About Movie Rabbit Hole
A stats site for movies, in the spirit of Baseball-Reference: every film and every person, cross-linked, with the numbers and where they came from. Plus a dozen daily games, built on the same data.
Who's behind it
One film fan who wanted this to exist, building it in the open with the help of the members of this beta. It isn't owned by a studio, a streaming service or an ad company, and it isn't for sale. Every improvement since day one has come from what members have reported and asked for; What's new shows them, with credit.
What you can count on
- Your data is yours. We keep as little as we can, never sell it, and you can take it or delete it any time (Privacy).
- No tracking, ever. Not now, not when ads arrive.
- Honesty about the numbers. Every figure carries its source and date, and where the data is thin, the page says so.
- Your contributions stay yours. Add a disc, a correction, or one day your art, and you keep the copyright and get the credit (Terms).
- We listen. Every piece of feedback is read by a person, and you can follow what happens to yours.
What it costs to run
We'd rather you know. Here's the actual bill:
| What | For | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Server | Hostinger KVM 2 virtual server in Boston | $9.99 a month for the first year, then $16.99 |
| Domain name | movierabbithole.com at Namecheap | about $15 a year |
| Subtitles for dialogue stats | OpenSubtitles API, one month, once | $50 (one-off) |
| Ask (the question box) | Claude by Anthropic, per question | a fraction of a cent each; admins only in the beta |
| Data licences | IMDb and TMDb for commercial use, needed before any ads or paid tier | not yet negotiated |
| Time | building and running it | unpaid, gladly |
The big unknown is the data licences: IMDb's and TMDb's data are free for non-commercial use only, so before the site can carry a single ad or sell anything, it needs commercial licences from both.
How it will pay for itself
During the beta, everything is free and there are no ads. After the beta:
- Free for everyone, supported by ads. The film pages, leaderboards and daily games stay free. The ads will be chosen by the page they're on, never by who you are; no ad network trackers, served from our own server, and your activity is never used for advertising.
- An optional paid tier with premium features and no ads at all, for people who want more and want to help keep the lights on.
- Beta members are thanked. Founding members keep their badge for good, and points earned now count toward Premium (how rewards work).
Nothing that's free now moves behind the paywall. New premium features will be new.
How you can help
- Tell us what's wrong. A wrong number, a broken page, a game answer that should have counted: Feedback.
- Add what you know. Disc releases, corrections, and soon artwork for the card game.
- Bring a friend who loves movies as much as you do.