Introducing: Reids Recommend

Decisions, decisions...

Sometimes at ReidsonFilm we do get asked for film recommendations from friends, colleagues, even strangers on the internet. Our usual response, of course, is “why not check out our Substack!?” and “please subscribe while you’re at it!!!” while trying in vain to suppress our wild-eyed looks of desperation. On our Substack you’ll certainly find plenty of excellent film suggestions that we’ve watched over the last few years, and the occasional dodgy last minute pick one of us found after a quick scroll through MUBI. The problem is that with more than 180 reviews to our name, finding something specific isn't always easy.

That’s where Reids Recommend comes in.

As the UK job market continues to circle the drain of artificial intelligence, one of ReidsonFilm’s soon-to-be-unemployed number took it upon himself to up skill with some “vibe-coding” projects and built a film recommendation tool using our review archive. It takes our films, our scores, asks you a few simple questions, then serves up three recommendations along with links to the relevant reviews.

For the AI sceptics among you, fear not. While an LLM helped with some of the development work, the engine itself is essentially just our own, curated film database. At ReidsonFilm we are proud to be producing 100% human-generated content and this tool is a stand-alone, resource-free product that doesn’t rely on any active input from an AI model, so using it too frequently won’t cause you to drain any lakes in the Midwest.

We spent a lot of time testing the tool and deliberately kept the questions fairly open-ended to ensure you get an eclectic mix of recommendations. We haven't included genres because we wanted the recommendations to remain a little surprising and, besides, how on earth would you categorise films like Baby Invasion or Upstream Color? Leaving them out was never an option.

So if you do find yourself at a loss for what to watch one evening, please give Reids Recommend a spin and let us know how you get on. Feel free to leave a comment or message us with any feedback once you’ve given it a go.