Blurbs, Stars, and Letterboxd: Who Gets to Say a Movie Is Good Anymore?

The quote on the poster says it all — or does it? "A triumph." "Dazzling." "The year's best film." Somebody wrote that. Somebody got paid, or at least got a free screening and a byline, to write that. And increasingly, that somebody is one voice in a chorus of millions, all rating the same movie on the same phones.

Film criticism in 2025 is a strange, layered ecosystem, and understanding how it actually works tells you a lot about why you watched what you watched last weekend.

The Blurb Economy Is Still Alive

Start at the top. The pull-quote — that snappy fragment in trailers and TV spots — remains a genuine business. Studios court a small circle of critics whose names still carry marketing weight, and the calculus is more transactional than ever. A rave from a recognizable outlet gets splashed across a billboard in Times Square; a thoughtful 1,500-word essay gets a link in a newsletter.

Critics themselves are candid about the tension. The quote is the product; the review is the craft. Some refuse to supply blurbs on principle. Others know that visibility in the marketing machine is what keeps their outlet — and their salary — alive. It's not corruption so much as coexistence: the studios need the credibility, the critics need the reach.

Rotten Tomatoes Changed the Game, Then Letterboxd Changed It Again

The aggregator era flattened criticism into a percentage. A film isn't "a haunting meditation on grief" — it's 87%. That number moves real money: studios negotiate marketing around it, and the "certified fresh" badge is worth more than any single review ever was.

But the last few years brought a twist nobody in the industry predicted: Letterboxd. What started as a social network for film diaries has become a genuine cultural force. A viral four-star review from a user with 50,000 followers can drive more tickets than a newspaper's weekend spread. Studios now court Letterboxd power users the way they once courted Roger Ebert — early screenings, Q&A access, the works.

The difference is accountability, or the lack of it. A professional critic at a major outlet has editors, ethics policies, and a reputation built over decades. A Letterboxd user has vibes and a follower count. Sometimes vibes are more honest. Sometimes they're just vibes.

So Does the Professional Still Matter?

Here's the case for yes: anyone can have an opinion, but not everyone can contextualize one. The professional critic has seen the 1950s melodrama your favorite director is riffing on. They can tell you why a scene works, not just whether it did. In an algorithm-driven feed that keeps feeding you more of what you already like, the critic is one of the few remaining forces pushing against your tastes rather than flattering them.

Here's the case for no: audiences have voted with their thumbs. Trust in institutional reviewers has slid for years, and the star-rating system increasingly serves as a marketing battleground rather than a guide. TikTok creators with no credentials regularly out-draw legacy outlets in driving opening-weekend tickets, especially for horror and YA titles.

The honest answer is that both things are true. Professional criticism has lost its monopoly but not its purpose. The critics thriving right now aren't the ones fighting for the last word — they're the ones building trust directly with readers, whether through Substack, podcasts, video essays, or old-fashioned bylines at outlets that still pay for reporting.

Your Phone Is a Review Platform. Use It Like One.

The real shift isn't critic versus audience — it's that every viewer now publishes. Your two-star Letterboxd diary entry, your group chat verdict, your Reddit thread at 1 a.m. after a midnight showing: it all aggregates into the collective judgment that determines what survives.

Which means the old question — who decides what's good? — has a stranger answer than either side wants to admit. The studios decide what gets marketed. The critics decide what gets contextualized. The algorithms decide what gets surfaced. And you decide, one rating at a time, what gets remembered.

The professional review isn't dead. It's just no longer the referee. It's one voice at the table — and in 2025, every seat is occupied.