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I'm working on a kind of human-curated recommendation engine for movies. As a movie buff, I'm often frustrated by the film recommendations apps that return resu

I'm working on a kind of human-curated recommendation engine for movies. As a movie buff, I'm often frustrated by the film recommendations apps that return results too out of context for me. I also find them quite depressing, they're often nothing more than echo chambers that favor the same movies again and again. Actually, I didn't become a movie buff with tools like this but with watching the movies liked by the directors of my favorite films. For instance: Pulp Fiction -> Quentin Tarantino -> Bande à part -> Jean-Luc Godard -> Robert Bresson -> ... In addition to giving you some ideas about films that you could like, this helps you to better see the big picture (no pun intended). You learn about the important movie periods and movements (French New Wave, Italian neorealism, New Hollywood...), you develop a more serious approach to film, and you can live these mind-blowing moments when you notice similarities between two movies done 50 years apart and that looked at first glance totally different. I already created the engine (which is giving good results for my profile! It recommends me movies that I never thought of). The challenge was mostly to found all the data required by the engine. Now, I must admit I'm procrastinating a little bit for developing the actual web app! (and thank you everyone for your messages, your projects are awesome!)

bhargav 6y ago
Is your engine published on a website or otherwise open source? One good source would be letterboxed, they already have human curated lists. An example list is one where the person curated all movies that use high saturation/good color grading.
- megalomanu 6y ago
  I think I'll publish it, and I'll share my learnings. Letterboxd is indeed a great source!
moonfleet 6y ago
Hi! I would not consider myself a movie buff but I really enjoy watching movies and your project sounds very interesting. I am a frontend dev, and I would very much like to contribute to your web app. If you are interested, please shoot me an email at azatsdev@gmail.com.
- megalomanu 6y ago
  Thanks a lot moonfleet! Actually the reactions motivated me to complete at least a first version. I'm not a good frontend dev but the UI is important in what I want to do so I'm going to developing myself for now. But I'm keeping your email, in case I'd want to upgrade the UI/UX!
  - moonfleet 6y ago
    That’s understandable. Make sure you Show-HN it when it’s ready!
_hardwaregeek 6y ago
Pretty cool idea. I get a lot of movie recommendations from Criterion closet videos where filmmakers come and pick out movies to take. Barry Jenkins' video got me to watch the Apu Trilogy for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7HLpe65fHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7HLpe65fHY
- megalomanu 6y ago
  Yes, this Criterion channel is also one of my inspirations!
HaloZero 6y ago
Hope you post here if you build it! Sounds like a fun app. I wish letterboxd did something like that, maybe you could partner with them?
- simiansays 6y ago
  For my movie recommender project, I wanted to support Letterboxd but they didn't respond to any of my emails (they have a closed API). So for now I only support Trakt. If anyone knows how to get onto the Letterboxd API please let me know!
- megalomanu 6y ago
  Ideally, yes, to avoid to force the user to enter manually the films he likes... (or, like simiansays did, proposing an integration with another website)
simiansays 6y ago
Awesome! I did a similar thing as my quarantine side project! It's https://couchmoney.tv https://couchmoney.tv Quite a few years ago, I wrote a boardgame recommendation engine for reddit (/r/boardgamerecommender), and when the quarantine hit, I was watching movies and really scraping the bottom of the barrel with the recommendations I was getting (both automated and manual), so I made couchmoney. I haven't done much with it - have a few hundred users, but I'm planning on keeping it going under the radar because it's transformed how I personally watch movies. I now have close to 200 couchmoney dynamic lists ("1980s Action", "Obscure Horror Comedies" etc) that update every time I watch a movie and are based on real people's tastes. The engine isn't perfect but it's adapted from the board game thing, which I've been tinkering with for a long time now. More than happy to help you if you hit issues or want to bounce ideas ... I spend a lot of time thinking about recommendations! The recommender morphed into my latest quarantine side project, which is a "name that movie" game designed to be played over zoom. It's still super early (and basically only works on Chrome right now) but if you like movies, you may like that. It's at https://couchmoneytrivia.tv https://couchmoneytrivia.tv
- megalomanu 6y ago
  Awesome! All the reactions motivate me to finish at least a first version of my project, so I'm going to do it and then I'll be glad to share it with you! I'm going to try your trivia game too :)
baron816 6y ago
My friends and coworkers have been playing a White Elephant game with movie titles—everyone puts in a movie title, we exchange them with White Elephant rules, then you have to go watch the movie you end up with. You end up with a movie you wouldn’t have otherwise watched, and you have people you can talk about the movie with. Even if you end up with a really bad film, it can be a lot of fun. I’ve been meaning to turn it into an app to streamline gameplay (we just manage it with spreadsheets), but I’m really dragging my feet on it.
- simiansays 6y ago
  This is a really cool idea, love it. Could be done with lots of other things - books, snack food, restaurant gift certificates!
hoerzu 6y ago
Very nice! I have wrote a GitHub recommender engine once. Recently I started categorizing Hacker News with ML: http://hntopics.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/best http://hntopics.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/best
tchoesang 6y ago
Hi, I am a big time movie buff and curious about how you tackle the recommender system problem. Especially about defining domain specific groupa. Is it hosted somewhere on the GitHub? regards, Choesang
- megalomanu 6y ago
  Hi! Not yet! I'll share the project when I'll have finished it :)

bhargav 6y ago

Is your engine published on a website or otherwise open source? One good source would be letterboxed, they already have human curated lists. An example list is one where the person curated all movies that use high saturation/good color grading.

megalomanu 6y ago
I think I'll publish it, and I'll share my learnings. Letterboxd is indeed a great source!

moonfleet 6y ago

Hi! I would not consider myself a movie buff but I really enjoy watching movies and your project sounds very interesting. I am a frontend dev, and I would very much like to contribute to your web app. If you are interested, please shoot me an email at azatsdev@gmail.com.

megalomanu 6y ago
Thanks a lot moonfleet! Actually the reactions motivated me to complete at least a first version. I'm not a good frontend dev but the UI is important in what I want to do so I'm going to developing myself for now. But I'm keeping your email, in case I'd want to upgrade the UI/UX!
- moonfleet 6y ago
  That’s understandable. Make sure you Show-HN it when it’s ready!

_hardwaregeek 6y ago

Pretty cool idea. I get a lot of movie recommendations from Criterion closet videos where filmmakers come and pick out movies to take. Barry Jenkins' video got me to watch the Apu Trilogy for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7HLpe65fHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7HLpe65fHY

megalomanu 6y ago
Yes, this Criterion channel is also one of my inspirations!

HaloZero 6y ago

Hope you post here if you build it! Sounds like a fun app. I wish letterboxd did something like that, maybe you could partner with them?

simiansays 6y ago
For my movie recommender project, I wanted to support Letterboxd but they didn't respond to any of my emails (they have a closed API). So for now I only support Trakt. If anyone knows how to get onto the Letterboxd API please let me know!
megalomanu 6y ago
Ideally, yes, to avoid to force the user to enter manually the films he likes... (or, like simiansays did, proposing an integration with another website)

simiansays 6y ago

Awesome! I did a similar thing as my quarantine side project! It's https://couchmoney.tv https://couchmoney.tv Quite a few years ago, I wrote a boardgame recommendation engine for reddit (/r/boardgamerecommender), and when the quarantine hit, I was watching movies and really scraping the bottom of the barrel with the recommendations I was getting (both automated and manual), so I made couchmoney. I haven't done much with it - have a few hundred users, but I'm planning on keeping it going under the radar because it's transformed how I personally watch movies. I now have close to 200 couchmoney dynamic lists ("1980s Action", "Obscure Horror Comedies" etc) that update every time I watch a movie and are based on real people's tastes. The engine isn't perfect but it's adapted from the board game thing, which I've been tinkering with for a long time now. More than happy to help you if you hit issues or want to bounce ideas ... I spend a lot of time thinking about recommendations! The recommender morphed into my latest quarantine side project, which is a "name that movie" game designed to be played over zoom. It's still super early (and basically only works on Chrome right now) but if you like movies, you may like that. It's at https://couchmoneytrivia.tv https://couchmoneytrivia.tv

megalomanu 6y ago
Awesome! All the reactions motivate me to finish at least a first version of my project, so I'm going to do it and then I'll be glad to share it with you! I'm going to try your trivia game too :)

baron816 6y ago

My friends and coworkers have been playing a White Elephant game with movie titles—everyone puts in a movie title, we exchange them with White Elephant rules, then you have to go watch the movie you end up with. You end up with a movie you wouldn’t have otherwise watched, and you have people you can talk about the movie with. Even if you end up with a really bad film, it can be a lot of fun. I’ve been meaning to turn it into an app to streamline gameplay (we just manage it with spreadsheets), but I’m really dragging my feet on it.

simiansays 6y ago
This is a really cool idea, love it. Could be done with lots of other things - books, snack food, restaurant gift certificates!

hoerzu 6y ago

Very nice! I have wrote a GitHub recommender engine once. Recently I started categorizing Hacker News with ML: http://hntopics.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/best http://hntopics.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/best

tchoesang 6y ago

Hi, I am a big time movie buff and curious about how you tackle the recommender system problem. Especially about defining domain specific groupa. Is it hosted somewhere on the GitHub? regards, Choesang

megalomanu 6y ago
Hi! Not yet! I'll share the project when I'll have finished it :)