Theaters are back, and they're all yours.
Cardinal Cinema is a free, self-hosted movie and TV streaming platform for your personal library. Bring your friends and watch together in a theater, or keep it simple with a familiar Netflix-esque UI.
Features
A home screen for your collection
Watch Now
A home screen of what you were watching, the latest movies, and new episodes grouped by show and season.
Movies
Every movie in one grid, sorted and filtered by genre or title.
TV shows
Shows, seasons and episodes, with your progress through each one.
Versions, editions and extras
Keep 4K and 1080p copies, a director's cut, multi-part films, trailers and featurettes together under one title.
Unsorted shelf
Files that don't match the naming rules are still indexed, and still play.
Collections
Group movies and shows into sagas and box sets.
Always picks up where you left off
Continue Watching
Your place is saved as you watch, every few seconds and on every pause.
Next Up
The next episode of every show in progress, ready to play.
Resume on any device
Start on one screen, finish on another. Progress follows the account, not the browser.
Private history
Each account keeps its own history. Entries can be removed, and survive a re-index.
A player that stays out of the way
Picture-in-picture
Videos play in floating windows that drag, resize and snap to the corners while you keep browsing.
Subtitles
SRT, VTT, ASS and SSA files beside the video, with language, forced and SDH tracks labelled.
Direct play
Files stream exactly as they are, at full quality, with no work for the server.
Keyboard shortcuts
Play, pause, seek, mute, captions and fullscreen, all from the keyboard.
Plain-language warnings
When a browser can't play a file, Cinema says so instead of showing a black screen.
Transcoding
Convert any file on the fly, with hardware acceleration, so every format plays everywhere.
Your files are the source of truth
Named, not scraped
Folder and file names decide what each title is. Nothing is guessed, and nothing is looked up online.
Episodes and specials
S01E01 naming, multi-episode files and Season 0 specials are all understood.
Artwork
Posters, backdrops and episode stills from image files beside the video or embedded in it.
Embedded details
Descriptions, genres and release dates are read from the file's own tags.
Media details
Resolution, codecs, audio tracks, chapters and HDR format, including HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision.
Common formats
MKV, MP4, M4V, MOV and WebM.
Movie night for the whole household
Unlimited accounts
Everyone gets their own Watch Now, history and progress.
Roles
Decide who can browse, who can play and what each account keeps.
Cardinal Account sign-in
Optionally sign in with a Cardinal Account instead of a password.
Theaters
Watch together in sync, with friends in the room or across the country.
Works with Cardinal Cloud
Optional services that extend a self-hosted stack.
Get help with Cardinal Cinema
Guides for every feature, from first install to everyday use.
Visit the Help Site