Backlot

Side panel for Netflix with the cast, on-device episode recaps, and an AI chat that knows what you're watching.

Backlot is a side panel that lives next to the Netflix player. Three tabs: Cast, Catch me up, and Ask. The panel comes in when Netflix's controls come in, holds while you're hovering it, follows the player into fullscreen, and gets out of the way when you don't want it. WHAT YOU GET Cast — actor name, character, and headshot for the title you're watching. TV episodes show the actors in that specific episode, guest stars and all. Anthology shows like Black Mirror are handled. Click any row to open the actor's IMDB page in a new tab. When TMDB has an Instagram handle on file, an IG icon shows up on the right of the row. Catch me up — a "Previously on…" recap that streams in for the last few episodes when you come back to a show after a break. Written like a friend filling you in, not a logline. Generated on your device using Chrome's built-in AI. Nothing about what you watch leaves the browser. Ask — chat about what's on screen. The chat knows the show, the episode, and your current playback timestamp. Answers stay grounded in the real cast list (no made-up actor names) and try hard not to spoil anything past where you are. Posters of other titles and photos of filming locations appear inline when the answer mentions them. Pause overlay — when you pause, Netflix's "You're watching" panel gets a horizontal row of cast cards between the synopsis and the Paused indicator. Same cast the side panel uses, no extra fetch. Toggle button in Netflix's controls row turns the panel off and on. Your choice persists across tabs and reloads. Drag the panel header to reposition it; a reset button snaps it back. PRICING Free forever: All cast features (per-episode, anthology shows, movies) Pause-overlay cast strip IMDB and Instagram links Catch me up on-device recaps 30-day Ask trial: 5 messages per day Backlot Pro — $2.99/month or $24.99/year: Everything in Free Unlimited Ask messages Sign in with email so Pro follows you across devices 7-day refund window Cancel anytime via Stripe's hosted customer portal WHAT IT DOES NOT DO It does not modify Netflix's page content. The panel lives in an isolated shadow DOM. It does not read or store anything about your Netflix account, cookies, or watch history. It does not contain ads, fingerprinting, or third-party trackers beyond the analytics described below. PRIVACY The cast lookup runs on your machine. The extension reads the public watch-page HTML to identify the title, then queries The Movie Database (TMDB) for the cast list. Recaps are generated on-device by Chrome's built-in Summarizer API. Nothing about what you watch is sent off your device by the Cast or Catch me up features. The Ask tab sends the show, episode number, current playback timestamp, and the current cast list to Backlot's own server (Cloudflare Workers) which queries an LLM (Google Gemini). It does not send your Netflix account, your cookies, your watch history, or your IP-derived identity. Each device is identified by an anonymous UUID generated locally; magic-link email sign-in is offered only if you want a paid subscription to follow you across devices. The extension also sends a small set of anonymous events to Google Analytics for aggregate usage measurement (install volume, success rates, feature usage). These events do not include the title, your viewing history, or any identifier that can be linked back to you. Full breakdown: https://trybacklot.com/privacy.html PERMISSIONS, IN PLAIN LANGUAGE Access to netflix.com — the panel lives inside Netflix watch pages and reads the public title metadata from the page HTML. Access to themoviedb.org and image.tmdb.org — for the cast lookup and the actor headshot images shown in the panel. Access to google-analytics.com — for the anonymous usage events described under Privacy. Storage — to cache cast results locally (so the second visit to a title is instant), remember the panel's on/off state, and persist the anonymous device UUID. Alarms — to schedule a daily local cache eviction sweep, so old cached cast results don't accumulate. COMPATIBILITY Requires Chrome 105 or newer. Activates on netflix.com watch pages only — does nothing on /browse, /title, or your home feed. NOT AFFILIATED Not affiliated with Netflix, Inc. All product names and trademarks referenced are property of their respective owners. Cast data is sourced from TMDB; this product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Built and maintained by Nimit Bhargava — https://nimit.dev