For years, movies have been most successful by word of mouth advertising. A producer can spend millions of dollars on advertising a specific movie only to find it flops at the box office because of a bad rap. This is where your movie friends come in.

Movie friends, or friends that enjoy films, are a good way to get recommendations and talk about movies (especially those pesky ones that many may not understand). Forums can often help explain movies better and also promote those small films that never made it on the big screen. The most notable example is that of Donnie Darko. It made virtually 0 dollars in the theater then exploded onto DVD and all over the web. It is now ranked fairly high on most top movie lists. That movie got lucky.

Forums, movie sites, movie reviews, and everything related to people and movies, helps the movie industry. They start talking, they start rumors, they start announcing release dates. All of this buzzes the industry. Think of the movie 300. The studio/producer created a myspace page that was well designed. It included marketing materials and other things - but most importantly they generated buzz. I don't know if many more movies have tried the same tactics, but most likely they didn't put as much energy into it as did 300. The friends that were made by 300 created more friends, and then those told their friends etc...

It is most important to have movie friends. It may be one of those things were you could be missing out on some of the best movies ever made - but not because they aren't around, but merely because you haven't heard of them. Your friends can help you out.

This also contributes to top movie lists generated by users. Many people think might give The Departed 4/4 stars, but will they put it on their top movie list? Maybe, maybe not. This is the ultimate way in discovering how much they love a certain movie. They may say they love it, but until they create movie lists and put it on the top, they might not love it as much as you or they think they do.

It is also important to write recent movie reviews. You may not be directly recommending movies to your friends, but you are actually telling them in an indirect sort of way. This is a way that you can easily suggest a movie to someone with out them or you feeling like it has been pushed on them.