
A directory of Netflix's “secret” categories - garrettboatman
http://netflixcodes.me/
======
mpdehaan2
It would be nice if Netflix made it easier to browse content rather than
choosing what categories to display and show to you.

It can get stuck thinking your really like a genre, and the recommendation
engine can penalize you too much for too many likes or dislikes.

Now that the website is a bit more focused towards streaming-on-computer it's
somewhat harder to browse and prepare a queue.

It feels that some content is cheaper to stream and it wants to present that
content first, and also that they don't really want you to be aware of the
size of the catalog either.

Tempting to go back to DVD plan for a while, really, which I would do if the
US Post Office was remotely reliable. If only there was a way to rent-stream
BlueRay/DVD ISOs securely to a Netflix app, and have their whole catalog
legally available and not bifurcated into streaming and non-streaming, that
would be really cool.

~~~
rogerbinns
> It would be nice if Netflix made it easier to browse content ...

It would be even better if they fixed recommendations. If you do not use a web
browser - ie use Roku, Chromecast, Android etc - then you cannot mark
something as "not interested". So it keeps showing you the same thing over and
over again, that you do not want to watch. Makes the service seem dumb and
hostile. Don't get me started on them showing you stuff you already watched
and don't need in the prime positions for recommendations - it is already
watched.

Even more bizarre is how they predict how many stars you'll give something,
which seems fairly good. And then go ahead and recommend items with few
predicted stars.

I'm almost convinced that all their developers only use desktops and browsers,
so they don't even realise what they do to those on other platforms.

~~~
sangnoir
> Even more bizarre is how they predict how many stars you'll give something,
> which seems fairly good. _And then go ahead and recommend items with few
> predicted stars_

To play the devils' advocate

* It's good for the user because their algorithm is not perfect and you might actually enjoy the 'few predicted stars' movie

* It's good for the algorithm because it allows fine-tuning in the cases of false-negatives and adds more data points

* having only high predicted stars in your list will probably move your Overton window on what's good/bad.

~~~
rogerbinns
There is no need for a devil's advocate argument - having some diversity in
recommendations is good for many reasons. But they they need to start by
getting the base recommendations done well, and then mixing in the diversity.
Sadly they fail dismally at the former.

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joesmo
It'd be nice if these categories weren't hidden, but at this point, the
Netflix UI has gotten so useless that if the service was a little more
expensive, it wouldn't be worth the price. Basic UI features that I'd expect
from even an alpha quality service like filtering by star rating simply don't
exist. Up until today and this post, proper categories did not exist. The
whole Netflix UI experience has consisted of scrolling through endless lists
of garbage to occasionally find one or two interesting movies/shows. And when
I say garbage, I really mean garbage: movies with one or two stars,
deservingly so.

I understand that if Netflix allowed filtering by star rating they might only
list a few hundred 4 and 5 star movies across the whole service, but it'd be
best to let the consumer decide how to deal with that fact rather than hiding
everything in a giant pile of shit. I find their star ratings to be very close
to accurate and this is the strength of the service. Unfortunately, their
discovery UI is so horrific, it negates any strength Netflix has otherwise. If
I know what I want to watch, Netflix is great, otherwise I prepare for half an
hour of scrolling the same bullshit list of crap looking for anything decent
and ultimately giving up.

~~~
kevinschumacher
Not sure if I'm crazy here, but I thought that the star ratings they show on
the UI are their prediction of how much __you __will like the movie (i.e.,
they think you will give this movie 2 stars).

Anyone know?

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sandworm101
The best shows are those that don't fit a particular category, or that grow to
move between categories. Lots of great british TV bounces between comedy and
drama (sherlock, cuffs). Some American shows cannot be pinned to a specific
age range (simpsons). I still laugh when I see TopGear listed as
"informational/other" by my cable company.

Also ... (i just noticed)

Australian Movies 5230 Belgian Movies 262 Korean Movies 5685 Latin American
Movies 1613 Middle Eastern Movies 5875 New Zealand Movies

No Canada? No Canada comedy, no Canada movies, nothing? Belgian but not
Canadian? Look to the end of your favorite shows. Look for the "Canadian film
tax credit" statement before saying there aren't any canadian shows.

~~~
NDizzle
Maybe Netflix is claiming Trailer Park Boys now. That is totally Canadian.
It's not a rocket appliance.

~~~
Zikes
Wasn't Red Green on Netflix at one point, too?

~~~
schwap
I can't remember, but it's all on youtube now:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/RedGreenTV](https://www.youtube.com/user/RedGreenTV)

~~~
jerf
Well, thank you for that. Growing up in Michigan, we had a bit of Canadian
cross-over stuff [1], and I saw quite a bit of that show back in the era
before on-demand. We never really had cable. Definitely some good hacker-esque
skits in there, though I never felt the shows as a whole quite gelled in their
overarching plots.

[1]: Double the Olympics coverage being the best. Curling is overmocked. It is
mockable, yes, but it is overmocked.

~~~
pasbesoin
In the... 2010, it was, Olympic games, NBC, the official broadcaster in the
U.S., had so "sliced and diced" its presentation that I found its main
coverage unwatchable. However, on one of its lesser affiliates, it was
carrying... "second or third tier", per its judgement, sports coverage largely
intact.

One particular item on it, that I ran across just by chance channel-surfing,
was coverage of the women's curling. Complete games, quietly but informatively
commentated. This introduced me to curling (beyond a passing "stones on ice"
familiarity), and I ended up really enjoying it. To boot, it came down to
Canada versus Sweden in a rather exciting set of rounds of elimination.

Some of it can be fairly parochial and/or simple, but the CBC et al. also put
out some pretty good stuff. Including items that don't try to be more than
they are, but do an excellent job at that.

Hopefully, under Trudeau et al., they will be released from the manufactured
chokehold that has been squeezing the life out of them. And, any force that
cuts down crap such as the ueber-commercialization of the Olympics, I welcome.

~~~
kobayashi
I started watching curling during the 2014 games and learned to love it.
Haven't watched it since, but I'm definitely looking forward to 2018!

PS: Completely disagree with your assessment of the CBC and their operation
under Harper's premiership, but such is life. Just wanted it noted.

~~~
pasbesoin
Well, I'm not too familiar with the CBC. And I hear more of the radio side
than I see the TV side. Where, I seem to recall similar budget restrictions,
personnel jiggering, et al. lately as has been attempted with PBS, NPR, etc.
in the U.S.

But, maybe my off-the-cuff impression is wrong.

Regardless, cheers!

P.S. Perhaps I should further qualify that "not too familiar." Maybe I'm
nonetheless more familiar with it than many in the U.S.

Anyway, I have really enjoyed some of what they put out. Older, but perhaps
one of the best examples I can think of, right now: The 1980's adaptations of
Lucy Maud Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlea".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables_%281985_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables_%281985_film%29)

Every summer, I'm close enough to the border to get one of their channels for
a week. And I enjoy having a look in on the news and Canadian culture, from
their perspective.

I support that notion, that countries have a national broadcasting service.
Particularly with the dominance of U.S. and "generic" commercial media, a
place on the airwaves or wire that provides for a more prominent presentation
of domestic culture, among other things.

Oh, and I'll add, some of the First Nations programming I've happened to catch
has been pretty interesting, too.

------
Zikes
I don't understand Netflix's aversion to letting me find shows I'm interested
in. It's so hard to just browse the full catalog, even by really general
categories like "Action" or "Comedy". When I pull up the Netflix app on my
console all I get are 20-25 movies in each category, plus my Queue and a few
recommendations.

~~~
theseatoms
It seems that they're trying to prevent users from realizing how light their
catalog really is.

~~~
soylentcola
I dunno...I find the selection to easily surpass what I'd find available on
basic cable on any given day. If it cost $30-50/mo (or whatever they charge
for a pretty basic cable package these days) I'd reconsider but for under
$10/mo I find it to fill that gap of "something to flick through and find
something I wouldn't mind watching" quite nicely.

~~~
theseatoms
Don't get me wrong. I'm a subscriber and will likely continue to be. I agree
that Netflix is a better deal for the consumer than most cable packages, but
they're constantly competing for content with Hulu, Amazon, HBO, YouTube, etc.

~~~
Zikes
YouTube and Twitch have grown to become about 90% of my video consumption. The
increasingly cheap pro-sumer quality A/V equipment and software have made the
production values go up significantly in recent years, making the regular
production of high-quality shows much more viable.

~~~
theseatoms
Any recommendations? :)

~~~
Zikes
Oh it's really all about personal preference. I mostly subscribe to tech news
& reviews and "let's play" type gaming content, along with some
cooking/woodworking/metalworking stuff. Off the top of my head I mostly watch
MKBHD, Tested, Cinemassacre, CynicalBrit, Lazy Game Reviews, Frank Howarth,
and enough smaller channels to fill in the gaps.

Edit: Oh and LinusTechTips, I can't believe how long it took me to get on
board with that channel.

------
fastball
Most of these categories _aren 't_ 'hidden'.

If you select one of the main genres on Netflix, almost all of them will then
have a "sub-genre" picker which, as far as I can tell, includes most if not
all of these.

Sure, this site lets you see them all at once without having to choose a
parent genre first, but it doesn't seem like that big of deal.

~~~
paxtonab
It is easier to browse this list than it is to browse a Netflix genre...

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ctdonath
There's a whole lot more than the OP lists. Things like
[http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/5614](http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/5614)
"Movies starring Kyle MacLachlan" and
[http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/5612](http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/5612)
"Comedies from the 1920s".

------
davidclopez
| Satanic Stories 6998

What a missed opportunity.

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bhaumik
many more:

[http://ogres-crypt.com/public/NetFlix-Streaming-Genres2.html](http://ogres-
crypt.com/public/NetFlix-Streaming-Genres2.html)

------
glitcher
I've always longed for better filtering/sorting options on the home screen.
Currently I believe you have to go into one of the category screens to have
sorting options.

My other pet peeve with Netflix is the duplication of content across several
of the home screen categories. Some are almost identical at times, just in
different orders.

~~~
e40
I would love to sort on rating, and I've never seen a way to do that. It would
be the single biggest thing that would increase my use of Netflix.

~~~
Gustomaximus
Yep, I dream of setting a ">200 ratings under 4 stars" type filter. Would make
finding new films much easier.

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NathanCVoss
Just by guessing a couple numbers I found more: Goofy Crime Movies:
[http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/10001](http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/10001)

~~~
Torn
Nice. I'm surprised someone hasn't setup a script to enumerate them all. The
ids all seem less than 6 digits

------
Ennergizer
Netflix Secret Categories are also available in Simkl for Netflix Chrome
extension [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simkl-for-
netflix-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simkl-for-netflix-hulu-
cr/dbpjfmehfpcgmlpfnfilcnhbckmecmca) with random Netflix search and watched\to
watch filters

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aaronsnoswell
Can someone explain what this is? Non-netflix user here.

~~~
click170
As you can see from other comments here, the Netflix UI is quite bad. This is
a list of categories that many people feel the UI hides from them, in that
they're hard to find. If you use Netflix on your computer you can use this
list to access those sub-categories.

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petke
I got existed for: "Dark Comedies 869". Man its difficult to find these kinds
of movies. Unfortunately there was not 869 of them but just 6. I have seen
them all. One of them was amazing; "Sightseers" if anyone wants a movie tip.

~~~
carb
I get 28 results for Dark Comedies. Do you want me to share the list with you?

~~~
rosege
probably different country. you can use moreflicks.com to see what country has
what show/movie

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amag
Nice! I've missed this since Netflix started to dumb-down the list of
categories displayed for a movie a while back.

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mschuster91
Eh, anyone here by chance who knows how to watch the Avengers movies and the
Men in Black movies in Germany? They don't appear in the catalog, but
searching shows "Based on The Avengers" and the other MCU films, for example.

~~~
sireat
Check Reddit Netflix subreddit there are a bunch of ways of getting the full
catalog there is a neat software which makes it seamless although a regular
vpn is just as good

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joshmn
Time for a Chrome extension.

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overcast
Should have removed the ?ref=producthunt , since this posted on Hacker News.

~~~
dang
Good point. Done.

