Everyone’s watching Black Mirror: Bandersnatch on Netflix, thanks to its quirky premise of a fully interactive story that lets you choose how it unfolds.
Well, almost everyone. While you can watch Netflix all you want on streaming devices like the Apple TV, Bandersnatch won’t work. For what it’s worth, the movie also doesn’t work when you run Netflix on Google’s Chromecast or Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, either — try it, and you’ll get an apologetic email from Netflix.
Delete that email and keep reading, because you can watch Black Mirror: Bandersnatch on streaming devices like the Apple TV or Google Chromecast. You just have to get a little creative.
Try casting from your desktop or laptop
I have an Apple TV, and the one technique that worked perfectly for me was to pull up Netflix’s website on my MacBook, mirror the display to my Apple TV, and run Black Mirror: Bandersnatch full screen. That also means I had to make my choices for the movie’s interactive bits on my laptop, rather than my Apple TV remote, but that’s not a big inconvenience.
I don’t have a Chromecast or Fire TV, so I can’t say this works perfectly, but mirroring your desktop or laptop’s full screen to your Chromecast or Fire TV should allow you to watch Netflix’s interactive movie. Try that before you try casting directly from any kind of Netflix app (or open browser tab).
If you’re stuck with your smartphone or tablet…
Apple TV users are out of luck. I tried Screen Mirroring an iPhone and an iPad to my Apple TV, but Netflix (or Apple) is crafty. I made it through the initial “Here is how the movie works: tap the screen to make choices” introduction without any problems. When the actual movie started playing, I only got a picture on my iPhone or iPad. I couldn’t get a video to appear on my Apple TV no matter how much I fussed with Screen Mirroring. So, back to the laptop method.
I’m also guessing that you also can’t watch Black Mirror: Bandersnatch by casting from Netflix to your Chromecast or opening an Netflix app on your Fire TV stick. For Chromecast users, one workaround worth exploring is mirroring your smartphone’s screen via the Google Home app. I’ve read reports of people having success that way. (And I presume that sharing your device’s entire display to your Fire TV Stick would also work.)
Don’t waste your time hitting up Netflix-dot-com on iOS, in the hopes that bypassing the app for the web-based experience will allow you to watch Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. I tried that on my iPhone, and Netflix just wanted me to install its app. And when I switched to the site’s desktop version on my mobile browser, it wanted me to install Microsoft’s Silverlight in order to watch the interactive movie. I got further when I tried the same trick on Android, but the movie still wouldn’t load.
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