Do your friends look to you for recommendations on which shows and movies they should watch next? Are you, in fact, a tastemaker whose opinions unerringly guide people to the hidden gems that the majority overlook? If so, you may want to check out Plex user reviews. The new feature, which launches today, builds on Plex’s Discover Together platform, which lets friends and family connect with one another via user profiles.
With user reviews, any registered Plex account can now review any Movie, Show, Season, or Episode, and the review can be seen by those in your Plex universe. For now, your reviews are only shared among your Plex friends, in accordance with the privacy settings you set for your Plex profile, but a future update will let you share them with anyone on Plex.
In fact, as Plex prepares for the rollout of public reviews, it’s looking for guinea pigs beta testers to be among the first whose opinions show up for all Plex users. Here’s the form to sign up.
There’s also the ability to flag your reviews as containing spoilers, which is clearly the responsible thing to do when wielding so much power.
Reviews can be written for any title, even those that are in your personal Plex library, but there are some prerequisites before you begin channeling your inner Siskel, Ebert, or A.A. Dowd:
- Reviews can be created from Plex Web and Mobile apps, but will be visible on all clients.
- Only media items matched with the Plex Movie or Plex Series modern agents from a Plex Media Server library can be reviewed and you’ll need to enable the Sync Watch State & Ratings feature.
- Reviews will always be accessible from the details pages in the Discover source (and accessible via search).
- You’ll need a verified email to write reviews.
- Reviews must adhere to Plex’s community guidelines.
Once written, reviews appear in several places throughout the Plex experience including the detail, profile and activity feed screens. However, as a viewer, you can choose what kinds of reviews appear in these places. You can pick from Plex users & critics, Plex users only, critics only, or no reviews.
All about Plex
- How to use the Plex Media Server to watch all of your media
- I canceled my streaming services and built a Plex server — I’m never going back
- Plex streamlines its media experience with dedicated Photos app
- Plex is now in the movie rental business, with a catch or two
As the author of a review, you can choose who sees each review (much like a Facebook post) and once it’s published, you’ll be able to edit or delete it.
