What is Flickchart?

Flickchart is a site that does this kind of amazing thing: it shows you a randomly-generated matchup of two films, and you pick the one you like more. Then it shows you the next matchup, and over time it aggregates into a chart. Once you've got a few films on your chart you can add films to it by title and start to make the chart more reflective of your tastes. Ultimately, if you put some time into it (and it’s super easy to get hooked on this site) you’ll end up with a chart that is broadly representative of your actual tastes. I do this now automatically with each new film I watch, and occasionally on re-watches when I find that I like a film more or less than the last time I saw it.

So why do I include references to my chart on this site? Because subjective ratings mean different things to different people. Two people might like the same movie the same amount, but one gives it three out of four and another gives it six out of ten. I didn’t want that uncertainty. Flickchart gives me a simple percentage, and it means exactly what it says: Life Gamble scores 94%. I like it more than 94% of all the movies I’ve ever seen. The thing I’m trying to describe, how much I like a movie, is necessarily subjective, but at least I can try to represent it objectively, and this seems to be the best way to do that.

And incidentally, I highly recommend Flickchart. Do come join the site. It’s a lot of fun. And I’m Audrey Karloff over there as well, so look me up!