Find Your Next Watch With These New Netflix Codes

A Quick Rundown of How Netflix’s “Secret Codes” Came to Be

Ever wondered why Netflix has these mystical number codes like 6889 for Crime Dramas or 9994 for Mysteries? Here’s the real story:

Legacy from the DVD Era

Long before streaming took over, during its DVD-by-mail days, Netflix had a public-facing genre tree on its website.

Each genre or subgenre—no matter how niche—was assigned a unique numerical ID. This system laid the groundwork for today’s secret codes.

A Curious Fan’s Discovery

Netflix didn’t advertise these codes, but a driven fan scraped that genre tree and uncovered the numbers behind every category.

They shared this treasure trove online—and Netflix viewers have been using them ever since.

Powered by People + Algorithms

Here’s what goes on behind the scenes: Netflix employs human reviewers to tag content with shape-shifting metadata—like story elements, themes, mood, plot twists, etc.

Then algorithms analyze all that data to create micro-genres (or “alt-genres”) and new codes get added whenever Netflix sees an opportunity for a fresh niche.

There's No Native Way to Discover All The Codes

One theory on Reddit on why Netflix hasn’t “officially” promoted these codes:

“Because it’s essentially a development tool. The algorithm is a profit tool...They want to feed you the content that makes them the most money…” (a Reddit user)

In short, Netflix funnels you to algorithm-driven picks, but these codes break open the model, letting serious streamers explore the full library unfiltered.

New Hidden Category Netflix Codes