# Recommendation Engines? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 20, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931 "2019-02-20T23:21:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/1 "2019-02-20T23:21:34Z")
Not sure if I can name them, but the ones I know are awful, so it doesn’t matter. Basically, if you were to type in a movie, this engine would give you other (accurate) recommendations. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/2 "2019-02-21T00:06:16Z")
When you go to a movie entry IMDB has “More Like This” ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/3 "2019-02-21T00:59:37Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > When you go to a movie entry IMDB has “More Like This” That was one I was referring to… They only seem to recommend other movies with the same actor, or director. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/4 "2019-02-21T19:18:41Z")
Criticker is good, you just have to rate a few or import your IMDB list and can do a lot of comparisons with others. I just found it, so I don’t know much, but I’ll hope to expand with it. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/5 "2019-02-21T20:07:15Z")
The Reddit subreddit “Movie Suggestions” should work well too: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieSuggestions/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieSuggestions/) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/6 "2019-02-21T20:28:34Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > > [@PastTense](#): > > > > When you go to a movie entry IMDB has “More Like This” > > That was one I was referring to… They only seem to recommend other movies with the same actor, or director. Sometimes that works, though. In some cases, what I liked about a movie is the sensibility brought to it by a particular director, and I’ve enjoyed other movies by the same director that I subsequently saw. Other times, what appeals is the genre (SF, rom-com, horror, etc). So recommending movies is necessarily imprecise. That said, Netflix had a [contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize) for this sort of thing about ten years ago so if you’re a member, you might try rating some movies there and see what it recommends. (In those days, Netflix was more about sending DVDs to people’s houses, but now that it’s mostly a streaming service, it tracks all sorts of data about what people watch and re-watch to decide what movies and TV shows to produce.) ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/7 "2019-02-21T22:11:11Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > (accurate) This is the crux of the problem: what makes an accurate recommendation? Do you want a movie that has a similar plot? Similar characters? Similar approach to cinematography? Pacing? Music? Art direction? Here is a list of what people doing reader’s advisory (basically, what you’re talking about except for books and in meatspace) call “appeal factors”: [https://www.ebscohost.com/uploads/novelist/pdf/Appeal\_Terms\_in\_NoveList.pdf?language=en\_US](https://www.ebscohost.com/uploads/novelist/pdf/Appeal_Terms_in_NoveList.pdf?language=en_US) And that doesn’t even cover the basics like genre, physical setting, chronological setting, and any of the stuff we all wrote about in our middle school book reports. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendation-engines/829931/8 "2019-02-22T15:54:33Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > This is the crux of the problem: what makes an accurate recommendation? Do you want a movie that has a similar plot? Similar characters? Similar approach to cinematography? Pacing? Music? Art direction? > > Here is a list of what people doing reader’s advisory (basically, what you’re talking about except for books and in meatspace) call “appeal factors”: [https://www.ebscohost.com/uploads/novelist/pdf/Appeal\_Terms\_in\_NoveList.pdf?language=en\_US](https://www.ebscohost.com/uploads/novelist/pdf/Appeal_Terms_in_NoveList.pdf?language=en_US) > > And that doesn’t even cover the basics like genre, physical setting, chronological setting, and any of the stuff we all wrote about in our middle school book reports. Good question, but the last site did have a lot of filters… Genre, year, etc… For me, its not the music, art direction, but the feel. Dialogue-driven, or movies with few characters (or a lot), and whatever one is feeling at that time. I’ll check your link out, thanks.