Why I built Watchlist Boosted

I built this because I was frustrated with Netflix.

I knew I had saved a soccer documentary. I could not find it. My List had no sort, no filter, and no way to see everything I had saved in one place. What I got instead was an infinite scroll of whatever Netflix wanted to push that week.

It felt broken. I wanted to see what was actually on my list, and which of those titles had good scores on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and the other review sites, so I could make a better call on what to watch.

The Netflix home screen is not built to show you your list. It is built to show you theirs.

That is fine for them. It is not fine when you have two hundred titles saved and no way to ask a simple question like “which of these is under two hours?” or “which ones are actually rated well?”

So the first version was just that. My Netflix list, with the Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb scores next to every title, sorted and filtered my way. Better information, better decisions.

Then came sharing.

Back in the early 2000s I would go to the video store with two or three friends. We would spend half the night trying to pick a film. They wanted one thing, I wanted another, and we went back and forth until somebody gave up.

Put two watchlists next to each other and you get a Venn diagram. Their picks on one side, yours on the other, and in the middle the stuff you both actually want to watch.

It is not perfect. But now you are choosing from a shortlist you both already said yes to, and that makes the whole thing much easier.

Two people picking a film is hard. Three or more is where it really falls apart.

Every extra person brings their own list, their own mood and their own veto. The group chat fills up with trailers and “maybe this one?”, and whoever cares least ends up choosing.

Share your watchlist with a few friends and the overlap does that work for you. The middle gets smaller with every person, but everything in it is something the whole group already wants to see. Nobody has to argue their case, and nobody sits through a film they never wanted.

Sharing is set to 7 days of access, so it does not have to be permanent. Share it for movie night or a weekend away, and after a week it closes on its own.

The other problem was mood.

My wife usually wants something lighter. I usually want something more intense. And when I watch with my son I want to skip anything heavy on violence or sex, however good it is.

Genre does not answer any of that. “Drama” tells you almost nothing about how a film will leave you feeling. So titles here are tagged by mood, and you can filter your own list by it.

Keep in mind, mood tagging is not perfect. Films are unpredictable, and the good ones can affect you in ways nobody saw coming. But it is a better starting point than genre.

Once it stopped being only about Netflix, the shape of it changed.

There is a principle in David Allen's Getting Things Done: capture everything, completely. A list you only half trust is a list you stop using.

Netflix only ever holds part of your watchlist. There are films coming out that will never be on Netflix. There are shows in other catalogues, and things a friend mentioned over dinner. If those live somewhere else, or nowhere, the list is not really yours.

So this became one place for all of it. Hear about a film, add it. Start a series, add it. Then see where each one is streaming right now.

I tried the other sites that do this. Letterboxd, Trakt, a few more.

They lean on ads, and the streaming info is padded. “Available on Prime Video for an extra $4.99” is not available on Prime Video.

If I pay for Prime, I want to know what I can press play on tonight at no extra charge. That is what shows here. Nothing more.

You can also mark things as watched.

That gives you a history going forward. Some people enjoy that for its own sake. For me it is practical. With enough films and series behind you, you forget what you have seen. A list of what you watched is worth more than it sounds a couple of years in.

Watched and not watched does not cover everything.

Sometimes you start a series, get three episodes in, and it is just not for you. Or you stop a film halfway because it is late and you are not in the mood. It is not watched. But it is not really on your list any more either. Leaving it there clutters the list, and marking it watched makes your history wrong.

So there is a Graveyard. Choose Stopped watching and note roughly where you got to: a time for a film, a season and episode for a series. Add why, if you like. It leaves your list and On Deck, and your history stays accurate.

If you change your mind, pick it back up. It goes back On Deck and tells you where to resume. And if you use Simkl, anything you drop there lands in the Graveyard too.

Here is the funny part. I built a watchlist tool, and I do not get much time to watch films.

That made it matter more, not less. When I do get a free evening I want a good pick. Something I can watch with the family, or something worth watching alone. I do not have time for a mediocre film.

So before I press play I want to know: has it won anything? What is it about? What is the mood? Is it worth two hours I will not get back?

Maybe you have plenty of time to watch. It still helps. Even a 20 percent better decision, made every time you sit down, adds up to a lot more nights you were glad you picked what you picked.

This site is free. I do not charge for it, and my intention is that it stays that way for everyone.

It does cost me money to run. If you find it useful and you have the means, you can buy me a coffee. I would appreciate that. If not, use it anyway. That is the point.

I am a solo developer. I built this because it is what I wanted, and it turned out other people wanted it too.

I think I have fixed the watchlist problem, at least for me.

If it fixes it for you too, share it with the people you watch with. Your partner, your friends, the group chat that can never agree on a film. It works better when their list is in here as well.

I hope this helps you find films that amaze you. Peace, and happy watching.

Andrew