Using the “Heart” Button on Letterboxd

If you’re on Letterboxd, you probably understand how star ratings work. But you might not know how the little orange heart button 🧡 figures into the equation.

Here are the main reasons to use it:

1. It Highlights Your Personal Favorites

For some users, the star rating is about “objective” quality, while the heart is about what you personally love. I might rate Grease 2 three stars, for instance, but I’ll still give it a heart because I genuinely adore it.

Every film you heart also gets collected at letterboxd.com/username/likes/films, so you’ve got an easy-to-access list of favorites you can revisit or share with friends.

2. It Helps Clear Up Ambiguity in Your Ratings

Sometimes a three-star rating — especially without a review attached — feels unclear and leaves others wondering if you actually like the film or not. Throwing a heart on it signals that, yes, you did enjoy it.

3. It Distinguishes Respect From Love

You might admire a film’s craftsmanship and importance in cinema history but not actually connect with it on a personal level. In those cases, you can give it a three-and-a-half or four-star rating and withhold a heart. That small omission communicates a lot.

4. It Can Stand in For Ratings Altogether

Some users don’t like fussing with star ratings; it can be agonizing to figure out whether a film is a three or a four. For them, the heart works as a clean thumbs up/thumbs down system.

5. It Powers the “Your Interests” Sort Tool

Letterboxd’s recommendation engine is fueled by your likes, not your star ratings. If you go to Sort By → Your Interests → Based on Films You Like, the results are reordered using your likes as the data source.

For instance, here’s a list of films presented to me before I awarded films any hearts (the default view just shows what’s most popular on the site):

Now here is the same list after I liked about 50 films and sorted it by Your Interests:

See the difference? It’s customized around my tastes.