Filmaster movie recommendations are based on ratings. Your ratings and the ratings of other users, like you.To be more precise, the recommendations are computed basing on the ratings of other users that we know share with you a similar taste in movies. The list of recommended movies is simply a list of films sorted by the average rating of people with a good taste in movies (i.e. similar to yours).
How does Filmaster know my taste?
That's simple. Because you tell us what you like by rating movies. The more movies you rate, the more we know. Terrifying? Not exactly. Because that's how we know what you like and can suggest you the movies you are likely to enjoy!
How do you know how my tastes compare with others?
Very much the same. Based on what you rate and how you rate and how the others compare.
Technically, the taste comparison is computed in the simplest of ways. For all the movies rated by both you another user (say, michuk), we're computing the difference in rating. The average differences n is then displayed as the actual Filmaster taste indicator FTI, where FTI = (10-n) * (10 - n). This is the number with the percent sign displayed next to each user that rated at least 10 movies that you rated as well.
And what is the 'good rating'?
This is the rating of a particular movie computed based on the ratings of the Filmasters with a similar taste to yours. We only take into account people with the taste indicator of 67% or higher (which may be altered in the future). The ratings have differnt weights, depending on the Filmaster taste indicator (FTI). The higher FTI, the more important the rating of the particular user. In effect, the "good rating" can be treated as the suggested rating for you, meaning that this is how we think you will rate the movie when youe eventually watch it. Obviously this is not always 100% correct but this is only supposed to help you decide whether you should or should not bother watching the particular movie.
The good rating is displayed only when you are logged in (for obvious reasons) next to each movie and at the recommendations screen.
In ratings and other places a regular average score is displayed (which takes into accounts all the ratings of the particular movie, also by people with hardly no taste in movies).
How ofter are the recommendations computed?
For all users the FTI and the recommendations are computed once a day at 6 AM GMT (0AM EST). For new users we also try to compute the FTI and the recommendations in real time (no guarantees that it will actually happen, though).