# How to use ChatGPT to get better book & movie recommendations

I find ChatGPT gives me better movie recommendations than Netflix when I do the following:

1) Keep a list of books/movies that you like and why you like them 

2) Use the prompt "Recommend X movies/books that \[CRITERIA\]. Here's a list of things I like and dislike and why: \[LIST\] "

The reason it works better is that you can tell ChatGPT *why *you like them. This is better than Netflix, which only has access to whether you liked the show and how long you watched it. 

Like, I might say I really liked Catch Me If You Can, and Netflix will often infer that I want to watch DiCaprio, when really I want to watch biographical dramas. 

I keep a list in a spreadsheet, then just copy paste it when needed. Here’s screenshot example of bit of the spreadsheet and the prompts and the results:

![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/wBDAeDiRzADdGmVlYeH9nT4-TdDy0DU-tmGs_M_smI_JKTTgEGAyHE8pl84CHkBfkXTeJ0g-wCRNmB19CTNVjwPA53609uJc95B-HWdcHjpirep6ubR-SAMzBBD0GnxVQLn2RXe2F932D_Khd8mg5hY)  
 

![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/w2fYy95yDDhVrBB14i68uGg0cGoTGGnxk1qwpT8H5Pz0uuClwg4YNBAJwYjRTFpl2mVBBoVyQvowmhZPpy4IDeo0WFYxgPkRt_sAlLJ8pw6JrAbuZulGTjo9F86JheIxyfsFYjQ3qVwmWdvoXHEkM3E) ![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/fxd9zwT3vyYUD1dnAj96MvQDHqjPg7FrFYGebq9HaJxASR3CkdSiwpOzjdf7k2qHrxW6AhUjFzIgxKM7bxZnMsVgGWzDvs2_yKo-6sKWimz23kfxi-hJWm4SUG65mzfQnEwNmZWtQ2rTgX4GatjPVZc)

Works for books, TV shows, movies, video games, and all sorts of entertainment. 

Other examples to give you a flavor of how specific you can be:

*   Tell me one of the most famous novels or books to come from every Asian country, listed in order of population of country, starting with China. Ideally classics, but also memoirs, biographies, or essays that are really well-known in that country. 

![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/w4jcCdmmhyuJTQT0TaxAdIBycJdWm8KR4LQAzfys__xgwoaViaNgTxdfrq3Q6GIJ5jDv5MIQaqbXYiVKKFQx_3DizZSbMFoFag9oJpWS097F1ci6Q5lhT-ABQj1ijGJTVEPtRVRyb5B11gZ5Nlt9SuU)

*   Memoirs of scientists who probably would have been rationalists had they been born in the modern era. 

![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/N7CVpuSdx4OEJlPRiHqiEAzJOcqxvzE-QAQHyrtjSgXdcbA3IDXow09GPSOZyOthlKI6rNfpTUTJar40c6-P8MUI5Ew2dRP8syj9x40TfhT6PXAgONHCe9KVGueoUgh7Vy_saXBYV5lBJu8gPquz8gI)

The only problem with this is about 1 in 10 books or so will sound *amazing* and then turn out to totally not exist. This will be devastating, but hopefully my warning has prepared you for the inevitable heartbreak. 

You can also add to your list things you *don't* like and why. For example, I have a second part of my spreadsheet which describes the things I don't like, so that it doesn't recommend things in that category. 

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/c3969e235d107aca9ca80a23e70e8d7c6e951cb0df3be7c2.png)

If anybody wants to build a recommendation system that makes this easy, I bet it could really take off. Not much of a moat around it probably, but the general idea could make finding perfect content for you *amazing. *

Like, imagine feeding in all of your reviews of books or movies on IMDB/Amazon/etc into it. Or instead of giving thumbs up or down for things, giving quick written feedback, that is continuously added to a database which feeds into your reccs. (Code Interpreter or Claude 2 seem likely to be able to do this)

Maybe this is already being done. If so, links in the comments would be appreciated! 

In the meantime, this prompt works pretty well. Enjoy finding the absolute perfect books for you!