For the first time in three years, this year’s Oscars bore no trace of the pandemic: Faces were fully visible, celebrities packed the champagne carpet, and the Best Picture lineup included multiple box office hits.
The only sign anything had changed was the presence of Letterboxd, the social network for film lovers that quintupled in size during COVID. In January, the New Zealand-based company provided the virtual headquarters of the awards show. The partnership fortified what its devoted fans already knew: Letterboxd has become the go-to destination for serious film fans and something of an obsession for many filmmakers.
In the early days of the pandemic, when the world went into lockdown, many turned to movie-watching for comfort.