“Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” Netflix’s groundbreaking interactive movie, is fading to black.
The streamer will remove “Bandersnatch,” released in December 2018, as well as the interactive special “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend” on May 12, 2025. Those were the last two interactive titles available on the service, seemingly marking the end of Netflix’s efforts to make the format a thing, although at the same time it’s ramping up its games portfolio.
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The removals were previously spotted by What’s on Netflix. Variety has reached out to Netflix for comment.
Netflix’s pulling its original interactive titles comes as it leans more into gaming. Its newly redesigned TV homepage, for example, features games you can play on connected televisions, including “Too Hot to Handle 3” and “Oxenfree” (described as an “interactive story”), using your mobile phone as a game controller. A Netflix rep last fall told The Verge that the interactive TV technology behind “Bandersnatch” and others “served its purpose, but is now limiting as we focus on technological efforts in other areas.”
“Bandersnatch,” starring Fionn Whitehead and Will Poulter, is a choose-your-own-adventure-style movie that includes 312 minutes of material (just over five hours). It’s set in 1984, when a young programmer begins to question reality as he adapts a sprawling fantasy novel called “Bandersnatch” — written by a mad genius who allegedly cut off his wife’s head — into an adventure video game. It’s a “mind-bending tale with multiple endings,” Netflix says in the title’s description.
A few months after “Bandersnatch” debuted, Netflix was high on the technology — with then-VP of product Todd Yellin saying the company planned to “double down” on interactive programming. (Yellin left the company in 2022.)
Netflix’s interactive “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” special, which bowed in 2020, is described this way: “Kimmy’s getting married, but first she has to foil the Reverend’s evil plot. It’s your move: What should she do next?” It was a capstone to the comedy series ended its run on Netflix after four seasons. In its original announcement, Netflix quoted Tina Fey, co-creator and executive producer, as saying the interactive special “will be a great way to officially complete the series.”
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