The BMFMREE · est. 2026

Back to theFeature

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. We need a movie.

My best friend Jon and I have been texting each other “what should I watch?” since high school. So we fed this thing 1,657 of our own ratings, from my old Jinni account (RIP, 2015) to Jon’s very serious Letterboxd. Set the time circuits, hit 88, and it picks something neither of us has seen. Its full name is the BMFMREE. Its polite name is Back to the Feature.

DestinationHow do you want to feel after?
PresentHow are you right now?
Time leftHow long have you got?
PassengersWho’s watching?
FormatWhat kind of night?
0MPH

Pick up to two destinations. Skip anything and we’ll guess.

Two phones, one pick

Movie Night

Each of you taps how you’re doing, on your own phone. When you’re both in, the engine picks one movie for the two of you, and both moods count the same. Same couch or different states, it works either way.

Travis
Jon

Rate or skip, one card at a time

The Hill Valley Drive-In

The all-time greats (the AFI list, the critics’ polls, the ones everybody pretends they’ve seen) plus a few wildcards we think you’ll love. Seen it? Rate it. Want to? Queue it. Not your thing? Skip it forever. Every tap teaches the picker.

Loading the reel…

Our queue

Everything either of us tapped “want to see.” Anything that’s in the picker gets a boost there too.

    Rank what you watch

    The Almanac

    Watched something? Log it here. Half-stars, one line, done. Every rating goes into the next pick: love a movie and its kind of night gets a boost, hate one and the engine backs off. It’s the only sports almanac Biff never got his hands on.

    Grays Sports AlmanacComplete ratings, 1985–2026 (and counting)
    Stars (tap the left side of a star for a half)
    Travis—
    Jon—

    Checking the Almanac…

      Twenty years of arguing

      Where we agree, and where we very much don’t

      Lining up every film we’ve both rated turned up some things about us. Mostly that we’d both follow Indiana Jones into a snake pit, and that one of us is wrong about Big Fish.

        Soulmate movies

        Both of us: four and a half stars or better.

        The rift

        Our biggest disagreements. The friendship survived. Barely.

          From Jon’s spreadsheet

          Jon’s year-end picks

          Every year Jon crowns his favorites in a spreadsheet, category by category. The engine treats a win here as a very strong hint.

          Under the hood

          How the flux capacitor works

          It’s a Jinni tribute

          Jinni was a movie site I loved from 2012 until it shut down in 2015. Instead of “people who liked this also liked,” it tagged every film by mood, pace and feeling. When it closed, it emailed me all 755 of my ratings. I kept them. Eleven years later, here they are.

          Every pick is hand-tagged

          About 230 movies, shows and books, each tagged with how it leaves you feeling, the moods it suits, how intense it is and how much attention it asks. Plus the rest of my Stephen King quest. Anything either of us has already seen is left out, including everything on Jon’s old “Bluffer’s Dozens” spreadsheet (best opening scenes, best single-location movies, best villains).

          It learns from the Almanac

          The picker weighs your time, mood and destination against how much each of us would like the pick, so “both of us” nights land in the overlap. Rate what you watch and it adjusts. No AI runs on this page; it’s all right here in your browser.

          Built by Travis, Jon and Claude. Doc Brown would want you to know that Jon’s Letterboxd has 835 films on it and he gave Madame Web one star. Also: see The Perfect Cream Soda, our last very serious project, and my favorite movies.

          Jon, this one’s for you

          Ask Doc for a change

          Want a new button, a different joke, a movie added or banned forever? Tell Claude. It checks every hour, makes the change if it’s about this page, and emails you back with what it did. Bigger ideas go to Travis first.

          Or email it straight to

          What we’ve changed

            While you’re here

            One short essay on optimism, purpose, and enough — every Saturday morning.

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