We all know the sorrow and the pity of the endless streaming scroll. The neverending story of trying to venture beyond the front screen of tiles to find something worth the watch. In this How To column, we’ll help you emerge triumphant from the valley of decision, having found a winner in the ratings game, a film you can watch tonight that justifies the paycheck you spend on all those streamers. Let’s spend the night together.

Do not adjust your set, adjust your settings 

On the Letterboxd app, hit your profile and open your settings (the cog wheel top left), scroll down to advanced settings and scroll down to stores & streaming. (On the web, drop down to settings under your profile avatar and select stores & streaming). 

There, first check that you’ve selected a primary and secondary region in the Amazon store so that the appropriate DVD and Blu-ray availability shows up for you, should you wish to indulge in some physical media. to check whether you own it first, for what you seek may already be on your shelf. 

Next, and this is the really good stuff, get stuck into your favorite services. For this feature, you’ll need to a Pro or Patron level subscription. It’s one of the greatest reasons to do so, lest you remain a woman with no filter. 

You’ve now unlocked the ability to search Letterboxd lists by what’s available on specific streaming services, so head straight to FCBarcelona’s list of movies everyone should watch at least once in their lifetime and give it a go. If you’re a BFI Player subscriber, you could be watching Good Morning tonight. Yasujirō Ozu’s 1959 film about brothers who just want a television set and go on a speaking strike in protest, in the hopes their parents will give in, gets five stars from Henshin Hero: “This film starts with a fart joke that turns into a poo joke and I find that to be peak comedy.”

Better still, being a Pro or Patron member unlocks another handy feature. We’ll notify you when a film on your watchlist has arrived on a streaming service you subscribe to—as long as you have told us your favorite services and made sure your email and/or push notifications are set up to receive the good news. Unfortunately, these notifications don’t always arrive at times that are convenient for me to drop everything and put on a movie. Then I forget. Then I’m back to trying to find something good to watch tonight.  

But Pro and Patron have a fast-track to the good stuff. Try this: sort your watchlist by what’s streaming on a service you subscribe to. Next, filter those results by highest rated. 

What that gives me tonight, on Disney Plus in New Zealand, is Richard Donner’s campy 1985 fantasy adventure, Ladyhawke, starring Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer, which I know I added because of Pip Brown, the musician who took her stage name from the title. It has a 3.3 average rating and Letterboxd seem united in how awful the music is, but Liv’s review sells it for me: “idk why you’re all pretending this electronic soundtrack is a bad addition, as if a medieval fantasy movie with ’80s synth isn’t the sexiest combination ever put to film.”

Filtering my watchlist by what’s currently streaming on Hulu in the US reveals a Taylor Hackford dramatic crime thriller called Bound by Honor. I can’t why I put this 190-minute East L.A. epic on my watchlist, but I can see that it has a decent 3.9-out-of-five star average. Looking into friends’ reviews, Antonio’s four-star write-up tells me the Hulu version is a new director’s cut in which “the sound and picture quality is amazing. I can hear background dialogue I haven’t heard before. It also has [a] new and extended scene.” 

Or I could finally tick Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure off my list. I’m an Östlund fan, but this one keeps slipping through the cracks, even though I added it because one of my favorite musicians, Letterboxd member Vagabon, gives it four-and-a-half stars. 

Explore the hit lists 

Right now, if you are a subscriber to US Netflix, you can watch six films from the Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. For a more intense vibe, Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy is also on offer, or if you want to party like it’s 1799, Miloš Forman’s Amadeus is ready and waiting for you to use your monthly subscription to identify the astrological signs of musical greats by the way they walk into a room. 

There’s Bert Williams’ The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds from 1965. Ben helpfully explains the “B-movie mash-up of Psycho and [The] Night of the Hunter” was saved from certain ruin by Mubi and Nicolas Winding Refn. G_Movies describes it as a swampy, sweaty, semi-incoherent Southern Gothic story involving a spinster and her strange daughter. Also restored by Winding Refn is trash king Andy Milligan’s House of Seven Belles, an unfinished work print which Mick, awarding five stars, writes: “Absolutely terrible, but absolutely Milligan. Stupendously brilliant!”

Chano Urueta’s The Witch’s Mirror (El Espejo de la Bruja), from 1960, is a film about which Justin “went in expecting a generic supernatural jam and got Mexican Gothic Eyes Without a Face— one of the most palpably atmospheric movies I’ve seen and only 76 minutes!” Those who fancy some throuple comedy mixed with the sensual supernatural should press play on Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos), with Brazilian national icon Sônia Braga playing the title character, whose life gets complicated when her hedonistic dead husband shows up in the bed she now shares with her more sensible new beau. 

Find things like the things you like 

If you’re mood-driven, you can simply follow the vibes to find something atmospheric and unconventional. Perhaps, tonight, you feel brave enough to branch out from your comfort rewatches, but not so far that you find yourself in an unfamiliar forest. Think of a film you love, one that you would happily rewatch for the squillionth time, and let us show you something kind of like it. 

Did Challengers leave cinemas before you could watch Tashi Duncan’s white boys pound that ball for the eighth time? Put your racket away and survey the the Fifty Shades trilogy and Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky. 

We’re a long way away from streaming services adding an option to filter films by “child forms unlikely friendship with grumpy old man”, which, as Sean would hope, would produce Andrew Ahn’s lovely 2019 film Driveways. We also can’t help you with “a child filter… but for old people to make it so they can’t watch random garbage.” (Sorry, Sage). But with thousands of bespoke Letterboxd lists and a reset of your settings, you’ll always be sorted for something good to watch tonight. And tomorrow? Let’s do it again.