A browser extension (Chrome, Brave, Edge, any Chromium browser) that turns YouTube into a cinematic, Netflix-style experience.
Netflix mode (Home screen)
- Full-screen hero that autoplays a preview of the selected video (starts at a "trailer" point, muted by default)
- Hover any card to make it the hero; preview starts almost instantly
- Rows: Recommended for You, Continue Watching (with progress bars), New from Subscriptions, Watch Later
- Scroll up/down (or ↑ ↓) to switch rows, swipe sideways to scroll a row, ← → to pick a video, Enter to play, M for sound
- Top bar hidden until you move the mouse to the top edge
- A different featured video on every visit
- Smooth hand-off when you press Play: the screen dims like a cinema and crossfades into the video page
Theater mode (new video layout)
- Videos open in theater mode automatically (can be turned off), and the layout is in place from the first frame, with no jumping while the page loads
- The video fills most of the window (size adjustable)
- Title appears over the video when you move the mouse
- A dark glass panel under the video with the channel, views and date, and the like / share / save buttons, scaled to fit
- Click the chapter name in the player and that panel turns into a row of chapter cards: see every chapter at a glance, jump to one with a click, and watch the current one fill up (✕ or Esc to close)
- Recommendations become a Home-style row of cards below the fold; description and comments go full width
Ambient light
- The video's colours glow around the player like an Ambilight TV; the light on each side comes from that side of the picture
- Black-bar removal: widescreen films with black bars baked in still glow above and below (the light comes from the real picture edge, not the bars)
- Adjustable spread, blur and strength; optionally only in theater mode
- Light on the battery: tiny canvas, at most 30 fps, GPU blur
Also
- Works with YouTube set to light or dark, without page reloads
- Remembers where you stopped in every video and resumes there
- Hover previews are kept out of your watch history; only videos you open count
- Optional: hide Shorts everywhere
The extension isn't on the Chrome Web Store; you load it yourself (takes a minute):
- Download the latest
CinematicForYouTube-vX.Y.Z.zipfrom Releases and unzip it. (Or click the green Code button → Download ZIP.) (Or:git clone https://github.com/gdorgian/CinematicForYouTube.git) - Open your browser's extensions page:
- Brave:
brave://extensions - Chrome:
chrome://extensions - Edge:
edge://extensions
- Brave:
- Turn on Developer mode (top-right toggle).
- Click Load unpacked and select the unzipped
CinematicForYouTubefolder (the one that containsmanifest.json). - Pin the extension (puzzle-piece icon) and open YouTube. Sign in to YouTube for the Home rows to fill.
Updating: download the new version, replace the folder, then click the reload arrow on the Cinematic card in the extensions page and refresh YouTube.
Click the extension icon:
- Enable Cinematic — everything on/off
- Netflix mode — the Home screen (+ previews with sound)
- Theater mode — the new video layout (+ open videos in theater mode, video size)
- Ambient light — glow around videos (+ only in theater mode, remove black bars, spread, blur, strength)
- Hide Shorts everywhere
Netflix mode and Theater mode are independent: use either one or both.
Everything runs locally in your browser. No servers, no analytics, no accounts. Settings sync through your browser's own extension storage; resume positions are kept in your browser's local storage on youtube.com.
- Inspired by the "Cinematic for YouTube" extension. This is an independent rebuild, not affiliated with it.
- The ambient-light technique (edge layers + fade) follows the approach of youtube-ambilight by Wessel Kroos; the code here is a separate, lightweight implementation.
- Not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube, Google or Netflix. YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC; Netflix is a trademark of Netflix, Inc.
MIT — see LICENSE.