Netflix Secret Categories

I use Netflix a lot to try to watch material in my target languages. It can be hard for me to locate material in my target languages, especially because I mainly am uninterested in anime TV shows, but I do enjoy all kinds of animated films.

Previously, I have been trying to locate shows on Netflix based on searching for audio in my target languages

https://www.netflix.com/browse/audio

But, this pulls up a lot of things that are dubbed into my target languages. I find dubs to be somewhat undesirable because I know how unnatural dubs sometimes are in my native language, and I have every reason to think the quality of dubs will be worse in other languages.

By using the secret codes, I can find material that was produced in my target languages originally.

Here is an article at Mashable explaining what the secret categories are: https://mashable.com/article/netflix-search-codes/#uyaD2Hr.rmqC

Basically the URL is:

http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/###

And ### = the code number

The list at Mashable is not exhaustive. For example: I was able to find Japanese Movies & TV 100385 by clicking around Japanese Movies.

There are some cases where Netflix only has an English dub available for a work originally in one of my target languages.

I took the liberty of going thru the list at Mashable and pulling out any categories that might be useful for language learners.

African Movies: 3761

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

Asian Action Movies: 77232

British Movies: 10757

British TV Shows: 52117

Chinese Movies: 3960

Dutch Movies: 10606

Eastern European Movies: 5254

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

German Movies: 58886

Greek Movies: 61115

Indian Movies: 10463

Irish Movies: 58750

Italian Movies: 8221

Japanese Movies: 10398

Korean Movies: 5685

Korean TV Shows: 67879

Latin American Movies: 1613

Latin Music: 10741

Middle Eastern Movies: 5875

Romantic Foreign Movies: 7153

Russian: 11567

Scandinavian Movies: 9292

Southeast Asian Movies: 9196

Spanish Movies: 58741

World Music Concerts: 2856

That's awesome! Netflix has an amazing amount of stuff available in foreign languages. Question - have you ever started watching something in one language and come back the next day to find that your language is no longer available? This happened to me, and I have no idea how to stop it or get it back. It's possible they dropped it right right after I started watching it I suppose.

Netflix is truly weird when it comes to this stuff. I think it has to do with licensing.

For me, the most successful way so far to know that something will have original language audio AND subtitles is to look specifically for Netflix originals produced in my target languages. For whatever reason, these ones seem to keep all options available to me (so far)

Nice! I didn't know about this. Thanks for sharing!