I can’t tell you how many times my family and I spend over an hour looking for something to watch. It seems whenever we open Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or HBO Max, we see the same titles over and over again. These services have thousands of movies ready for us to watch, yet we don’t know how to find them all.

Netflix for example has over 3,000 movies on its service, yet when we browse the titles, we’re only seeing 100 or so appear on the screen. If you don’t know what you can watch, you won’t know what you want to watch.

Netflix has secret codes that can help you find exactly what you want to spend the evening watching. 

Thousands of genres and sub-genres are given codes, or numbers so that Netflix can easily index them into the categories you have the option to browse. Netflix doesn’t make those codes accessible but they can be found in several places online. I’ve got a good portion of the codes on my blog http://whatthetech.tv/netflix-secret-codes/

Let’s say you’re looking for a super-scary Halloween movie. Netflix has compiled a category for Halloween but it doesn’t include everything. By browsing the codes I see there is an entire sub-genre of foreign horror films. Another sub-genre for cult horror films. I can copy and paste that code, 10944 into the Netflix search bar where I will see every movie within that genre appear on the screen. 

Without the secret code, I might never know that “Piranha”, or “The Devil Below” are viewable on Netflix. 

There are sub-genres for every type of movie under the sun. Over 27,000 sub-genres I’ve found so far. Some have no movies at the moment but when Netflix adds one with that code it will appear in the search results.

This is an excellent way to find hidden gems you’d otherwise never know existed on Netflix.

It’s also great for finding something in the hundreds of titles of Christmas movies and all of their sub-genres. I’ve found it’s easier to search for these codes on a computer or mobile device, enter it into the Netflix app search bar to see what’s there. Then, search for that movie on the television where Netflix is installed.

There’s also a way to find movies of specific genres within other streaming services such as Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, and even Pluto and Tubi. The smartphone app “Just Watch” can search for genres only in the services to which you subscribe. Just select all of your available services and search for the genre to see the results that include the title and where you can watch.

Here’s a link where you can find those secret codes:

Netflix Secret Codes