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How I Letterboxd: Dave Vis

Jack Moulton

The keeper of the Official Letterboxd Top 250 on the day that Parasite “dethroned” The Godfather, the curious case of A Dog’s Will, and several Dutch filmmakers worthy of discovery.

“Did I mention I’m a sucker for special effects?” —⁠Dave Vis

If you are one of the thousands of Letterboxd completists attempting to log every film on our Dave Vis to thank for keeping that list up to date. Although he didn’t originate the list, he did adopt ownership of it, and the many, many Letterboxd follows as a result. 

You wear your tenure proudly on your profile (“Member since 12/11/2011”). How did you come across Letterboxd way back then?
Dave Vis: I ed in the beta days when I got an invitation in November 2011 from a good friend who knew I was into film. Up to this date, I have no idea how she got a beta invitation for a movie geek website from New Zealand, but I’m happy she did!

Here’s IMDb’s Top 250, and Letterboxd was a cool way to make other lists and see how I was progressing. When I started using the site more often, I also got to follow more s and enjoyed reading their takes on films. I don’t follow a lot of people, just a few that I know in real life and some other early adopters of the site whose opinions of film I got to value.

Talk us through your profile favorites. What spoke to you about these four films?
The pragmatic reason for these four is that they were the last films I watched that got full marks from me. So the four favorites on my profile keep changing as I come across more films that I think deserve five stars. About the current ones: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I’m a huge fan of the Studio Ghibli films and this one, [as well as] being the studio’s unofficial first, is probably my favorite. You can just tell that they worked years to get Hayao Miyazaki’s life’s work to the big screen.

Let’s get down to brass tacks: for the past six and a half years, you’ve been running the Official Letterboxd Top 250, one of our most popular and important lists. What prompted you to start the list? Did you think you’d be keeping it going this long?
At least part of the credit goes to someone else on Letterboxd, because even my list is a cloned one! A great deal of thanks goes to a member called The Caker Baker, who sadly isn’t part of the community anymore, for having the idea of doing this list even before me. On the exact day Letterboxd introduced a sorting option by average rating on the Films page, he created the first top 250 list.

I decided to clone that list [Dave has archived it here], because I wanted to filter out the documentaries, shorts and miniseries. As long as I am interested in film and won’t have completed the list, I do see myself keeping it. I feel the overall quality of the list is outstanding and for my taste and film-watching experience it’s probably the best combination of blockbuster hits, timeless Hollywood classics, non-English spoken gems, and some pretty obscure entries.

What’s involved in keeping the top 250 up-to-date? What’s the hardest thing about it? Have you ever found the responsibility a burden—your ankle chained to Letterboxd each week? (We’re grateful!)
These days it isn’t much of a bother at all, actually. I’m still so grateful for you guys introducing the ability to sort lists by average rating when editing them a while back. That was a huge relief, I can tell you! And apart from the odd comment when I’m a bit late on my weekly update or when I’m on a well-deserved holiday (yes, even the ankle chain comes off once in a while), I don’t feel like it’s a burden at all.

Let’s unpack it a bit. What are the best films you’ve discovered because of the list? Shoutout to my choices: It’s Such a Beautiful Day, the animation by Don Hertzfeldt about a stick figure you get to care deeply about in a time span of just over an hour. Very different films that, without Letterboxd, the chances are next to zero that I would have checked either of them out. ing a Kickstarter to finance my own Blu-ray edition of the latter was special too.

Béla Tarr’s 1994 masterpiece Sátántangó.
Béla Tarr’s 1994 masterpiece Sátántangó.

So, what’s your percentage-seen of the top 250? Which films rank highest on your list of shame? Are there any that you don’t think you’ll ever watch?
At this moment I’m at 175 of 250, so 70 percent. I rarely consider films as being on a ‘list of shame’, but as I scroll through the unseen ones, there are a few that stand out. La Flor, I’m looking at you). Probably also the reason I never popped Sátántangó in.

Has the way Letterboxd’s hip has changed and grown affected what’s in the top 250 in any interesting or unexpected ways?
That’s not a very easy question to answer, because different people will be surprised about different things. However, you do see a trend—surprising or not—of traditional western cinema classics giving way to more non-English language films doing well on the list. Asian and Brazilian films have skyrocketed to great heights, often at the expense of western classics. Films that are traditionally doing great at IMDb, such as Casablanca aren’t even in the top 100 anymore.

We now have a top ten with three Japanese films, one Taiwanese, one Russian, one Brazilian and a South Korean film at the very top. The only English spoken films left there are the 12 Angry Men. I do tend to suspect that the growing community causes more diversity while also fuelling the more traditional moviegoers to broaden their interests. I personally think that’s a great development.

Parasite

Parasite 2019

Directed by Bong Joon Ho

The Godfather

The Godfather 1972

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

How did you feel when Roma all peaked in the top twenty and only Call Me By Your Name is still in the list, at number 232 for now.

In these days of ready availability it is extremely hard to create something that has such a large following. That’s why this takeover by Parasite is so extraordinary. Seeing it rise day-by-day—even after the masses took it in—was something I didn’t think possible. I, for one, am very slow to watch new films, so when I got to watch it, it was already in first position. Safe to say my expectation level was through the roof, which probably wasn’t really fair. While I thought it was an excellent film, I personally wouldn’t rank it among my favorites. However, it’s not only the highest-ranked film on Letterboxd, but also the most popular one [a measure of the amount of activity for a film, regardless of rating]! So don’t expect to see it sink lower any time soon.

A Dog's Will

A Dog's Will 2000

Directed by Guel Arraes

The top 250 is home to the largest comment section on the platform. Congrats! What’s monitoring that mammoth thread like?
Thank you! Although that’s hardly an achievement on my part. I have to be honest, I don’t read everything in the comments section anymore. I try to keep up as much as possible, in order to respond to people who have an actual question. However, when I sign in in the morning and see dozens of new notifications, most probably about A Dog’s Will being in the top ten or about recency bias or about objective quality versus subjective quality, I let it me by every so often.

What is your take on A Dog’s Will’s rise to Letterboxd stardom? (At the time of writing, the 2000 Brazilian film from director Guel Arraes holds the number eight spot in the top 250.)
Ah, there it is: the elephant in the room… My honest answer is a politically correct one, but also the truth: I haven’t seen it yet, so it’s impossible to judgment. However, from the comments section on the top 250, it seems clear that there are two camps: the Brazilians, who adore the film and continually claim the importance it in their cultural heritage. And there’s the other group, mostly non-Brazilians of course, who think it’s a fine film at best, but in their opinion not deserving of a top-ten spot. I’m quite impartial: if the statistics say that it is one of the best-rated films of the Letterboxd community, why would it not deserve to be there? I am curious though if more non-Brazilians will see it and if so, if that will have a significant effect on its rating. We can only wait and see.

Are there any films you’re surprised to have stayed in the list for so long? Conversely, what are some films that we’ll be surprised to hear have never made the list?
If I have to name one film that I’m surprised about, it’s one I haven’t seen yet: The Usual Suspects.

Dave has not seen Paddington 2.
Dave has not seen Paddington 2.

I’ve actually been working hard on completing the list during quarantine and I finished it yesterday. Has anyone else gotten to 100 percent yet or am I the first?
I have no idea, to be honest! There will probably be others who have, but I wouldn’t be able to name one. I suspect Jakk might have reached 100 percent at some point.

My completist streak will need a new avenue. What are your next most essential top lists?
If you ever feel up for a challenge, I recommend Top10er’s Guillermo del Toro’s recommendations are especially worth your while.

The top 250 list is the tip of the iceberg for the lists on your . What is it you enjoy about keeping ranked lists?
It’s a compulsion. I just really enjoy making lists, ranking films by certain directors, franchises or studios. Not really useful, mostly just fun to do! And I’m not the only one, it seems. Although, of course, lists like the Letterboxd Top 250 will always be an inspiration for finding well-rated films I haven’t seen yet.

Which films got you hooked on cinema?
I do have a few titles that were important in of my film-watching development. Films like Pulp Fiction were popular and that’s probably around the time that IMDb’s list got my attention. That top 250 gets a lot of criticism, but the overall quality is fine and for me it was the perfect step in broadening my film-watching.

So, for a long time I watched a lot of films on that list and went to the cinema for your usual blockbusters, probably until Letterboxd arrived. That’s when I started watching the artsier stuff and foreign cinema of which, of course, all classics eluded me up till then. It was films like Werckmeister Harmonies that sparked that particular period. Now I just watch everything that comes my way that seems interesting or entertaining, from the new Marvel instalment to classic Godard.

Tell us about Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. If that title alone doesn’t give away how bad it was, watching the first five minutes will.

In your opinion, what’s the most underrated film according to Letterboxd average ratings?
One that comes to mind, which was in the top 250 once, but has dropped substantially in the last few years, is list where I collect all the films that were once in Letterboxd’s top 250 and it’s at the very bottom there. For me, seeing that film in a theater is what cinema is all about—finding new ways to immerse your audience into a movie experience they have never had before. Oh, did I mention I’m a sucker for special effects?

Dave is a sucker for special effects, including those in Alfonso Cuarón‘s Gravity (2013).
Dave is a sucker for special effects, including those in Alfonso Cuarón‘s Gravity (2013).

As a Dutchman, please educate us: what are the greatest Oorlogswinter.

What comfort movies are you watching whilst in quarantine? Are you working on any viewing projects?
I actually am in a viewing project at the moment. One of mine and my wife’s guilty pleasures is superhero movies! So currently we are, again, on a Guardians of the Galaxy after a while still tends to fill me with excitement. In a way, there’s still a bit of the twelve-year-old in me that was so thrilled to see T2 or Jurassic Park.

How do you plan on inducting your kids into the cinephile life?
Well, most important is that they just enjoy going to the movies like I did when I was young. Let’s hope we will be able to do so again in the near future. They are still young, but their access to screen time with Netflix, Disney+ and (mind-numbingly stupid clips on) YouTube is so different than the days when we were young. So having them watch some Ghibli classics is already quite a step. And then I think the rest should come naturally. If not, so be it.

Which, for you, are the most useful features on Letterboxd?
Did you know they have a list with the 250 best rated narrative feature films? That’s basically all you need to know… All kidding aside, just reading reviews once in a while by fellow whose opinions I value is still the heart of the service to me. That and the statistics pages. And browsing other lists.

Does anyone in your real life know that your list is kind of a Letterboxd big deal?
Not really! Mostly because I don’t exactly feel that way about it. I mean: my wife knows, but other than that it’s pretty much still my pet project. To me, it’s still just a film enthusiast’s list that so happened to become the site’s official top 250. I do have to say that it is humbling to see the numbers of new followers every day—especially when Letterboxd mentions the list on her social s—and to realize that apparently almost 23,000 people around the globe have taken a liking to it.

Please name three other you recommend we follow.
Fellow countryman and longtime member MCU list, it’s my go-to place when I want to read up on anything Marvel.

Several of the films mentioned in this interview—Art House Online list.

Jack Moulton

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