MatchMeAMovie doesn't simply rate films. It breaks every film and show down into its elements: its genres, themes, story elements, mood, style, era, cast and crew.

As you use the site, it learns which of those elements you respond to, and how strongly. Each one carries a weight for you, an affinity, that rises and falls with everything you do.

It then compares every film's elements with your affinities and measures how well they match. That's your match score: a prediction of how much you'll enjoy it. For You lists everything in that order, best match first.

What it learns from

• Your genre order: what you tell us you like.
• Your ratings: what you actually enjoy, so genres you rate well rise and those you don't fall.
• Themes and story elements: the keywords behind the films you rate well.
• An AI profile of every film: its subject, mood and style, so films are compared by what they're really like.
• People like you: what members with similar taste have loved.

We're not mind readers

Mac says

Provide me a little feedback and I'll save you hours of scrolling, and find films you'd never have believed existed. Hidden gems are out there. Finding them is what I do.

Most recommendations stop at the genre. Like thrillers? Here's a pile of thrillers. But not all thrillers are the same. A black-and-white Second World War thriller is a world away from a modern one set at a holiday resort or a dinner party. Mood matters. So do era, tone and subgenre, and a single film can have a dozen subgenres. The list of what makes a film what it is goes on and on. The good news? You don't have to explain any of it. The engine works it out from how you react to what it shows you.

That's the key word: react. The more you do it, the sharper your matches get.

What counts as reacting

Every one of these teaches the engine something:

• Rating a film or show with the ★★★★★, anywhere on the site.
• Pressing Not interested on something you'd never watch.
• Adding something to your Watchlist.
• Rating films in Calibrate. Skip any you haven't seen.
• Putting your genres in order on Preferences.

Read the single most useful habit to get the most from it.

Where to start

New here? Follow Your first ten minutes. It takes you from an empty account to your first matches.