Partway through 500 Days of Summer, a movie I liked, there was a glimpse of a movie I liked even more: a black-and-white Felliniesque clip in French. In the darkened theater, my friend leaned over and said, “You would totally watch that movie.” I would, and I bet I’m not alone.
It’s this sort of thinking that led web designer Lynn Fisher to create Nestflix, a site that looks a lot like Netflix but instead holds the faux shows and movies nested within real shows and movies. Each fake submission is given true care, with a genre, rating, runtime, synopsis, cast list, and “you might also like” suggestions.
Browsing through it, you’re tempted to click play. Who doesn’t want to see all two hours and 23 minutes of Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei in the drama The Dogwalker? Alas, only Amy Schumer and John Cena got to watch it in the fictional world of Trainwreck.
Fisher created Nestflix as a side project while she’s looking for full-time work, and it’s become an all-consuming passion, not just of hers but of its newfound fans who flood her submission form with requests. After getting caught up in the could-have-beens, we had some things we wanted to ask her ourselves. (Interview edited for clarity and length.)
How did you come up with this idea?My main hobby outside of work is making weird websites. And so I’ve been focusing on sites that collect a lot of scattered data. And because I’m a movie and TV nerd, a lot of them are Hollywood-focused. I’m excited about Schitt’s CreekSchitt’s Creek, The Good PlaceThe Good Place, and Top ChefTop Chef. So I was looking for my next thing, and I have a list of interesting things that I like about movies and TV, and one of them was films within films.
I think it goes back to when I learned that Angels With Filthy SoulsAngels With Filthy Souls from Home AloneHome Alone was a fake movie. I think that kind of blows everyone’s mind when they learn that because they did it so well. You know that Leonardo DiCaprio meme [from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood] where he’s pointing at the TV? That’s like me when there’s a film within a film or a big TV show.
So I was noodling on it for a while, and then YouTuber Patrick Willems made a video about fictional films in films. I saw that and, it sparked me. Like, OK, this could be a cool project. And so I did some research [to see] how many are we talking here? Could it be a cool site? And there are tons, so I dove in and went from there.
Were you keeping a list this whole time, or did you just have the idea in the background and then started this list?I just had the idea, with ones that stood out in my brain, like Home Alone, Galaxy Quest, [and] Wayne’s World. And then most recently, Schitt’s Creek had Sunrise BaySunrise Bay and The Crows Have EyesThe Crows Have Eyes, the movie that Moira does. They actually released a trailer for it, which was really cool. So those were fresh in my brain, but I didn’t start the big list until I [realized it was] going be a project.
Did you watch a bunch of movies and shows or did you Google to find them? I did a lot of Googling. There’s a really incomplete list on Wikipedia that I started with and then there’s a whole bunch of ‘best movies within movies’ listicle-type articles, so I looked at a bunch of those and made a list. Then I Googled shows where I knew there would be a lot, like Family Guy and The Simpsons, and I looked at Fandom.com. All those wikis were super helpful.
Then there were some where I knew there’s some in the show but I can’t find any info on them, so I would scrub through different episodes to see if I could find it. Lots of watching on various streaming platforms and [other] places.
How many streaming services do you subscribe to?I subscribe to all the major ones: Prime, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney+, and then for this, I exhausted all of my free trials for all the other ones, so I could save as much as I could. I tracked where each of these were streaming, so I’d have a week to do all the Starz ones, [for example], before I could cancel my free trial. But now I see a lot of people have submitted new titles, and I’m in the position where if I want to watch them, I have to pay for a month because my free trial is gone, which is fine, it’s not that much money, but I need to be smart with it.
How long did this whole project take?It took just about two months. I started in early June, more or less.
Have you heard from Netflix at all?Oh, no, no. It’s good. I was really nervous, specifically with like a Netflix-themed name. If I called it something else, I wouldn’t be so nervous. It’s close, but I haven’t heard anything so that’s probably good. Like, they’re not going to give me a cease and desist or anything. Hopefully they have a sense of humor about it.
I think they would, or they should at least be like, hey we should hire this person. Yeah, that’d be cool.
What’s the best reaction you’ve gotten so far?Oh man, I don’t know it’s been overwhelming. For sure just the volume, so that’s really cool like in terms of how far it’s spread. It’s definitely the project I’ve done that has gone the farthest. I think what’s funny is lots of TV writers have reached out, pointing out ones I missed or asking their fandoms to submit from their shows.
How many titles are on the spreadsheet now from people who want to see other movies and shows in there?Initially I had close to 700, and I’ve been slowly crawling through it and removing duplicates among some of the ones that were submitted. I put the criteria on the site of what qualifies but people don’t read, so sometimes, I have to eliminate. They’re just not quite what I’m looking for. But I’m at about 550 now.
How many are on the site currently?About 450. I’m at the point where it’s pretty substantial as it is, and I’m OK [acknowledging that there] are just some of these I’m never going to get to. I actually pulled some. I’m still noodling a little bit, but I think I’ve decided that I’m not going to include titles from comedy sketch shows. There are so many from SNL and Mr. Show. They’re just one-off kind of sketches, so they don’t thematically fit. But also I need to get a job soon, so I’m going to have to [set boundaries].
Are there any of the titles that you would want to watch in their entirety?I think Galaxy QuestGalaxy Quest for sure. I love sci-fi and nerdy sci-fi stuff. And so Inspector SpacetimeInspector Spacetime, that Doctor Who kind of parody from Community, I would totally watch that. Looking for LaToya from Insecure is like a true crime documentary. I like those kinds of miniseries, so that would be totally something I would watch. The game show ones especially are silly and out there, but all the reality shows we have now are also kind of going that way. It’s funny that a lot of [the Nestflix selections] maybe are really more realistic than I was thinking.
