mov-cli

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Watch movies from your terminal — ani-cli for movies.

mov-cli is a zero-install, cross-platform CLI written in TypeScript on the Bun runtime. Search for a movie, pick a result, choose a quality, and it opens the stream in your local media player (mpv, VLC, or IINA) — no browser tabs, no ads.

Demo

Demo GIF coming soon

Requirements

• Bun ≥ 1.1 or Node.js ≥ 18
• A media player: mpv (recommended), VLC, or IINA (macOS)
• Playwright Chromium — auto-installed on first run

Quick Start

# With Bun
bunx mov-cli

# With Node / npx
npx mov-cli

# Install globally (optional)
bun add -g mov-cli
npm install -g mov-cli

Usage

Running mov-cli with no arguments starts interactive mode:

1. Type a movie title to search.
2. Pick a result from the numbered list.
3. Choose a stream quality (or let it pick the best).
4. The stream opens in your detected player.
5. When the player closes, search for another or quit.

CLI flags

| Flag | Alias | Default | Description | |------|-------|---------|-------------| | --player | -p | auto-detect | Force a specific player (mpv, vlc, cvlc, iina) | | --provider | -P | cineby | Scraping provider to use | | --quality | -q | best | Preferred quality (best, 1080p, 720p, 480p) | | --no-headless | | (headless) | Show the Playwright browser window (debugging) | | --debug | -d | false | Verbose debug logging | | --version | -v | | Print version and exit | | --list-players | | false | Print detected players and exit | | --list-providers | | false | Print available providers and exit |

Examples

# Force VLC and prefer 720p
mov-cli --player vlc --quality 720p

# Use the fallback provider with a visible browser window
mov-cli --provider vidsrc --no-headless --debug

# Just check what's installed
mov-cli --list-players
mov-cli --list-providers

Environment variables

| Variable | Effect | |----------|--------| | MOV_CLI_DEBUG=1 | Same as --debug; enables verbose logging to stderr |

Configuration

mov-cli stores preferences at:

~/.config/mov-cli/config.json

| Key | Description | |-----|-------------| | player | Last detected/selected player binary | | provider | Preferred provider | | quality | Preferred quality | | tmdbApiKey | Your own TMDB API key (used by the vidsrc provider for search) |

The file is created automatically. Add a tmdbApiKey to avoid the shared demo key's rate limits.

Providers

| Provider | Status | Notes | |----------|--------|-------| | cineby | Active (default) | Scrapes cineby.rs; prefers its JSON search API, falls back to DOM scraping and browser-based stream capture | | vidsrc | Fallback | TMDB-powered search + vidsrc.to embed stream capture |

If the chosen provider returns nothing, mov-cli automatically tries the next one in the chain before giving up.

Player Support

| Player | macOS | Linux | Windows | Notes | |--------|:-----:|:-----:|:-------:|-------| | mpv | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Recommended; best HLS handling | | VLC | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | vlc (GUI) and cvlc (headless) | | IINA | ✅ | — | — | macOS only |

How It Works

1. Search — the provider queries a JSON API (or TMDB) and, if needed, falls back to scraping rendered HTML with a real browser.
2. Browser automation — Playwright drives a headless Chromium instance.
3. Ad blocking — @cliqz/adblocker-playwright loads prebuilt ad/tracker filter lists and blocks them on every page. Popups are auto-closed and heavy image/media/font resources are trimmed so pages load fast and clean.
4. Stream extraction — mov-cli watches network traffic, follows embed iframes, and captures .m3u8/.mp4 URLs as the player loads them. Master HLS playlists are parsed into individual quality variants.
5. Playback — the captured stream URL (with the correct Referer) is handed to your local player.

Building from Source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/mov-cli
cd mov-cli
bun install
bun run dev          # Run without building
bun run build        # Bundle to dist/
bun run lint         # Type-check (tsc --noEmit)

Troubleshooting

No streams found. Streaming sites change their markup and embed hosts frequently. Try --provider vidsrc, re-run with --debug to see what was captured, or use --no-headless to watch the browser. If a title genuinely has no working source, mov-cli will tell you after trying every provider.

Player not found. Install mpv (recommended):

• macOS: brew install mpv
• Linux: sudo apt install mpv (or your distro's package manager)
• Windows: winget install mpv or scoop install mpv

Then re-run mov-cli --list-players to confirm it's detected.

Playwright install fails. On first run mov-cli runs playwright install chromium. If it fails (often a permissions or sandbox issue on Linux), install it manually:

npx playwright install chromium --with-deps

Terminal cursor missing after Ctrl+C. mov-cli restores the cursor on clean exit. If a hard kill leaves it hidden, run reset or tput cnorm.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. To add a provider, implement the Provider interface in src/scraper/types.ts and register it in src/scraper/index.ts. To add a stream host extractor, implement the Extractor interface and register it in src/scraper/extractors/index.ts. Run bun run lint before opening a PR.

Disclaimer

This tool is for educational purposes. Only use it to access content you have the right to watch. The authors do not host, distribute, or endorse any copyrighted content, and are not responsible for how this tool is used.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.