Best apps to track movies you've watched: 5 compared (2026)
Updated September 28, 2026 · Lees deze gids in het Nederlands
There are roughly three kinds of movie apps: apps that keep a diary of what you have watched (Letterboxd, and IMDb in a more modest way), apps that track TV series episode by episode and know where you left off (Trakt), and apps that tell you where a title is streaming tonight (JustWatch) — plus one app that puts the films you watched next to your books, albums and concerts (MyCultBox). This guide lines up those five on what they track, whether they do TV, whether they show streaming availability, what they cost and which platforms they run on, and says for each app where it is better than the others.
Three questions that often get mixed up
Anyone searching for "an app to track movies" usually means one of three different things. The first is a diary: which films have I seen, when, what did I think of them, and how many times have I watched that one. The second is progress: which episode of which series am I on, and when does the next one come out. The third is availability: which of my streaming services has this film right now. The confusion comes from all three kinds of app using the same word — "watchlist" — for a list that means something different in each of them.
That difference decides your choice more than any feature does. An app built to find a film on Netflix has little reason to keep ten years of your diary neatly or to let you export it; a diary app does not need to know what Hulu added this week. In practice many people use two: one that tells them what to watch, one that remembers what they watched. So first work out which of the three questions you are asking — the rest of this guide is organized around that distinction, app by app.
Letterboxd
Letterboxd is the diary app in its purest form, and the one with the culture around it. You log a film with a date, a rating out of five stars, a rewatch flag and an optional review; you keep a watchlist and lists of your own; and you follow other members and read what they wrote. Films only — TV series are deliberately not in it, and the app itself points you elsewhere for those.
Free to use on the web, iOS and Android. Pro costs $18.99 per year and Patron $48.99 per year according to the US App Store listing. Pro removes third-party ads, adds all-time and annual stats pages, lets you set your favorite streaming services and filter your watchlist by what is available on them, and sends a notification when a film on your watchlist arrives on one of them. Patron adds custom posters and backdrops, custom app icons and early access to new features. Your data can be exported as a set of CSV files from the settings.
Where Letterboxd is better than MyCultBox: the reviews and the lists. Millions of people have logged the same film and written about it, and logging a film on Letterboxd means joining that conversation straight away. MyCultBox does not have that community and will not have it any time soon.
Trakt
Trakt looks at what you watch rather than waiting for you to tell it. Connect it to a media player or a streaming app and it "scrobbles": every film and every episode you play is logged automatically, with a history, a progress view per series, a calendar of upcoming episodes, and a watchlist. It does films and TV series equally well and is the app most other trackers import from.
Free at its core, on the web, iOS and Android. Since July 2026 a free account can connect only one community app at a time; VIP lifts that limit, removes ads, unlocks automated scrobbling from Plex through a webhook and the full stats pages. The standard VIP rate as of September 2026 is $6 per month, $60 per year or $96 for two years — a steep rise from the older $30-a-year plan, which the company stopped honoring in 2025. Anyone comparing costs should check the current price on the site before deciding.
Where Trakt is better than MyCultBox: TV series and automation. If you watch a lot of series and want to know at a glance that you are on episode 7 of season 3, or if you do not want to log anything by hand, Trakt was built for exactly that. MyCultBox tracks series per season, not per episode, and never logs anything you did not add yourself.
IMDb
IMDb is not a tracker but the reference database, and it happens to have tracking built in. Mark a title as watched, rate it out of ten, check in to say you are watching it now, keep a watchlist and build your own lists; anything you rate, review or check in to is added to your watched list automatically. All of it is free, on the web, iOS and Android, and the ratings, watchlist and lists can be exported as CSV files from the desktop site.
What is not there: a diary in the Letterboxd sense. Ratings are one per title, not one per viewing, so a rewatch overwrites rather than adds, and there is no year-in-review or stats page for your own watching. The site is owned by Amazon and is ad-supported.
Where IMDb is better than MyCultBox: the database itself, and the price. Every cast member, every trivia item, every release date is there, and you pay nothing. If all you want is a tick next to the films you have seen and a watchlist for the ones you have not, IMDb already does that and you may already have the account.
JustWatch
JustWatch answers a different question: where can I watch this tonight? Pick your country and the streaming services you pay for, and it tells you which of them has a given film or series, for free, to rent or to buy. In the United States it lists more than 200 providers. On top of that you get a watchlist that notifies you when a title arrives on one of your services, a "seen" list, and browsing by what is new or popular.
The app is free, on the web, iOS, Android and several TV platforms. JustWatch Pro, at $2.49 per month, removes the ads and adds advanced search filters and the option to hide titles you have already seen from every listing.
Where JustWatch is better than MyCultBox: availability. MyCultBox does not know what is on Netflix in your country and does not try to. If your question is "what can I watch right now", JustWatch is the answer and no diary app is.
MyCultBox
MyCultBox is not a movie app but a culture library with four categories: books, films, music and concerts. The idea is that a film has the same standing as an album or a concert: you log the films you watched, with a date, a rating and your own notes; posters, cast, director and descriptions come from TMDB; and a film then sits in the same library as the novel it was adapted from and the soundtrack you play. TV series are logged one season at a time. You can import your whole Letterboxd export in one go, and at the end of the year the film from July sits in the same "Year in Culture" retrospective as the book you read in March and the concert you went to in May. You can publicly share individual items and lists through a share page.
It is a web app (PWA) in Dutch and English; there is no app in the App Store or Play Store. Free up to 100 items, without a credit card. Pro costs €4.99 per month or €49.99 per year (about $5.50 and $55); there is a fourteen-day trial that unlocks the Pro features, but the limit of 100 items stays in place during that period.
Honest about the downsides: no streaming availability, no automatic logging from a media player, no episode-level tracking, no native app and a small community. If all you track is films, Letterboxd gives you more, for free.
Comparison table
| App | Films watched (diary) | TV series | Where to stream | Books/music/concerts too | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letterboxd | ✓ (core) | — | ✓ (watchlist filter, Pro) | — | free; Pro $18.99/yr, Patron $48.99/yr |
| Trakt | ✓ (automatic) | ✓ (per episode, core) | — | — | free; VIP $6/mo or $60/yr |
| IMDb | ✓ (watched list, one rating per title) | ✓ (as titles) | ✓ (links) | — | free |
| JustWatch | limited ("seen" list) | ✓ (as titles) | ✓ (core) | — | free; Pro $2.49/mo |
| MyCultBox | ✓ (Letterboxd import) | ✓ (per season) | — | ✓ | free up to 100 items; Pro €4.99/mo (about $5.50) |
Which should you choose?
Do you want to know where a film is streaming tonight, on the services you already pay for? JustWatch — free, with an app, and no diary app does this.
Do you want your series tracked episode by episode, logged automatically from whatever you play them on? Trakt, and nothing else in this list comes close.
Do you want a diary of every film you have seen, with a rating per viewing, lists, stats and other film lovers alongside? Letterboxd.
Do you just want a tick next to the films you have seen and a watchlist for the rest, at no cost, in the database you already use? IMDb.
Do you want the films you watched next to your books, albums and concerts in one library and one year in review, and do you accept that there is no streaming guide, no episode tracking and no native app? Then MyCultBox was made for that situation.
See also: The best apps to track books, films, music and concerts, Best apps to track concerts you've attended and A Goodreads alternative that also tracks your films, music and concerts.