WhatIsThisMovie

I built “What Is This Movie” to solve a tiny frustration I had for years

https://whatisthismovie.com

Hey everyone — I’m building What Is This Movie, a tool that helps you identify a movie from incomplete memories.

The idea started from a simple belief: no meaningful movie moment should be lost just because the title is forgotten.

A lot of us remember pieces of a film — a face, a line, a scene, an ending, a visual style — but not the exact name.

Traditional search is often frustrating for this kind of fuzzy memory.

So I built this:

What it does

You can describe anything you remember, such as:

- a scene fragment

- a quote

- an actor/director vibe

- an era or genre

- visual tone

Then the app returns the top 3 most likely movie candidates, ranked by confidence.

Why I made it

I wanted movie discovery to feel more human:

- less keyword guessing

- less scrolling through unrelated results

- faster path from “I vaguely remember this…” to “Found it.”

Current stack

- Next.js (App Router)

- TypeScript

- Tailwind CSS

- NextAuth

- TMDB API

- AI model fallback pipeline for robustness

What I’m learning

Building this taught me that:

1. People describe movies in very different ways (plot is only one of many signals).

2. Ranking quality matters more than just generating many guesses.

3. UX trust comes from clear confidence and transparent uncertainty.

What I’m looking for

I’d love feedback from the Indie Hackers community on:

- landing page clarity

- onboarding (does it explain the value fast enough?)

- result quality and confidence presentation

- growth ideas for early traffic

If you’ve ever forgotten a movie title but remembered everything else, this is exactly for you.