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Netflix wasn’t the first streaming platform, but it was the first to make video-on-demand mainstream. Fourteen years ago, as it phased out its mailing service, it took a massive bite out of the global market.
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Remember that? Physical DVDs showing up in your actual mailbox — the one at the end of your driveway (or your hallway)? To my surprise, that was still actually a thing up until late 2023. Whaaat?
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You can find special cheat codes to unlock more content on resources like Netflix-Codes and the website What’s On Netflix. Either is a good place to start massively multiplying your viewing options. The categories associated with these codes range everywhere from “Deep Sea Horror Movies” (code 45028) to very specific subgenres like “Feel-good Sports Movies for Ages 8 to 10” (code 855).
You can scroll through these categories alphabetically, or put keywords in the Search field.
What’s On Netflix
This is all to say that we have many more options on Netflix than we’re accustomed to seeing when we open the app.
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The steps below outline how to access Netflix’s additional categories on your Mac, PC, or tablet from the Netflix website.
- On your device, go to the Netflix website and log in.
- In another browser window, open What’s On Netflix.
- In the prompt of your first tab, enter: https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/.
- Over on the tab with What’s On Netflix, select your desired code, and place it at the end of the URL. For example, the “Fantasy Anime” subgenre code is 11146, so I altered the URL to read: https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/11146.
- Choose your title from the selection there and click play.
Then, once you’ve identified a movie or show you want to watch, add it to your queue and find it on the app. To do this, tap My List, then go to TV Shows & Movies to see your selections. Ultimately, while you might not be able to use the codes directly on the Netflix app, you can still use them to discover new content and then watch it on the app later.
How many movies do the Netflix codes unlock?
With over 4,100 distinct codes to date, I wish I could tell you precisely how many titles this equates to, but that figure fluctuates according to the region you live in. Best estimates suggest the US catalog includes upward of 6,700 titles (movies and series) — with over 50 percent of those being Netflix Originals.