How I Watch My Movies
Letterboxd is great at showing me what I watch. I also wanted to know how I watch it. I went back through my viewing history and sorted every movie by where it came from: a theater, a streaming service, a collection, or somewhere else entirely.
The result is 1,365 viewing records across five main categories and 21 individual sources.
The big picture
Where the movies came from
- Paid streaming622 45.6%
- Pirated264 19.3%
- In theaters262 19.2%
- Free streaming156 11.4%
- Other61 4.5%
Paid streaming accounts for almost half of the total. The closest race, though, is between pirated movies and trips to the theater: only two movies separate them.
45.6% of all records
Paid streaming
11.4% of all records
Free streaming
4.5% of all records
Other sources
Nearly a tie
Pirated vs. in theaters
Just two movies separate my two largest non-subscription sources.
The individual services tell their own story. HBO Max leads the paid platforms, Criterion reaches an even 100, and movies watched on planes make up the biggest source of free streaming. My own collection supplied another 53 movies—and seven entries came from reading the screenplay rather than watching the finished film.
However I found them, all of these routes led to the same place: another movie logged.