the homepage is curated like a late-night repertory theater marquee: “Now Playing,” “Coming Soon,” “Last Chance,” and “One Night Only.” Discovery happens the old-fashioned way: through your friends’ activity feeds, diary entries, and four-and-a-half-star reviews that read like religious experiences.
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Letterboxd isn’t trying to compete with Netflix on volume. They’re competing with the ghost of Kim’s Video and the memory of walking out of a 2 a.m. screening in 2007 wondering what the hell you just witnessed. In a media landscape that feels increasingly sanitized and focus-grouped to death, this feels almost radical: a streaming service that treats cinema like contraband again.
So yes, we need more weird streaming services. Not another Tubi clone or “free with ads” dumpster. We need places that feel dangerous, obsessive, and slightly illegal. Letterboxd Video Store might just be the first one that actually delivers.
See you in the digital back alley on December 12. Bring cash. The good stuff never stays in stock long.
