The cinema-obsessed social movie app made in Melbourne for people who actually go to the pictures. Scan every ticket, rate the 8 crafts that matter, stream trailers on MovieMates TV, and settle the group chat debate with Squad Polls before the popcorn goes cold. Real cinema, shared with mates.
Did someone pick a film yet or are we just staring at Netflix menus until bedtime?
— every Aussie group chat, since 2018
Every rating you log sharpens your taste map. Skip the Hollywood marketing hype and unearth hidden Aussie and international gems you'd otherwise scroll right past on a rainy Sunday arvo.
Democracy for movie night. Bought the tickets for the crew? Fan them out in one tap — every mate gets their own digital stub with venue, row, seat, and barcode, plus a rating prompt the second the credits roll. Settle what to watch with Squad Polls and keep the debrief buzzing in the comments.
Every cinema night, perfectly preserved. From sticky-floored date nights at the local indie to an IMAX blockbuster, keep every memory, seat number, and ticket stub safely filed in your digital keepsake album. Flip back six months and remember who came along.
Instant access to what's buzzing, what's currently lighting up Australian cinema screens (from Coyote vs. Acme to Resident Evil), and one-tap genre filters — all tuned to your taste with zero algorithmic landfill or corporate sponsored spam.
Eight categories per film. Quarter-star precision. Full credit to hair, prosthetics, costumes, and the soundtrack — plus a Cringe Factor for the ones that genuinely deserve it. Score films the way they deserve to be scored. Insights decodes your taste by decade, genre and director. Wrapped recaps the year. Letterboxd import drops your history straight in.
One tap, one score. See what your mates thought without committing to a 3-page film-school thesis. Quick-search anything you've seen recently, flip through your Watched list, vote yes or no on the next movie night. Easy as.
Big release weekend? You'll know before anyone else. Coming to Screens shows what's hitting Australian cinemas day-by-day. Snap your ticket on the way into the foyer and build a verified "I was there" receipts ledger of every midnight premiere.
Eight-category ratings for the films nobody else has seen yet. Drop a detailed take in the comments under each rating — your crew's the first to hear about the South Korean thriller, the local MIFF indie, or the documentary nobody's caught onto yet. Find your taste matches by handle, not by an algorithm.
Whether it’s your monthly breakdown or your complete year in cinema, MovieMates generates animated story cards of your real movie life. Discover your hours in theatres, your monthly average score, and your true cinema persona — from The Generous Dramatist to hard-boiled critic. Hit Play as story or customize your card and share it straight to your socials.
Tired of searching YouTube for trailers only to be hit with 30-second unskippable ads? MovieMates TV turns your phone into an immersive cinema feed. Kick back and watch the freshest movie trailers back-to-back, or flip your phone sideways into Auto-Landscape Cinema Mode with frosted glass controls.
Toggle between New Releases (freshest debuts) and Following (trailers tuned to your watchlist).
Turn your phone landscape for an instant edge-to-edge player with sleek floating glass controls.
Theatrical countdowns, box-office tracking, budget analysis, and community buzz indexes.
Filter by Cinemas, Streaming, Sci-Fi, Horror, or Comedy and save must-see films in a single tap.
Eight bits, one app. All built around one idea — movies are better with mates.
Most apps flatten a film into one number. We don't. Score the crafts that usually go unsung — hair & make-up, costume, prosthetics, set design, cinematography and soundtrack — plus a LOL factor for the ones that land the laughs. A film can fall short in places and still earn full marks where it's deserved. moviemates.social is for the movie, the people who make it, and the people who watch it — something most apps forget.
Rated a film? Turn it into a share card that actually looks good. Pick Classic, a poster Montage, or a Custom layout; show your score as a percentage or in stars; drag your favourite stills into order. One tap sends it straight to your story — the crew sees your verdict, not a screenshot of a text box.
Search a film, a mate, or a screen — all from one bar at the top of Home. Films pull from TMDB and your library at the same time, mates surface by @handle, and any app destination (Squad, Wrapped, Cinemas, Insights, whatever) is one tap away. Type two words and find what you mean.
Tap the floating button on any screen and your go-to features fan out under your thumb — Coming to Screens, What to Watch, Group decisions, Cinema deals, New to streaming. The stuff you actually use, always one tap away — no hunting through menus.
Letterboxd has strangers you've never met. moviemates.social has the mates you actually go to the cinema with. Connect by @handle, see what your squad is watching, share stubs, and launch Group Decisions to settle what to see without the endless debate. Keep everyone synced with Shared Lists and watch your crew's film taste evolve together.
Saw a film with your mates last weekend and they still haven't logged a rating? Give them a friendly nudge. They'll get a little card at the top of their Squad tab with a "Review now" button that drops them straight into the rating screen — no chasing in the group chat, no "remind me later" guilt trip. The films you saw together actually get reviewed.
You've picked the film — now put the session to a vote. Find showtimes by chatting in plain English ("Saturday arvo at Hoyts, nothing too late"), set polling day on a calendar, narrow by AM/PM or cinema chain, and add the front-runners to the ballot. In a hurry? Quick poll calls a snap election on tonight's soonest sessions. Settle the 45-minute group chat standoff before the popcorn goes cold — the winning session saves straight to tickets in one tap.
Open any film and see real cinema sessions near you — pulled live so indie, festival and mainstream all show up. Want to narrow it? Just say so: "tonight after 8, IMAX only" or "Saturday arvo close by". An ASAP card surfaces the soonest showing — cinema, screen format, price — and one tap drops you on the cinema's own booking page.
A vibe, a film you loved, how long you've got — the AI reads between the lines. Type prompt queries like "like Sicario but less bleak, under 2h, on Netflix", tap quick vibe chips (Date night, Mind-bender, Edge of seat), or pick straight from the 12 unwatched films waiting in your shared watchlist with @val.
Tackling the Marvel Cinematic Universe or all 9 Star Wars films? Co-curate shared lists with your crew like The Avengers with @val. MovieMates tracks everyone's watch progress, keeps the whole saga in story order, and syncs your place so no mate skips ahead without you.
Pick a film back up and MovieMates shows you your elapsed time plus a spoiler-free recap of everything that's happened up to that point (and nothing past it). No frantic rewinding to remember who's who, no "wait… what's going on again?". Just pick up and keep watching.
Bring 500 films across in 60 seconds — ratings, diary dates, watchlists, the lot. Smart matching handles foreign titles, same-name films, and weird year mismatches without breaking a sweat. Then enjoy everything Letterboxd is missing: MovieMates TV, Squad Polls, ticket scanning, Squad Activity, and Australian cinema tracking. By week two, you won't be looking back.
Describe a plot, name an actor or director, or just type a half-remembered storyline. MovieMates finds the exact film instantly without corporate sponsored clutter. Plus, natural conversational search jumps you directly to mates' profiles and app pages like Insights, Wrapped, and Cinemas.
Every ticket you've scanned, every membership card, every cinema you've sat in — one place, yours forever. Whether it's an indie screening at the Sun Theatre, Cheap Tuesday with the crew, or a midnight premiere, your memories stay locked down. Log any ticket four easy ways: snap the paper stub from the candy bar, paste your confirmation email, drag the PDF e-ticket, or share straight from your mates.
Taking your crew or family to the pictures shouldn't require a second mortgage. MovieMates tracks live discount days across every major Australian cinema chain — so you and your mates can catch the latest release, grab a choc-top, and still have change for dinner afterwards.
Deals are pulled from a live web search — always confirm the price and day on the cinema's own site before you go.
Full breakdown of every AU cinema deal →We’ve all been there: it’s Friday night, pizza’s getting cold, and everyone’s shouting at the TV while you juggle six different streaming apps trying to work out if that film is on Stan, Netflix, Binge, Disney+, or Prime Video. MovieMates kills the tab-juggling chaos. Pop open any film, tap Where to Watch, and see real Australian streaming, rent, and buy options in one crisp view.
One search in the app beats five frantic Google tabs every single time.
Every franchise has that one mate who accidentally presses play on the wrong prequel. MovieMates organizes multi-film sagas into proper chronological or release order and saves them directly into shared lists with your crew. From The Avengers with @val to all nine Star Wars films, everyone stays on the same page.
No more "wait, which one is this again?" forty minutes into a marathon.
Movie night deadlock is a universal struggle. One mate wants a gritty 90s thriller, your partner wants a comfort comedy, and everyone ends up doom-scrolling trailers until someone falls asleep on the couch. MovieMates cross-references both your rating profiles to uncover the hidden overlap: films you'll both rate highly that neither of you has seen yet.
No more "I don't mind — you pick."
Decode your true cinema habits with deep personal stats. Track milestones toward Cinephile status, keep your 6-week rating streak burning, visualize your full score spread across all 118 films, and celebrate your all-time peaks and valleys — from 100% masterpieces (Avatar: Fire and Ash) to the 27% stinkers (Spa Weekend) you survived with your mates.
Letterboxd is great for writing 2,000-word film-school dissertations. IMDb is packed with trivia and intrusive ads. MovieMates is the modern social cinema app built for actually heading to the movies with your mates, snagging Cheap Tuesday bargains, and deciding what to see in two taps.
| Movie Mates Cinema social app · AU | Letterboxd Film diary | IMDb Film database | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Going to the cinema | |||
| AU cinema deals (Cheap Tuesday, member perks) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Live session times & smart cinema finder | ✓ | ✗ | US-centric |
| Ticket scanning & digital keepsake stubs | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Membership & loyalty pass wallet | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Planning with mates | |||
| MovieMates TV: 24/7 curated trailer channels | ✓ | ✗ | Clips / ads |
| Squad polls: live “should we watch this?” voting | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Shared taste matcher (“What You'd Both Love”) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Where to Watch: AU streaming & 1-tap links | ✓ | Third-party | US-centric |
| Rating & tracking | |||
| 8-point holistic rating system (Acting, Story, Visuals...) | ✓ | Stars only | Stars only |
| Personal film diary & cinema explorer map | ✓ | ✓ | Lists only |
| Social feed & mate activity (no sponsored junk) | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Made for Australia | |||
| Proudly built & maintained in Melbourne | ✓ 🇦🇺 | ✗ | ✗ |
| Full AU cinema coverage (Hoyts, Event, Village, Palace, Indies) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Movie Mates doesn’t try to replace Letterboxd or IMDb — they’re great for what they do. This is the app you open when you’re actually heading out to the movies.
Too right. While moviemates.social is in public beta, every single feature is 100% free — rating, mates feed, ticket scanning, MovieMates TV, Squad Polls, Wrapped, Insights, the lot. Down the track we might add a few optional perks for hardcore cinema buffs, but the core day-to-day app will always be free.
Think of it as 24/7 curated cinema television right in your pocket. Switch between the Now Showing channel for films currently on Australian big screens and Upcoming Releases for teasers and buzz. Lean back in full-screen Cinema Mode with zero adverts, and whenever a trailer grabs you, tap + to stash it straight onto your watchlist or fire up a Squad Poll with your mates.
Whenever you and your mates or family can't agree on what to see, spin up a Squad Poll in five seconds. Share the link into your WhatsApp, iMessage, or group chat — your mates don't even need an account to vote. Watch the live leaderboard update as votes roll in and see who's backing what.
Nope. It runs in any modern browser, and you can hit “Install” to pop it onto your home screen so it acts just like a native app with zero download delays. Prefer a native APK on Android? Grab our official Android beta release over at moviemates.social/download.
Snap a photo of a paper stub from the candy bar, paste your booking email from Hoyts, Event, Village, Dendy or Palace, or drag a PDF into the app. We extract the film title, cinema location, screen, seats, and live barcode, turning it into a gorgeous keepsake card you can scan at the door or save forever in your wallet.
Too easy. Drop in your Letterboxd CSV export and we'll import and match up to 500 films in seconds. It seamlessly handles tricky foreign titles, re-releases, and quirky year tags so you never have to start from scratch.
In Australia it's almost always Tuesday. MovieMates tracks live cheap ticket days across all major Aussie chains: Hoyts Cheap Tuesday (from $13.50), Event Cinemas Half Price Tuesday (Cinebuzz), Village Vrewards Super Tuesday, Dendy Budget Tuesday (from $10), and Palace Cinemas Royal Discount (Mon & Tue from $12). Check live in the app before booking!
Yep! Build or view any franchise watchlist and MovieMates lays it out in story order with an unmistakable Watch First flag on film one, followed by numbered steps. Whether it's The Hobbit before LOTR, the MCU timeline, or Star Wars, nobody in the house presses play on the wrong movie.
Your ratings and reviews belong to you. We don't sell your personal data or plaster you with behavioral ads. Only two core cloud services run the app — Firebase for secure auth/database and TMDb for movie artwork and synopsis data. Delete your account any time and your data is wiped completely.
Made with love in Melbourne by Kim Routley. A solo Aussie indie project designed to make going to the pictures fun, social, and dead simple again.
moviemates.social is a solo passion project, built one feature at a time from my apartment in Melbourne. No venture capital, no growth hacks, no sponsored clutter — just me, my laptop, Mushu the dog, and a burning desire to fix everything annoying about movie apps.
It started as a fun way to settle group chat arguments about what movie to see on Cheap Tuesday. Then it evolved to keep every cinema stub before it got destroyed in the wash. Now it's the ultimate cinema app for you, your mates, your family, and anyone who loves going to the movies without the pretension.
If you've got a feature request, an Aussie cinema we should add, or just want to tell me your hot take on a film you saw last night — drop me a line. Every email gets read by an actual person (me) and good suggestions usually ship within a week.
Whether it's date night, family movie night, or your whole squad — MovieMates makes going to the cinema fun, effortless, and shared. Free while in beta. One tap and you're in.
moviematessocial.web.app · free while in beta · works on any device
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