Help
How FlikRank works, what each control does, and the rough edges worth knowing about.
Quick start
FlikRank helps you discover movies by narrowing TMDB's catalog with filters, then ordering what's left by sort criteria you choose.
- Use the Filters above the results to narrow the pool — by genre, year, language, actor, etc.
- Use the Sort Criteria panel on the left to choose how the remaining films are ordered. Only one criterion at a time.
- Click any movie card to open its details. The detail modal has a “Play Trailer” button when a YouTube trailer is available.
- All filter and sort preferences are saved in your browser automatically.
Filters
Filters narrow the pool of candidate movies before sorting. Most filters apply at the TMDB level; a couple happen client-side (noted).
Title search
Free-text search by movie title. When active, other filters are ignored — TMDB's text search ignores discovery filters.
Genres
Click once to include, twice to exclude, a third time to clear. Multiple includes are joined with OR (“Action OR Comedy”). Excludes are an AND-NOT (movies must not match any excluded genre). Both can be combined: “Action OR Comedy, but not Horror.”
Release Year
Dual-handle range slider. Films released between the two years (inclusive).
Runtime
Dual-handle range slider. Films with runtime in the selected range. Films missing runtime data are excluded by TMDB.
User Score
Dual-handle range. Films with a TMDB user-score average in the selected band. Useful for finding hidden gems (high min) or guilty pleasures (low max).
Minimum Votes
Filters out films with fewer than N TMDB votes. Useful: a film rated 10.0 with 4 votes isn't actually a 10.0. Setting min votes to 500-1000 filters out a lot of statistical noise.
Content Rating (US)
Same 3-state pill pattern as Genres. TMDB's certification filter is hierarchical (G < PG < PG-13 < R < NC-17), so non-contiguous selections get widened to a range.
Original Language
The language the film was originally produced in. “Parasite” is Korean, “Inception” is English. Distinct from Country of Origin.
Country of Origin
Where the film was produced. A French-language film made by a US-French co-production has both. Distinct from Original Language.
Actors & Actresses
Search for actors. Click “+ Include” or “- Exclude” on dropdown results. Multiple includes are joined with AND (films must star all of them). Excludes are filtered client-side via the actor's filmography.
Advanced section (toggle at the bottom of filters) adds: Director, Writer, Production Company, Keywords / Themes, and Release Type. Each follows the same Include / Exclude pattern.
Sort criteria
Sort criteria orders the filtered results. Only one criterion is active at a time. Clicking the active criterion deselects it (results fall back to TMDB's default order).
User Score
Higher: films with the highest TMDB user score first. Lower: inverse — useful for finding so-bad-it's-good viewing.
Runtime
Longer or shorter first. Uses TMDB's runtime metadata.
Release Date
Newest or oldest first.
Box Office
Big Budget: highest revenue first. Small/Indie: lowest first. When TMDB has no revenue data for a film, its popularity score is used as a proxy.
Tips & limitations worth knowing
- Director and Writer filters are job-agnostic. TMDB's crew filter matches anyone in the crew with that name, not specifically directors or writers. For famous names this is almost always fine (Christopher Nolan is virtually always credited as director), but it can occasionally surface a film where the person was a producer or editor.
- Excluding actors filters client-side.TMDB doesn't expose a way to exclude actors via its discover endpoint, so FlikRank pre-fetches each excluded person's filmography and filters results locally. The visible result count can come in slightly under 20 per page if several films were filtered out.
- Min Votes is your friend. Without it, sorting by rating (high) often surfaces obscure films with a handful of perfect scores. Setting Min Votes to 500-1000 dramatically improves rating-driven sorts.
- Content Rating uses the US system.Films without a US certification record might pass through cert filters (or get excluded) inconsistently. International rating systems aren't represented.
- Trailers are YouTube-only.If a movie's trailer is hosted elsewhere (Vimeo, etc.) or not in TMDB's video catalog, the Trailer button won't appear.
- User Score shown on cards is TMDB's.It reflects TMDB user consensus, not your personal taste. A personal-rating system isn't built yet.
- Genre includes use OR; actor includes use AND. Multiple selected genres broaden the result set; multiple selected actors narrow it. Excludes always narrow.
About + attribution
FlikRank is a movie discovery tool by Mic Drop Ventures. It uses TMDB's API for movie data and is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
See themoviedb.org for the underlying database.