BackRow FAQ

A place to watch, rate, and argue about movies with other people. Small friend groups run themed festivals. Large communities run open clubs. Same app, different modes.

Yes. No ads, no paywall.

Two crowds. Small groups (5–30) who want structure, themes, and a little healthy competition. And large communities — theaters, creators, subreddits — who just want a shared pool to rate and talk about.

Sign up. Then either create your own club or browse public ones in Discover.

Yeah — spin up a private club with just yourself and use it as a watch log, or rate movies in any public club you're in.

Anything in TMDB. If it's a feature film, it's in there.

A group built around watching movies. Every club has members, roles, discussions, and a history of festivals.

No cap. Standard festivals feel best at 5–30 — that's when nominations stay manageable. Endless clubs are built to scale into the thousands.

Three privacy levels: Public Open (anyone joins instantly), Public Moderated (anyone can request, admins approve), and Private (invite link only, hidden from Discover).

Yes — a Producer can hand the club off in settings. The new owner becomes Producer, you drop to Director.

Transfer ownership or delete the club first. A club can't exist without a Producer.

Producers can delete in settings. It's permanent — ratings and festival history go with it.

A round with a theme. Members nominate movies, everyone watches and rates, and the top picks earn points. Repeat for the next round.

Theme Selection → Nomination → Watch & Rate → Results. Your club's director advances them manually, or sets timed deadlines for auto-advance.

No. Watch on your own time, rate when you're done. You just need to finish before the round closes.

A theme is the rule for nominations — "80s horror", "Best Picture winners", "movies set in one room". Clubs pick themes by democracy (vote), random draw, or autocracy (director decides).

Directors set how many picks each member gets per festival (1–10). Search TMDB, write a short pitch, submit. There's also a festival-wide cap so the watch list stays reasonable.

Wherever you already do — streaming, theater, physical. BackRow handles picking, tracking, rating, and discussion.

Nominations without the nominator's name attached. Everyone rates without knowing who picked what, which opens up the guessing game at the reveal.

In Standard, yes — your ratings decide the points. Clubs set watch windows that give everyone a fair shot.

A shared pool of movies any member can add to, any time. Members rate what they actually watch. No phases, no scoring, no deadlines.

Standard = tight group, themed rounds, points. Endless = big group, open pool, no competition. Pick based on club size and vibe.

Any member can add a movie whenever. It sits in the pool, people watch and rate on their own time. New ratings keep flowing in indefinitely.

Optional. Some clubs run a standing theme like "horror only", most leave it open.

In Endless, yes. In Standard, no — it would skew the points.

A number from 0.0 to 10.0. That's it. No stars, no popcorn, no emoji.

Yes — pick 0.1, 0.5, or 1.0 steps in your rating settings.

A weighted template. Instead of one overall score, you rate each category (e.g. Story 30% / Performances 25% / Direction 25% / Rewatch 20%) and BackRow computes the weighted result. Clubs can set their rubric to off, suggested, or required.

Mostly yes. Endless and non-themed festivals share one global rating per movie. Themed Standard festivals are scoped — the same movie can score differently in different themed contexts.

In Standard, nominated films earn points based on how the group rates them. Points stack across the season. Whoever has the most at the end wins. Endless clubs don't compete.

Use Endless mode. Built for exactly that — no phases, no scoring, no deadlines.

After a festival ends, nominations are ranked by average rating. Higher rank = more points. Directors can tune the exact payout curve.

A bundle of festivals with a start and end date the club picks. Points accumulate across the season toward an overall winner. Most clubs run calendar years, but it's up to you.

In clubs with blind nominations, you try to guess who nominated what before the reveal. Correct guesses earn bragging rights and count toward badges.

Unlockable achievements for participating — movies watched, festivals won or participated in, correct nomination guesses, and one-off moments (first movie, first festival, first win, etc).

Five categories: Festivals Won, Movies Watched, Festivals Participated, Nominators Guessed, and one-off Achievements. Each tiered category has multiple thresholds, from your first few up to well into the hundreds.

Where you pick which badges to feature and pin your favorite movies. Every user has one; clubs have one too. It's the spot for flexing taste, not for scoring.

Producers own the club and control everything. Directors help run festivals and manage members. Critics are the everyone-else — nominate, watch, rate, discuss.

Share the club's invite link. Public Open clubs let anyone join instantly. Public Moderated clubs put joiners in a pending queue for admins to approve. Private clubs only accept the token-based invite link you send out.

Producers and Directors see pending requests in the club's Members section and approve or deny there.

Producers can promote any Critic to Director (or demote back) in the club's Members section.

Yeah. Every club has threaded discussions with spoiler flags, tagging, and upvotes. Discuss one movie or start a club-wide thread.

When you post a thread or comment, flip the spoiler flag. Readers see a blurred block until they click to reveal.

When you create a thread you can tag it with a movie, a person (director, actor), or leave it as custom. Filters use those tags so people can jump to threads about a specific film or filmmaker.

To surface good takes without everyone having to reply "same". Upvote counts sit next to each comment.

You can delete your own. Directors and Producers can delete anyone's in their own club.

Not a full profile page — regular users can't visit other users' profiles. When someone taps your avatar anywhere on the site they see your ID card: your display name, avatar, bio, favorite movies/club, festival wins, and any badges you've featured.

A small pop-up card that opens when anyone taps your avatar. It shows a curated snapshot of you — name, bio, favorites, wins, and the badges you chose to feature. You pick what goes on it in your Display Case.

Upload a photo, or pick from BackRow's generated icons. You can also tune the icon color and border color.

A filterable stream of what's happening in the clubs you're in — ratings posted, festivals started, phase changes, announcements, new members. Filter by club, category, member, or date.

Yes — paste the URLs and your ID card displays clickable links to Letterboxd, IMDb, Trakt, TMDB, YouTube, X, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, and TikTok. Nothing is actually connected; no data syncs. Each link has its own visibility toggle.

BackRow sends notifications for club activity — new festivals, phase changes, announcements, events, badge unlocks, and invites. Configure which types you get in Settings → Notifications.

Yes. Settings → Notifications has a toggle for each email-eligible type. You can kill them all or silence specific types.

Yes — web push on desktop and mobile browsers that support it. Opt in from Settings → Notifications.

Yes. Open the club's Settings → Notifications for a master toggle and fine-grained toggles (festival updates, announcements, events, polls, seasons, etc). Each club has its own set.

Yes — navs, buttons, and dialogs are reachable by Tab + Enter with visible focus rings.

BackRow respects your browser/OS text size and zoom.

Yes. Turn on reduced motion in your OS and the fancier transitions calm down.

Use the Feedback page. Accessibility reports jump to the top of the queue.

Members of the club you rated in. Private clubs are invisible to outsiders. Your ID card only shows what you choose to feature.

Yes. Blocked users can't see your activity or interact with you.

Producers and Directors can remove members from their own club. The removed user can still use the rest of BackRow.

Every user ID card has a report option. Reports go to BackRow staff for review.

Yes — 16+. BackRow isn't intended for anyone under 16.

Yes, from Settings → Account. Transfer or delete any clubs you own first. Deletion is permanent.

Email + password, plus OAuth with Google, Apple, Facebook, X, and Discord.

Yes, in Settings → Account. You'll confirm the new address via a link before the switch takes effect.