How LocalSelections picks movies and TV shows

Published 2026-10-06

"What should we watch?" is the same problem as "where should we eat?": too many options, so nobody chooses. LocalSelections handles it the same way, with a game that narrows the field and then real titles to pick from. This guide explains how the Movies/TV option works, where the titles come from and what the numbers you see mean.

Choosing Movies/TV

In the wheel, dice, coin flip, card draw and the other mechanics, the top-level choice is Food, Activity, Movies/TV or Custom. Choose Movies/TV and the options become genres such as Action, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Romance, Thriller, Family and Animation. The wheel spins over those genres, just as it spins over cuisines for food.

When it lands on a genre, you get real titles in that genre to choose from. The Decision Bracket works the same way but lets you swipe through titles one at a time. For a plain "what's popular" answer with no genre, the game uses the trending list instead.

Where the titles come from

The movie and TV data comes from TMDB, The Movie Database, a community-built catalogue. LocalSelections is not endorsed or certified by TMDB; the notice at the bottom of every page says so, as TMDB's terms require.

We keep a local copy of the titles we use, in our own database. That has two practical benefits. It means a spin does not have to wait for a request to travel to TMDB, and it means we stay within TMDB's usage terms, which let us store its data for a limited time. A daily job refreshes records that are getting old, so titles do not drift out of date.

The lists are a separate matter from the titles. Which titles are "trending", or belong to a given genre right now, is stored as its own short-lived list that is refreshed roughly every twelve hours. A title's own record can stay in our database much longer than the list that mentions it, because a movie's description rarely changes but what is popular does.

What about TV and when TMDB is down

If TMDB cannot be reached, TV shows can come from TVmaze, another open catalogue. Those requests are made from your own browser, not through our servers, because TVmaze limits requests per address and routing everyone through one server would exhaust that limit for all of you. TVmaze's data is shared under a Creative Commons licence and we credit it on our legal and attribution page, linked from every page's footer. A scheduled job also keeps a short-lived copy of TVmaze's popular shows in our own database.

What the ratings and descriptions mean

  • The rating on a title page is TMDB's own user rating out of ten. It is an average of votes cast by TMDB's community, not a LocalSelections score or a critic's review. Our browse pages show how many votes a rating rests on, and a rating based on very few votes tells you little.
  • The description is TMDB's own text, shown as supplied. We do not rewrite it.
  • Release dates and genres are TMDB's too. We also add identifiers and some genre labels from the open Wikidata knowledge base to connect records across catalogues.

What we don't do

LocalSelections does not show which streaming service has a title, and it does not sell or stream anything. A title page links back to its source so you can look up where to watch. A pick comes from the genre you landed on and the lists above.

Browsing instead of spinning

If you would rather scroll than spin, the movies and TV shows pages list the titles we hold, ordered by how many people have rated them. Every title links to its own page with the full description.

A suggested way to use it

  1. Decide whether it is a movie or a series. A film is a single evening; a series is a commitment.
  2. Spin the genre wheel. Agreeing on a genre by chance is easier than agreeing on a title.
  3. Look at the rating and the vote count together. A rating built on many votes is a stronger signal than the same number from a handful.
  4. For a group, let the group wheel or a bracket settle between the last two.

If the pick lands somewhere you do not fancy, spin again. A decision tool should get you started, not hold you to the first answer.