How to Unlock Netflix Hidden Categories | Hacker News Reader

How to Unlock Netflix Hidden Categories

thebrotalk.com

213 pointsjoker8739 comments

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A more useful page: https://github.com/Youpinadi/netflix-categories

Why do you consider your page more useful?

Clickable links.

I think it's the bare minimum to expect from a webpage to have actual clickable links to the resource in question.

Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...

The link is throwing a 500 at the moment.

Ya, you guys murdered my server. Sorry about that.

Oh, I see it was OPs server that went down. I checked my logs and all was fine. If you guys want to skip to the app:

http://www.netflixhiddencodes.com

I see more the 76000 categories. The highest category number for me is 79349, "Suspenseful Miniseries from the 1990s". And 1 is "African-American Crime Documentaries", but I don't see any titles in many of these categories.

https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/1

https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/79349

In the comments: http://netflixhiddencodes.com

Glad you guys like what I built :)

Got a 500 error. Google Cache View

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DZ2CzZp...

Unfortunately in Germany most of the categories seem to be empty. E.g. Film Noir (7687) and Cult Movies (7627).

This involves URL editing, so mostly useless if you watch Netflix through an appliance e.g. Apple TV

You can still browse from the computer and add to your watch list IIRC (I used netflix a long time ago).

Quote because link is broken:

  To access any hidden category you need to log in to your Netflix account
  and click on browse then click on any existing category it shows. You
  will see the URL on your browser “http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/1365″
  if you clicked on “Action & Adventure.” The last number “1365” is the
  actual category, in this case being “Action & Adventure.” To view a
  hidden category simply replace the number with any from the list below.
  I won’t be listing the entire 76,000 category list (for obvious reasons)
  but here are the more popular categories:
  
  Action & Adventure: 1365
  Action Comedies: 43040
  Action Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 1568
  Action Thrillers: 43048
  Adult Animation: 11881
  Adventures: 7442
  African Movies: 3761
  Alien Sci-Fi: 3327
  Animal Tales: 5507
  Anime: 7424
  Anime Action: 2653
  Anime Comedies: 9302
  Anime Dramas: 452
  Anime Fantasy: 11146
  Anime Features: 3063
  Anime Horror: 10695
  Anime Sci-Fi: 2729
  Anime Series: 6721
  Art House Movies: 29764
  Asian Action Movies: 77232
  Australian Movies: 5230
  B-Horror Movies: 8195
  Baseball Movies: 12339
  Basketball Movies: 12762
  Belgian Movies: 262
  Biographical Documentaries: 3652
  Biographical Dramas: 3179
  Boxing Movies: 12443
  British Movies: 10757
  British TV Shows: 52117
  Campy Movies: 1252
  Children & Family Movies: 783
  Chinese Movies: 3960
  Classic Action & Adventure: 46576
  Classic Comedies: 31694
  Classic Dramas: 29809
  Classic Foreign Movies: 32473
  Classic Movies: 31574
  Classic Musicals: 32392
  Classic Romantic Movies: 31273
  Classic Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 47147
  Classic Thrillers: 46588
  Classic TV Shows: 46553
  Classic War Movies: 48744
  Classic Westerns: 47465
  Comedies: 6548
  Comic Book and Superhero Movies: 10118
  Country & Western/Folk: 1105
  Courtroom Dramas: 2748
  Creature Features: 6895
  Crime Action & Adventure: 9584
  Crime Documentaries: 9875
  Crime Dramas: 6889
  Crime Thrillers: 10499
  Crime TV Shows: 26146
  Cult Comedies: 9434
  Cult Horror Movies: 10944
  Cult Movies: 7627
  Cult Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 4734
  Cult TV Shows: 74652
  Dark Comedies: 869
  Deep Sea Horror Movies: 45028
  Disney: 67673
  Disney Musicals: 59433
  Documentaries: 6839
  Dramas: 5763
  Dramas based on Books: 4961
  Dramas based on real life: 3653
  Dutch Movies: 10606
  Eastern European Movies: 5254
  Education for Kids: 10659
  Epics: 52858
  Experimental Movies: 11079
  Faith & Spirituality: 26835
  Faith & Spirituality Movies: 52804
  Family Features: 51056
  Fantasy Movies: 9744
  Film Noir: 7687
  Food & Travel TV: 72436
  Football Movies: 12803
  Foreign Action & Adventure: 11828
  Foreign Comedies: 4426
  Foreign Documentaries: 5161
  Foreign Dramas: 2150
  Foreign Gay & Lesbian Movies: 8243
  Foreign Horror Movies: 8654
  Foreign Movies: 7462
  Foreign Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 6485
  Foreign Thrillers: 10306
  French Movies: 58807
  Gangster Movies: 31851
  Gay & Lesbian Dramas: 500
  German Movies: 58886
  Greek Movies: 61115
  Historical Documentaries: 5349
  Horror Comedy: 89585
  Horror Movies: 8711
  Independent Action & Adventure: 11804
  Independent Comedies: 4195
  Independent Dramas: 384
  Independent Movies: 7077
  Independent Thrillers: 3269
  Indian Movies: 10463
  Irish Movies: 58750
  Italian Movies: 8221
  Japanese Movies: 10398
  Jazz & Easy Listening: 10271
  Kids Faith & Spirituality: 751423
  Kids Music: 52843
  Kids’ TV: 27346
  Korean Movies: 5685
  Korean TV Shows: 67879
  Late Night Comedies: 1402
  Latin American Movies: 1613
  Latin Music: 10741
  Martial Arts Movies: 8985
  Martial Arts, Boxing & Wrestling: 6695
  Middle Eastern Movies: 5875
  Military Action & Adventure: 2125
  Military Documentaries: 4006
  Military Dramas: 11
  Military TV Shows: 25804
  Miniseries: 4814
  Mockumentaries: 26
  Monster Movies: 947
  Movies based on children’s books: 10056
  Movies for ages 0 to 2: 6796
  Movies for ages 2 to 4: 6218
  Movies for ages 5 to 7: 5455
  Movies for ages 8 to 10: 561
  Movies for ages 11 to 12: 6962
  Music & Concert Documentaries: 90361
  Music: 1701
  Musicals: 13335
  Mysteries: 9994
  New Zealand Movies: 63782
  Period Pieces: 12123
  Political Comedies: 2700
  Political Documentaries: 7018
  Political Dramas: 6616
  Political Thrillers: 10504
  Psychological Thrillers: 5505
  Quirky Romance: 36103
  Reality TV: 9833
  Religious Documentaries: 10005
  Rock & Pop Concerts: 3278
  Romantic Comedies: 5475
  Romantic Dramas: 1255
  Romantic Favorites: 502675
  Romantic Foreign Movies: 7153
  Romantic Independent Movies: 9916
  Romantic Movies: 8883
  Russian: 11567
  Satanic Stories: 6998
  Satires: 4922
  Scandinavian Movies: 9292
  Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 1492
  Sci-Fi Adventure: 6926
  Sci-Fi Dramas: 3916
  Sci-Fi Horror Movies: 1694
  Sci-Fi Thrillers: 11014
  Science & Nature Documentaries: 2595
  Science & Nature TV: 52780
  Screwball Comedies: 9702
  Showbiz Dramas: 5012
  Showbiz Musicals: 13573
  Silent Movies: 53310
  Slapstick Comedies: 10256
  Slasher and Serial Killer Movies: 8646
  Soccer Movies: 12549
  Social & Cultural Documentaries: 3675
  Social Issue Dramas: 3947
  Southeast Asian Movies: 9196
  Spanish Movies: 58741
  Spiritual Documentaries: 2760
  Sports & Fitness: 9327
  Sports Comedies: 5286
  Sports Documentaries: 180
  Sports Dramas: 7243
  Sports Movies: 4370
  Spy Action & Adventure: 10702
  Spy Thrillers: 9147
  Stage Musicals: 55774
  Stand-up Comedy: 11559
  Steamy Romantic Movies: 35800
  Steamy Thrillers: 972
  Supernatural Horror Movies: 42023
  Supernatural Thrillers: 11140
  Tearjerkers: 6384
  Teen Comedies: 3519
  Teen Dramas: 9299
  Teen Screams: 52147
  Teen TV Shows: 60951
  Thrillers: 8933
  Travel & Adventure Documentaries: 1159
  TV Action & Adventure: 10673
  TV Cartoons: 11177
  TV Comedies: 10375
  TV Documentaries: 10105
  TV Dramas: 11714
  TV Horror: 83059
  TV Mysteries: 4366
  TV Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 1372
  TV Shows: 83
  Urban & Dance Concerts: 9472
  Vampire Horror Movies: 75804
  Werewolf Horror Movies: 75930
  Westerns: 7700
  World Music Concerts: 2856
  Zombie Horror Movies: 75405

Did we kiss it to death? I am getting a 500 error and hostgator landing page.

I can get it now.

I have this imagined idea of a post yo-yo'ing on the HN front page

goes up, gets 500s, goes down, gets 200s, goes up....

I figured out how to use the Falcor API of Netflix to fetch a full list of genres.

Submitted to HN separately, but here you go :) https://eliask.github.io/netflix-genres/genres.html

The repository contains the scripts to fetch them also.

So... anyone wanna run a quick scrape to dump the full list? I'd be interested to see how obscure they get.

this is easy to do in python if anybody wants to try

  #!/usr/bin/python

  import requests
  from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

  for g_id in range(76001):
      base_url = 'https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/'
      url = base_url + str(g_id)
      headers = {'Cookie': '<nf-cookies-copied-from-browser>'}
      response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
      soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'lxml')
      genre_els = soup.findAll("span", { "class" : "genreTitle" })
      if len(genre_els) > 0:
          print(str(g_id) + ',' + genre_els[0].text)

No regex? :)

It would be interesting to compare the lists based on countries.

seems pretty easy, but on my OSX machine I had to:

- install requests

- install beautifulsoup4

- still had problems with xml parser in python2.7

- python3 wouldn't recognize the requests version installed

- i gave up, looks like I need to take the time to study python web scraping from a book.

- >>> quit("ill have to try this later when I have more time")

Does this really unlock additional content? Or is it just 76000 ways to organize their catalog?

> Does this really unlock additional content? Or is it just 76000 ways to organize their catalog?

The later. It is fun sorting by those categories, for a while, but wish had they had more choices. I understand not their fault as licensing contracts are screwy. Their original stuff has been ok lately, last thing I watched was Stranger Things. Really enjoyed that.

Try Netflix's DVD service.[1] They have a far, far better selection than their streaming service.

[1] - https://dvd.netflix.com/

I should switch back to that. I started by having that, then online selection was rather decent, so dropped it. Now I even forgot that was an option. Thanks for the reminder.

On a related topic, anyone know any good hacks for disabling autoplay while browsing?

Or.. simple keyboard shortcuts, like 'f' for full-screen with the Windows 10 player? It is downright aggravating to have to use my HTPC keyboard to find the little square in the bottom right every time I start playback. (Let alone just let the app be full screen all the time).

Or ability to play a 21:9 movie natively on a 21:9 monitor, not cropped to the 16:9 area for all the pillarboxing?

For their massive budgets Netflix _amaze me_ with their lack of UX clout and ability.

Are there API's complete enough to make a player? I'd love to have an alphabetical list in stand of pictures changing position every time you go to the main page.

They'd never allow that, I'm sure. Unfortunately.

I am able to go full-screen by pressing ‘f’, using Chrome on Linux.

Yes I know, in browser the shortcuts work fine. However I'm not talking about the browser apps; I'm talking about the Win10 native app. As far as I've been able to tell, bitrate is quite limited in the Chrome player in Windows.

It should be the simplest bloody thing for someone with their resources to offer keyboard shortcuts yet they've fouled the UX up in a major way. The main thing I've got against Netflix is that you have to full size the screen to hide the start menu every single time you start playback; the app simply doesn't let you stay full screen in the movie selection screen. And... please don't get me started on the experience of using Netflix on my 21:9 monitor on my primary PC. (The mind boggles.)

Fwiw my HTPC setup is an old yet capable Win10 PC on a new 4k 65", 2500k CPU, 8gb memory (will upgrade this soon), Nvidia 960 4GB GPU, Asus XONAR HDAV 1.3 Deluxe with a 20 year old Rotel / Infinity 5.1 hifi-ish system, using a Logitech TK820 from my couch. It is a very nice setup. I will sometimes run Visual Studio on it for some code war puzzles etc.

Any way to only display things that are available for download?

Site back up

sorry the site crapped out

How are there 76000 categories but only ~15000 total titles available.

Each title belongs to about five categories on average?

> Each title belongs to about five categories on average?

Only if each category contains one title on average. More likely each title belongs to more than a hundred categories on average.

Well one movie can be in many categories. And Netflix has some pretty diverse categories (e.g. "Movies featuring an epic Nicholas Cage breakdown", which appeared once for me).

Though I suspect some of the 76000 categories contain only movies that are no longer available.

One movie can be in multiple categories.

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