Tell me what you’ve seen and I’ll tell you something about yourself.

Why it asks for a verdict, not a star

Loved it, liked it, didn’t like it. Three answers, no half-stars to weigh up. The fourth, “haven’t seen it”, is a real answer rather than a way out: it moves nothing, counts toward nothing, and simply stops that card coming back. A star deck asks a stranger to be precise about a film they last saw in 2011, and precision they do not have is not signal, it is noise with a decimal point on it.

The films are not chosen at random either. Some are near-universal and some are the kind you mostly reach by going looking, and where you split across that spread says more than any single rating would. 12 answers is where a read becomes possible; 20 is where it stops guessing on the close calls. Both numbers are on the screen while you answer, because a floor you cannot see is a target.

Nothing here needs an account. Your answers live in this browser until you decide to keep them, and if you do make an account they come with you and become real entries rather than being thrown away. A “haven’t seen it” never becomes a watch, because inventing a rating you never gave would sit underneath every average on your taste page afterwards.

Then it tells you what it noticed

Every recommendation engine asks you to take it on trust, because you cannot tell whether a suggested film was any good until after you have watched it. Your first portrait is different: it says one specific thing about the films you rated, like three films by the same director that all landed, or a director whose films split you, and you can check it in a second. It says how many films it was built from, at the top.

It shows the films it is talking about, with your answer under each, and “Why these films?” lists the evidence line by line. It describes the films you chose to rate, not your taste in general, because twelve films you picked out yourself cannot support that, and it makes no prediction from them. The deeper read comes from your diary as it grows.

One film, not a grid

The problem was never that films are hard to find. It is that you scrolled a wall of artwork for forty minutes and went to bed. So when Kinolog picks for you, it leads with a single film, the reason it was chosen and where you can actually watch it.

If you already keep a film diary somewhere

You do not have to start from nothing. A full Letterboxd export is accepted whole: ratings to the half-star, the date you actually watched each film, your review text, your own tags, rewatches, likes and your watchlist. Your first Letterboxd history comes in full. Repeat bulk imports are limited on Free; Plus removes the repeat-import ceiling. What lands becomes taste evidence as the import completes. If you are weighing the options, the honest guide to Letterboxd alternatives says plainly where other apps are the better choice.