About FilmShelves

FilmShelves was created by Matthew Simpson, a collector, Rotten Tomatoes-accredited film critic, and software engineer who wanted a better way to track his own physical media. The site is built around a shared catalogue of releases, so every collector benefits from the structured records other collectors add. FilmShelves is designed to be a collector-first tool: it tracks the discs you actually own, not just the films you have watched, and your collection data belongs to you.

The problem with existing tools

Letterboxd is a lovely place to log what you have watched, but it tracks films, not the discs on your shelf — it has no concept of a 4K UHD steelbook versus a barebones DVD. General-purpose collection managers can store a barcode, but they treat a release as a flat record and keep your data inside a proprietary app. Neither was built for edition-level physical media: matching the exact pressing you own, tracking what is on each disc, and sharing a release database other collectors can trust.

A catalogue, built by collectors

FilmShelves is built around a shared, community-maintained release catalogue rather than a pile of private spreadsheets. When one collector adds a release — its discs, formats, region codes, packaging, and identifiers — every collector benefits from that structured record. A shared catalogue gets more accurate over time, surfaces editions you did not know existed, and means you are cataloguing against a real database instead of re-typing the same box set everyone else already owns.

Your data is yours

Your collection data belongs to you. FilmShelves is designed around structured, portable records — not lock-in. Full collection export is on the roadmap so you can take your library with you at any time. We would rather earn your collection by being the best place to keep it than by making it hard to leave.