Parasite becomes Letterboxd’s first film to hit 1 million 5-star ratings

polygon.com:

Parasite, Bong Joon-ho’s electrifying 2019 thriller, picked up the Oscar for Best Picture in 2020, but more importantly, was named one of Polygon’s top films of the year. And now it’s earned yet another honor. On Tuesday, Letterboxd, the social networking service dedicated to watchlists, ratings, and micro-movie-blogging, announced that Parasite was the first film in the service’s 11-year history to reach 1 million five-star reviews.

The milestone feels notable: With more than 4.4 million monthly visitors as of 2022, Letterboxd has become an influential cultural pillar — the producers of the 2023 Oscars even teamed up with the service to raise awareness of the telecast (and siphon the site’s cred with the younger generation). A movie like Parasite garnering that much attention on the platform, driving so many users to praise the film in their own ways, represents the crafting of a new canon that generations to come may look to for cinematic guidance. It’s a grand tradition.

There’s always been A Big List for budding cinephiles to hold up as a Bible. In the pre-internet age, the British Film Institute’s Sight & Sound top 100 films of all time list played that role for many — and with updates occuring every 10 years, it remains a source of inspiration for film-watchers. In 2022, a new cabal of film critics cast votes to name Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles the greatest film of all time, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story, and Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love rounding out a top five. Currently, none of those films crack Letterboxd’s current top-rated list.

In the 1990s, the American Film Institute’s “100 Years… 100 Movies” may