Netflix users - How do you handle your recommendations?

[Poiuyt]

Do you give a good rating (4-5 stars) to a movie that you thought was really a great movie? Or do you give it to a movie that you would like to see again? Because they are not necessarily the same thing. You could watch a movie that you thought was an excellent example of filmmaking, but, because of personal preferences, you wouldn't want to watch similar movies. On the other hand, you could watch a really crappy movie, but it was a guilty pleasure, and you'd like to see more of the same. I've never understood how Netflix handles recommendations based on our ratings.

[Frank Cannon]

1. I give a 5 only to my all-time favorite films, even the cheesy ones

like, say, Vanishing Point.

Fours I give to movies that I thought were pretty good, but I wouldn't necessarily need to see them again.

Threes go to movies that I kind of liked; not bad.

I've given relatively few 2s, but sometimes you end up with a dud.

Ones are reserved for those movies I absolutely HATE, like Porky's or Armageddon--the ones that are truly offensive to me.

Interestingly, the recommend feature works pretty well. All the starred movie recommends I've had from Netflix have been movies I ended up really liking, even if I'd never heard of them before.

[Poiuyt]

2. Thanks. So you tend to rate higher the type of movie that you'd like to watch repeatedly?

[Frank Cannon]

3. That is correct.

Fives are those movies that I liked so much I could see them again and again.

Examples of my fives are:

Blade Runner
The Right Stuff
A Man for All Seasons
Gattaca
The Lord of the Rings movies

and also:

A Christmas Story
Rocky III
Robocop
The Untouchables
Mad Max

[CBHagman]

4. Their recommendations system does mystify me.

I assign three stars to films I thought were worth seeing but not something I would necessarily watch over and over again. I reserve four stars for things that resonated with me and five stars for things I simply must see again.

As for the list of recommendations Netflix produces based on our recommendations, your guess is as good as mine. I have rated literally hundreds of movies, and for some unfathomable reason they kept flinging anime titles at me. I hate anime and certainly don't rent it from Netflix, so I guess they just ran with my ratings for a couple of animated and/or family films and came up with that profile for me. But I can rent independent films, romance, and drama till the cows come home, and Netflix has trouble finding titles for me in all three categories. :shrug: