6 Best Movie Ranking Apps in 2026

Try the Ranking Method Before You Download Anything

This is the mechanic the number one pick is built on, running here on the page. You get two films and you tap the one you prefer. Nothing is scored and nothing is dragged, and after 6 to 8 taps the list below is yours, labelled S through D. That tap count is measured, not estimated: every one of the 120 possible orders of five films settles in 6, 7 or 8 comparisons against our own ranking code.

Make your tier list right here

Five films, head-to-head. Tap the one you prefer and we will build your order, then label it S through D.

Which do you prefer?

Pulp Fiction

1994

VS

The Dark Knight

2008

Tap your favorite

How We Chose These Apps

We evaluated each app based on: ranking methodology (star ratings vs. comparison ranking vs. tier lists), social features (can you follow friends and share lists?), content library size, platform availability, and price. We focused on apps that let you rank movies and TV shows specifically, not general-purpose tier list makers or spreadsheet tools.

How the facts were checked. Every platform and price claim in the table comes from the app's own listing, not from another comparison article, and each one carries the date it was read. Shortlist, Serializd, Trakt, IMDb and Flickchart were re-checked on August 4, 2026 against the App Store, Google Play and the vendors' own sites; Letterboxd's tiers were read off its pricing page on July 17, 2026. Two figures are deliberately absent rather than guessed: Trakt's VIP price and Flickchart's VIP price both sit behind pages that returned no number to us, so this page describes those pricing models instead of naming an amount. That is also how a dead app was caught: TV Time's entry had never been independently verified.

Which App Is Best for You?

• Want to rank movies by comparing them, on a phone?: Shortlist is the only app of the six that does head-to-head ranking in an app, and it covers TV as well as film
• Want to compare films in a browser instead?: Flickchart runs the same method on the web, films only
• Want to write reviews and join a film community?: Letterboxd has the largest, most active community
• Only care about TV shows?: Serializd is purpose-built for series tracking
• Power user who wants automation?: Trakt integrates with media servers for automatic logging
• Just want the database and a watchlist?: IMDb, which you probably already have
• Came here looking for TV Time?: it closed on July 15, 2026, and the section below covers what to do about it

What Happened to TV Time

TV Time shut down on July 15, 2026. Its parent company, Whip Media, closed the service rather than sell it, pulled the app from the App Store and Google Play, and deleted personal watch data. tvtime.com now serves a farewell page that thanks "the millions of users who tracked, discovered, and shared their love of entertainment with us". The app had over 26.4 million lifetime installs and was still taking roughly 29,000 new downloads a month when the announcement landed, according to TechCrunch on July 2, 2026.

Whip Media's own explanation, quoted in that report: "it was no longer sustainable to continue operating the service as a free app, and there was not enough demand for a paid app." The company has moved to enterprise AI work.

Two practical consequences. First, if you exported your history before the shutdown you have a file; if you did not, it is gone, because the GDPR export tool closed with the service. Second, the successor everyone was pointed at is not there yet: TV Time's original founder announced Bingers, promised on both stores by the end of July 2026, and a search of the US App Store on August 4, 2026 still returned no such app. If you are replacing TV Time today, the live options in the table above are Serializd for TV, Trakt for automatic logging, and Shortlist if what you actually wanted was an order rather than a log.

The Case for Comparison Ranking

Read the middle two columns of the table above together and the split is obvious. Four of the six apps ask you to judge one title on its own, against a scale you have to invent, and give you back a log. Two ask you to judge a title against another title, and give you back an order. Community size, price and platform all matter less than which of those two questions you want to spend your evenings answering.

Shortlist and Flickchart are the two, and the difference between them is where and what. Flickchart has run this method in a browser since 2006, on films, building one chart per person that it compares against everyone else's. Shortlist runs it in an app on both phones, on films and TV together, and the thing you leave with is a list you can share as a link or a card. If you want to rank the history of cinema at a desk, Flickchart is the better tool and we would rather say so than pretend it does not exist. If you want to rank the eleven Spider-Man films on the sofa and send the result to a group chat, that is what we built.

Most movie apps ask you to rate on a scale (1-5 stars, 1-10, thumbs up/down). The problem is that these ratings don't create meaningful rankings. If you give 10 movies a 4/5, which one is actually your favorite?

Comparison-based ranking (the approach Shortlist uses) solves this by making you choose between two movies at a time. It's faster than writing reviews, more accurate than star ratings, and way more fun. The algorithm uses your choices to build a complete ranked list: your #1 movie genuinely earned that spot by beating everything else you compared it against.

If you care about having a definitive personal ranking, not just a log of what you've watched, comparison ranking is the way to go. The ranker above is capped at five films by design, because it exists to show the method. The app is the same method with no cap, across a database of over 500,000 movies and TV shows, and with the list surviving the session. If you want to see the method applied to a whole franchise first, our Marvel movies tier list and Christopher Nolan tier list both let you rank their top five against ours, and the movie tier list guide covers the method itself in more depth.

Movie Ranking App FAQ

What is the best free movie ranking app?

Shortlist is free with no ads and builds the ordered list for you, by asking you to pick between two titles at a time. Flickchart is the other free option that ranks by comparison, though it runs in a browser rather than as an app. Letterboxd, Serializd and IMDb are free to start as well, but each of them asks you to score a title on its own rather than against another title, so the ordering is still your job.

Is TV Time still available?

No. TV Time shut down on July 15, 2026. Whip Media closed the service, pulled the app from the App Store and Google Play, and deleted personal watch data, saying it was no longer sustainable to run as a free app and that there was not enough demand for a paid one. The app had over 26.4 million lifetime installs. Its founder announced a successor called Bingers for both stores by the end of July 2026, but a US App Store search on August 4, 2026 returned no such app.

Is there a movie ranking app for Android?

Yes. Shortlist has been on Google Play since July 2026, so head-to-head ranking is no longer iOS only. Letterboxd, Serializd, IMDb and Trakt all ship Android apps too, and they are strong at logging, reviewing and tracking, but none of them rank by head-to-head comparison. Flickchart does use that method, but it is a website with no Android app, so it is the browser or nothing there.

What is the difference between a movie ranking app and a movie tracking app?

A movie ranking app produces an ordered list: a number one, a number two, and so on to the bottom. A movie tracking app records what you watched and when, and stops there. Most popular movie apps are trackers with a rating field attached, which is why four of the six apps on this page cannot hand you a finished ranking.

Is Shortlist the only app that ranks movies head to head?

On a phone, of the six compared here, yes. On the web there is Flickchart, which has used head-to-head matchups since 2006 and is the closest thing to a direct equivalent. The differences are what it covers and what you leave with: Flickchart is films only and keeps your chart on the site, while Shortlist ranks films and TV together in an app and gives you a list you can share as a link.

Can these apps rank TV shows as well as movies?

Shortlist, Trakt and IMDb cover both movies and TV. Serializd is TV only. Letterboxd and Flickchart are film only, which is the single most common reason people go looking for an alternative. The ranking method itself does not change between the two: you are still choosing between two titles.

Shortlist or Letterboxd, which one should I use?

Use Letterboxd if you want to write reviews and read them, because its community is the largest in film. Use Shortlist if you want a definitive personal ranking, because head-to-head comparison is the only method here that separates the films you would otherwise rate identically. They are not mutually exclusive: plenty of people log in one and rank in the other.