Whilst browsing for movies on Netflix this weekend, I started to ponder why they didn’t offer the ability to apply more complex filters to their browsing experience, akin to letting the user generate their own database queries for what they’re interested in seeing. Netflix is certainly technically capable. Rather than jumping over to their blogs to pose such a question, which would probably end up unanswered, I took it upon myself to put together a small little jQuery script, that when executed via the Firefox extension GreaseMonkey, would offer the user two things to improve their browsing experience:

1. The ability to hide movies Netflix presumes we won’t like. After all, if Netflix presumes we won’t like them, and you’ve given them enough data points (ratings), then isn’t it technically a waste of time to look at them?
2. The ability to hide movies that were made before 2000. Yes I know, what a horrible thing to do, for there are tons of masterpieces before the year 2000, but I’m particularly picky about production quality and enjoy the faster pace of today’s movies.

jQuery Script

// ==UserScript==
// @name           Netflix - Show me the good stuff!
// @namespace      http://ChristopherBallLLC.com
// @include        http://*netflix.com/*
// @require        http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js
// ==/UserScript==

// ==Credits==
// Author          Christopher M. Ball
// Website         http://ChristopherBallLLC.com
// Date Authored   5/28/11
// Version         1.0
// ==/Credits==

$(function(){
	//When browsing in gallery or sortable list mode, hiding all movies (or movie rows) with a best guess rating of anything less than 3 stars.
	$("[class*=sbmf-1]").closest(".agMovie").hide();
	$("[class*=sbmf-2]").closest(".agMovie").hide();

	//When browsing in sortable list mode, hiding all movie rows made before the year 2000.
	$(".year").each(function(){
		if ($(this).text().toString().search(new RegExp(/1(8|9)\d\d/i)) != -1)
			$(this).closest(".agMovie").hide();
	});
});

Now back to the movies…
Chris