Google Goes to the Movies

By Nate Mook | Published February 23, 2005, 9:01 PM

Google has added yet another offering to its long list of custom Web searches: movie reviews. By including the "movie:" operator within a search query, Google brings up organized reviews of a flick from across the Web. The new service even calculates a movie's combined rating out of five stars.

For the forgetful, Google can pull up movie reviews simply based on plot details or famous lines.

Google has also created dedicated pages for each movie, which give an overview of reviews and allow for searching of related terms, such as actors in the film. Much like its Google News service, the search giant indexes the review and displays its source and critic, along with a snippet of text.

All of the content aggregation is done automatically and sorted by computers, Google says.

Furthering its strategy of building a complete ecosystem of search tools, the new feature integrates with Google Local to provide showtimes of nearby movies. Users can then utilize Google Maps to bring up directions to the theater and even buy tickets online via MovieTickets.com.

"Popcorn and a date to snuggle up with are up to you," says Google Associate Product Manager Jess Lee. "For now."