It’s Saturday night, the kids are in bed and it’s time to “Netflix and chill” (in my house that usually means watch the first half of a movie and fall asleep on the couch).
He says: “What do you want to watch?”
I say: “I don’t know, what do you want to watch?”
Then the scrolling begins.
Netflix shows it’s offerings in a curated format, which is worked out by algorithms and based on what’s been added recently, what you watched lasted and other popular choices based on genre.
Once you’ve scrolled through the 75 or so offerings in the category, you are back at the beginning. But have you ever wondered what happens to the programs that drop off the list?
Netflix have a massive back catalogue that can be accessed. Obviously if you are searching for a specific title you can type that in the search function, or you can browse the genre section but once again this is a limited to about 17 categories.
Unbeknownst to many, there are a mind-boggling amount of genres and subgenres that you can search for on Netflix.
Would you believe that Deep Sea Horror Movies were a thing? Or what about Cerebral Experimental Movies? I’m not sure I even know what that means.
So how do you access all these hidden delights? The answer is suitably mysterious: A secret code!!
Each category has a numeric code that you can search for.
For example some of our faves are:
- Australian Movies (5230)
- Cult Comedies (9434)
- Disney (67673)
- Gangster Movies (31851)
- Quirky Romance (36103)
But honestly this is just a tiny sample. Here is the full list, including a wide range of subcategories for family and kids.
To a be able to access the back catalogue using the codes, you need to be logged into Netflix via a web browser. You can do this via the web browser on your Smart TV, computer or other device.
Once you are logged into Netflix you can either click through the link on the list above (if you have have it open in another tab) OR type in the following in the browser toolbar: https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/XXXX
XXXX stands for the numeric code of the genre you are looking for.
And hey presto, your viewing choices have just grown exponentially.
Of course, for me this presents a new problem – there is a very good chance I will fall asleep while he’s still scrolling!
Happy viewing.
