Oscars Pool 2026

Little nodejs + mongodb app that I hack together with ChatGPT and Cursor to keep track of watched movies for an incoming Oscars Pool with some friends.

Features

User Features

• User accounts: register, login, JWT authentication
• Optional registration verification: via DOG_NAMES environment variable (if unset, verification is skipped)
• Movie tracking: mark nominees/movies as watched (per user), with watched date
• Movie browsing: browse movies by Oscar year + API for available years
• Movie details: pulled from OMDb (title/plot/rating/poster) via IMDb ID (optional)
• User statistics: watched count, points from movies watched and Oscar picks, leaderboard
• Video player: built-in player page with multiple source options (VOD link, direct video URL, embed, or server file)
• Resume playback: per-user playback progress saving (time/duration)
• Oscar picks: make picks for each category, auto-save on selection
• Scores: view leaderboard with correct/incorrect pick counts, detailed breakdown per user
• View all picks: see everyone's picks in a comparison view

Admin Features

• Movie management: add, edit (optionally refresh from OMDb), delete movies
• User management: view users, reset passwords (temp password + forced change on next login)
• Oscar category management: create, edit, delete categories with nominees, bulk delete
• Winner management: mark winners for each category (can clear winners)
• Global settings: active Oscar year, "completion" modal content for checklist
• Database backup/restore: create backups and restore from backup files
• App version control: manage app version display (footer) from admin panel (no GitHub dependency)
• Player UI settings: control player page admin status display

Setup

Create a .env file at the project root (same folder as package.json).

Minimal steps:

npm install
node index.js

Add this to your .env (required: MONGO_URI, JWT_SECRET):

# required
MONGO_URI=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/oscars-pool # MongoDB connection string
JWT_SECRET=replace-with-a-random-string         # JWT signing secret (auth)

# optional
DOG_NAMES=woof,WOOF,Woof                        # registration verification answers (comma-separated)
OMDB_API=your_omdb_key                          # OMDb API key (movie info)

Generate a good JWT_SECRET:

openssl rand -hex 32

Database (MongoDB)

This app uses MongoDB via Mongoose. Provide a connection string in MONGO_URI.

• Use MongoDB Atlas (recommended) or a local MongoDB instance.
• MONGO_URI examples:
  • Atlas: mongodb+srv://USER:[email protected]/<dbName>?retryWrites=true&w=majority
  • Local: mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/<dbName>
• Collections are created/managed automatically from the models in models/:
  • User - user accounts
  • Movie - Oscar-nominated movies
  • OscarCategory - Oscar categories with nominees
  • OscarPick - user picks for each category
  • Setting - global settings (active year, etc.)
  • PlaybackProgress - video playback progress per user

More .env options

The app also reads these environment variables (all optional):

PORT=5000                         # server port (default: 5000)
JWT_EXPIRES_IN=8h                 # JWT expiry (default: 8h)
VIDEO_FILES_DIR=/abs/path/to/video # where server video files live (default: ./public/video)
VIDEO_SESSION_MAX_AGE_SECONDS=28800 # video_auth cookie max-age (default: 8h)
MOVIES_CACHE_TTL_MS=30000         # movies route cache TTL (default: 30000ms)

Notes:

• The server serves the UI from public/ (open http://localhost:5000 by default).
• If you use video_file in a movie record, it must be a relative path under VIDEO_FILES_DIR (the backend blocks traversal/absolute paths).

Python video server (optional)

There is also a standalone Python server in python_video_server/ that mirrors /api/video/:id (Range streaming + JWT + Mongo). See python_video_server/README.md for setup and usage instructions.