Napoleon Dynamite is a film so inexplicably divisive that Netflix spent $1 million trying to figure out just what was up with it. The personal recommendations on the streaming site are based on an algorithm that takes your ratings of previous viewings and suggests similar movies and TV shows you may like. But certain films proved a problem with this, most notably Napoleon Dynamite; turns out it's a film nigh on impossible to recommend with a degree of certainty. If there's a better definition of a cult classic, we'd like to hear it. Rather than removing the film, the site instead offered up a massive cash prize for anyone who could improve the success rate of their Cinematch algorithm by at least 10%. It took three years, but eventually a team did it. Although odds are the film will still be recommended to people who'll wind up hating it. So why is Napoleon Dynamite so divisive? It's kinda hard to put a definitive finger on it, hence why a company had to shell out a million dollars to work around it. It's just the sort of film that initially coming across a little aimless, with its style becoming more understandable with rewatch. That's comedy for you.
