Canonical HTML: [https://grom.page/blog/recommend/](https://grom.page/blog/recommend/) Language: `en` Summary: Alexander Grom's personal recommendations — games, films and books rated 1 to 10. The rating is whether it's worth your time, not the quality of the work. [← Blog](/blog/) [grom.page](/) # Recommendations Last updated: 17 July 2026 [recommendations](/blog/#tag=recommendations) *I keep this list very lazily, so it's probably out of date.* Below: works of various kinds — books, films, games and more — with my recommendation rating from 1 to 10, where 1 means I strongly advise against spending time on it and 10 means I recommend it and will keep recommending it. The rating isn't always the quality of the work or whether I liked it. I can hate a film and think it's bad, and still recommend it. Or the other way round — a book gave me pleasure, but I won't recommend it. I first rate 1 to 5, then refine a little. So read the ratings like this: | | | | --- | --- | | 1–2 | don't bother, a terrible waste of time | | 3–4 | you'll regret the time spent | | 5–6 | fine if you've nothing else to do | | 7 | generally recommend, once you've done the 8-9-10s | | 8 | recommended | | 9 | you absolutely should try it | | 10 | a masterpiece everyone should experience | Sort [← Back to blog](/blog/) ## Recommendation list ### Games - **10/10** — Factorio - **10/10** — To the Moon - **9/10** — Hearts of Iron IV - **9/10** — Minecraft - **8/10** — Kerbal Space Program - **8/10** — Life is Strange - **8/10** — RimWorld ### Films - **10/10** — Limitless - **9/10** — Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - **9/10** — Mr. Nobody - **9/10** — Revolver - **9/10** — Snatch - **9/10** — The Wolf of Wall Street - **8/10** — American Psycho - **8/10** — Dukhless (Soulless) - **8/10** — Sin City - **8/10** — The Americans - **8/10** — The Green Mile - **7/10** — A Beautiful Mind - **7/10** — Boiler Room - **7/10** — Catch Me If You Can - **7/10** — Equilibrium - **7/10** — Fight Club - **7/10** — Thank You for Smoking - **7/10** — The Devil's Advocate - **6/10** — The Duelist - **6/10** — The Shawshank Redemption - **5/10** — Fifty Shades of Grey - **5/10** — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - **4/10** — The Social Network - **3/10** — Knockin' on Heaven's Door ### Books - **10/10** — We — Yevgeny Zamyatin - **9/10** — 1984 — George Orwell - **9/10** — Brave New World — Aldous Huxley - **9/10** — Lord of the Flies — William Golding - **9/10** — The Art of the Start — Guy Kawasaki - **9/10** — War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy - **8/10** — Faust — Goethe - **7/10** — Crime and Punishment — Dostoevsky - **7/10** — Hard to Be a God — the Strugatskys - **7/10** — Roadside Picnic — the Strugatskys - **7/10** — The Metamorphosis — Franz Kafka - **7/10** — The Picture of Dorian Gray — Oscar Wilde - **7/10** — The Richest Man in Babylon - **6/10** — The Trial — Franz Kafka - **5/10** — Scarlet Sails — Alexander Grin - **4/10** — The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger