The idea
CineLume was born from a simple observation: no existing app directly answered my daily question, what's coming out this week at the movies that I want to see?
The dominant apps are built around other use cases: Letterboxd is a social viewing journal, Trakt is a paid episodic tracker, IMDb is a database saturated with ads. None optimize for "weekly release agenda + personal watchlist without an account".
Three concrete needs
- See what's released this week at the cinema, filtered by country
- Mark films I'm interested in (heart / bookmark) without account or sign-up
- Get a notification on the day they're released
Everything else — custom lists, swipe selector, random pick, Letterboxd import, link sharing, watched-film tracking, Mon Calendrier, Mon Année cinéma, Mon Wrapped — derives organically from these three needs.
Why also track what you've watched?
CineLume started as a pure upcoming-release tracker. But once you've watched a film you were following, a natural question comes up: now what? Nothing, in the original version — the film simply vanished from the watchlist.
Mon Calendrier, Mon Année cinéma and Mon Wrapped answer that, without trying to become a social watch-journal. No public ratings, no reviews, no community, no activity feed from other users: just your own history, presented with care (a real calendar with posters in the day cells, a shareable Wrapped-style recap). CineLume stays complementary to a tool like Letterboxd, not a competitor — it answers "what's coming out that I want to see" and "what have I watched and when", not "what did I think of it".
Deliberate technical choices
No backend
CineLume has no server. All user data (favorites, watchlist, lists, preferences) is stored in the browser's localStorage. No database. No private API endpoint. This constraint makes tracking impossible, data leaks impossible, and commercial models based on ads or subscriptions unnecessary.
No ads
No banners. No interstitials. No tracking pixels. No telemetry. The experience is entirely clean. With zero infra cost (GitHub Pages hosts for free), there's no reason to inflict ads on users.
No sign-up
No email, no password, no account. Open the app and use it immediately. Since everything is local, you can export your watchlist in Letterboxd CSV format at any time to migrate elsewhere, or share it via link.
Progressive Web App
CineLume runs in any modern browser and can be installed on the home screen of iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and Linux. Offline mode via Service Worker (Workbox). The installed experience is equivalent to a native app.
Open source
The code is public under MIT license, auditable and forkable. No obfuscation, no hidden telemetry. If I disappear tomorrow, anyone can continue the project or fork their own.
Data sources
Movie information comes from TMDB (The Movie Database), a community-driven open database founded in 2008, covering 800,000+ movies. Streaming platform availability is provided by JustWatch via TMDB.
No data is invented or scraped: everything goes through official public APIs.
Tech stack
React 19 · Vite 7 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · Zustand · TanStack Query · Framer Motion · i18next · Workbox PWA · HashRouter · Sonner.
Code-splitting of modals (lazy loading + preload at idle), NetworkFirst service worker for TMDB APIs, CacheFirst for images. Initial bundle ~190 KB gzip.