Letterboxd was down – here’s everything we know about the movie app’s outage

A post-Halloween horror for movie fans

Seeing lots of red on a Downdetector graph is never a good sign, but that’s unfortunately what we have right now for Letterboxd.

At the time of writing, there are around 625 reports of issues with both the app and website. That’s been steadily climbing for the past two hours, since 7.20am ET / 12.20pm GMT.

Right now, we’re also getting a ‘web server is down’ message on the website, so this is indeed a global outage. For the sake of everyone looking for their collections and ranked lists, let’s hope that gets fixed soon…

Letterboxd is ‘on it’

Letterboxd fans were worried for a while when the app hadn’t acknowledged the issues many are experiencing, but fortunately it’s now given us an update.

In a post on X, it’s stated that it’s “aware of a current outage on the site and app”. Promisingly, it says both will be “back soon”, but we don’t know exactly how long that will be.

Fortunately, there’s a potential clue over on Cloudflare, which says it’s currently experiencing issues affecting “multiple customers”. It looks like Letterboxd could be one of them, but a fix for that “has been identified and a fix is being implemented”.

Hang in there, Letterboxd fans – your watchlists should be back soon…

A Cloudflare issue?

The screen is above is what many are seeing when trying to access Letterboxd, with the “web server is down” warning suggesting it may be related to problems with the cloud network provider Cloudflare.

Sure enough, Cloudflare itself has posted a notice about some issues with some accidental “rate limiting” been applied to some customers. But there’s potential good news! The latest notice at 9.26am ET / 2.26 BST says “a fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results”.

If it is indeed Cloudflare-related, that could bode well for the Letterboxd outage…

This is hitting some movie fans hard

Sadly, all Letterboxd fans are seeing when they try to peruse their prized watchlists is the screen above – the app’s logo in constant rotation.

For some, waiting for the promised fix has sent them into a coping mode, with a few sending their movie favorites list (saved by screenshot, of course) to the Letterboxd social media team on X (below) for feedback.

Others are worried that Letterboxd is now so much their second brain that they can’t actually remember the movies on their watchlist. Fortunately, the Letterboxd graph over on Downdetector suggests the problems have now at least peaked….

Still no further updates

Hmm, this Letterboxd outage seems to be dragging on longer than anticipated – the website and app are still down, and the Downdetector figures (above) have remained high at around 625 reports in the US.

There’s also been no further update from Letterboxd itself, whose social media team is currently also dealing with the withdrawal symptoms of its many fans on X. While we wait, here are the top 20 most popular films of 1945 on Letterboxd to help distract us…

An update from Jake LaMotta

To be fair to Letterboxd, this is one of the better ‘service down’ placeholder images we’ve seen – a still from Raging Bull has now replaced the slightly less exciting Cloudflare error page on its desktop site.

This page confirms that Letterboxd “is offline due to a server outage”, which is what we suspected but wasn’t confirmed in the service’s earlier social media posts.

Hopefully, this isn’t a hint at how long this outage will drag on for – that movie’s runtime is over two hours…

Not great timing for the Letterboxd sale

This server outage is dragging on a bit, and that’s reflected in Letterboxd’s graph on Downdetector above – the reports have now peaked at over 720 frustrated movie fans in the US.

It’s also not a great time for Letterboxd’s annual sale – giving you 20% off a Pro or Patron subscription – which started on November 4 and continues until November 7. Perhaps that will now be extended if this outage continues.

Why would you pay for Pro subscription? As our Letterboxd review concludes, a combination of access to supremely nerdy stats (like your most-watched actor of the year) and being able to quickly see which streaming service has your favorite movie are good reasons.

But only when the app and website are actually working…

Letterboxd fans have fled to Reddit

This Letterboxd outage has now lasted five hours and counting – so fans have done the only thing they can and sought movie refuge on Reddit.

The main thread on the app’s subreddit asks ‘what movie were you trying to log?’ before the outage struck, with the answers ranging from Lesbian Vampire Killers to Parasite and Dead Poets Society.

Others were simply looking to find their watchlist in the app for inspiration. Let’s hope the server problems are fixed before the evening arrives, otherwise Letterboxd fans will have to, gasp, look at alternatives like IMDB for inspiration…

It’s back!

Promising news – the Letterboxd website is back and the Downdetector graph has plummeted, suggesting that the server issues may have been fixed.

We’ll keep an eye on the situation, but you should be good to go and check on your watchlists. Finally!

Downdetector reports are way down

Downdetector reports are way down currently sitting at well under 100. Furthermore, the Letterbox site is fully loading again, so it seems whatever was causing the outage to the popular movie app it seems resolved as of now.