The digital war between critics and audiences isn’t new, but it has seemingly reached a disconcerting inflection point this year. Populist hits based on beloved IPs have garnered fervent reactions from fans who reject criticism and accuse critics of bias, pretentiousness, or both. This prolonged stretch of backlash feels especially precarious amid a film industry shifting away from traditional criticism in favor of influencers.
These existential threats somehow haven’t quelled the appetite for criticism itself. It’s still in high demand, just not from places you would expect. Audiences are increasingly relying on Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, and Letterboxd to decide what is worth watching. The demand is so high that complaints about short and silly Letterboxd entries consistently go viral.
Despite this demand, the purported gap between critics and audiences is wide, highlighted by three films released in close succession: “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” “Michael,” and “Mortal Kombat II.” It signals a legitimacy crisis for critics, with audiences no longer trusting them to give honest, uncompromised assessments of films and questioning whether they matter anymore.
The Film Critic is Dead
Audience dissatisfaction with critics began this year with “Super Mario Galaxy.” Critics maligned the sequel to “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” due to its incoherent narrative. Audiences argued that it was a kids’ movie; it didn’t need narrative coherence, a common refrain from the “let people enjoy things” songbook. Conversely, “Michael” proved to be more morally complex. While Jafaar Jackson was lauded for his portrayal of Michael Jackson, critics were unimpressed by the film’s lack of insight into him and his personal controversies. (“Michael” originally depicted Jackson’s 1993 child abuse allegations but was edited and reshot after Jackson’s estate discovered that they were legally barred from doing so.) Jackson’s fans regarded the negative reviews as another example of the media’s mistreatment of him during his lifetime. In their eyes, critics shouldn’t be trusted to properly assess the film, a charge also made by Jackson’s own nephew, Taj, on Twitter.
“Mortal Kombat II” received better reviews than either film but still fell into the anti-critic discourse. In a now-deleted tweet, producer Todd Garner suggested that critics unfamiliar with the video game were ill-equipped to review the film. He later apologized, acknowledging that “once a movie is out in the world, no one is above criticism.” However, several people online deemed the apology unnecessary, arguing that critics were pretentious, had an agenda, and “shouldn’t be arbiters for the masses.” At the time of this writing, “Mortal Kombat II” is technically “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes with a 64%, and this irony reflects a serious disconnect between the critic and the reader. Fans and general audiences will reflexively reject negative criticisms of a film they love or think they’ll love, even within a positive review, if they deem the review isn’t positive enough.
A Post-Critic World
This crisis of faith in traditional criticism is exacerbated by the diminishing avenues for such work. In 2026 alone, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, CBS News, NPR, and Vox Media have undergone mass layoffs. Well-known critics lost their positions, including Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair, and Zachary Pincus-Roth of the Post. Some critics, including Lawson, have successfully transitioned to Substack, which doesn’t present a permanent solution if more and more critics are filling a marketplace whose audience must pick and choose the few writers they can financially support. The lack of salaried positions in arts criticism also creates an oversupply of freelancers seeking limited assignments with inconsistent earnings.
Meanwhile, the film industry is actively mapping out a post-critic landscape. Studios jumped on Rotten Tomatoes’ creation of the Popcornmeter, a metric of verified audience reactions, allowing them to sidestep critical praise altogether. Press screening slots have increasingly gone to influencers who receive incentives, with the expectation that their coverage will be mostly positive. Those screenings have a healthy social embargo, while critics see their writing windows shrink. The gap between social reviews and written reviews is so stark that some warn against relying on the former.
While it looks like everyone is leaving the film critic behind, that doesn’t mean they’re leaving film criticism behind. In fact, criticism is still in hot demand via social media.
Long Live Film Criticism?
Founded in 2011, Letterboxd lets users log movies and see what other users have logged, potentially inspiring them to watch them too. Users can share their opinions through diary entries, garnering likes or comments from others. Similar to traditional criticism, the platform has facilitated conversations about films on a much larger scale, with fewer guardrails. This vibrant community of film lovers has since become a phenomenon. Letterboxd has expanded into digital publishing and has become a sought-after presence on red carpets, where correspondents ask actors what their “four favorites” are, with the clips racking up millions of views on social media. They even commission critics as part of their Journal.
Letterboxd users have come to view diary entries as opportunities for long-form criticism, and have reacted negatively when those opportunities aren’t taken. One popular type of entry is the “one-liner,” where a user makes a short, pithy joke about a film. While these entries gain many likes (and entertain filmmakers who read them), they have also garnered backlash. Film Twitter is regularly inundated with Letterboxd entry screenshots and subsequent dunking on those entries. Recently, a Twitter user outright claimed that Letterboxd “kinda ruined film criticism” because of its penchant for stupid one-liners.
If that tweet were taken at face value, it would imply that Letterboxd is a platform for film criticism and that everyone is capable of writing film criticism. While anyone can use it as they like (and film critics do), the primary purpose of Letterboxd’s logging component isn’t film criticism. Letterboxd itself also doesn’t claim its feed to be film criticism; rather, it is a “global social network for grass-roots film discussion and discovery.” The second assumption taps into the aforementioned crisis. Criticism has often been informed by knowledge of film techniques and history, which help determine whether a film has achieved its intended aims and its place in the larger canon. However, not everyone has access to that basis of knowledge, nor do they have the writing skills to convey their perspectives. If Letterboxd allows anyone and everyone to be a film critic, what does good criticism, or a good critic, look like?
Requiem for the Film Critic
I’ve been grappling with that question myself. I did not have a formal path into film criticism. I studied writing, but I wouldn’t dare suggest that I have the encyclopedic knowledge of critics like Pauline Kael, Justin Chang, Angelica Jade Bastien, or Robert Daniels, among others. I do have a strong understanding of my tastes, the ability to communicate them effectively, and, most importantly, the desire to learn more and engage others for the sake of learning. Those skills, alongside some social media savvy, have played a significant role in my success (and ultimately led me to write this piece).
Audiences do want film criticism. If they didn’t, or didn’t care, then they wouldn’t complain about Letterboxd one-liners or poor Tomatometer scores. However, they don’t want criticism from traditional film critics, who they believe lord their knowledge over them. It’s a rejection of perceived ego and authority that is currently reshaping large swathes of society, from science to education. As in those cases, that rejection threatens to diminish our understanding of a work of art’s relationship to another work of art and how they reflect who we are. We can’t afford to lose that.
Film criticism needs a recalibration if it wants to remain a vital part of the zeitgeist.
For critics, we must encourage and uphold standards of knowledge and writing while inviting fresh, modern voices into the fold, as RogerEbert.com’s Black Writers Week is doing. We should be inviting audiences along the journey of criticism, regaining and retaining their trust. It may mean meeting them where they are and detailing what we look for in a film, facilitating dialogue instead of perceived pontification. (Within reason, as dialogue is not an excuse for harassment, and the block button is still free.) We should make it so audiences don’t need to harass Letterboxd one-liners into longer entries. The distinction of criticism isn’t between types of media, but between content and substance, consumption and experience, impassiveness and curiosity.
Hence then, the article about film criticism s crisis in the letterboxd era was published today ( ) and is available on Roger Ebert ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Film Criticism’s Crisis in the Letterboxd Era )
Also on site :
- Die Phygital Contenders Astana 2026 gehen mit neuen Champions zu Ende - Qualifikationsrunden für die Games of the Future 2026 bestätigt
- Persistent annonce un partenariat avec les San Francisco Unicorns en tant que partenaire officiel de l'initiative Re(AI)magining™
- Football upstages politics as Iranians rally behind their team at World Cup