Building and Deploying a Netflix-Inspired React Landing Page on AWS S3 🎬☁️
I recently finished building and deploying a Netflix-inspired frontend landing page using React.
The project started as a way to practice React and frontend development, but I also wanted to take it one step further and actually put the finished application online using Amazon S3.
So instead of keeping the project running only on localhost, I built the production version and deployed it as a live website using AWS S3.
🌐 Live Demo
🎬 Live Website: http://netflixlanding-605365943139-us-east-1-an.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com
💻 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/himbukharidev
You can open the live website and interact with the frontend directly.
🛠️ Technologies Used
- React — frontend development
- Vite — development/build tool
- JavaScript — application logic
- HTML & CSS — structure and styling
- React Router — navigation
- Axios — HTTP requests
- Lucide React — icons
- AWS S3 — static website hosting
🎬 The Project
The goal was to build a complete Netflix-inspired landing page rather than just recreating a single section.
The page includes multiple sections and interactive elements.
Hero Section
The landing page starts with a large hero section designed around the visual style of a modern streaming platform.
It contains the main promotional content and call-to-action elements.
🎞️ Movie & Show Posters
The page contains different sections displaying movie and show posters.
I used reusable React components to avoid creating completely separate markup for every poster and section.
🖱️ Interactive Movie Details
The posters aren't just static images.
When a user clicks on a poster, a movie details popup/modal appears.
The selected movie's information is displayed inside the popup along with its poster, giving the interface a more interactive experience.
🃏 Cards
The landing page also contains additional card-based sections to make the page feel more complete rather than just being a collection of movie posters.
❓ FAQ Section
I added an FAQ section where users can interact with the questions and view their answers.
This was another opportunity to practice interactive React components.
📌 Footer
The page finishes with a complete footer containing additional navigation and information.
⚛️ Building the UI with React
One of the main things I wanted to practice was component-based development.
Instead of putting everything into one large component, I separated the interface into reusable pieces.
A simplified structure looks something like:
App
├── Navbar
├── Hero
├── Movie Sections
│ └── Movie Cards
├── Movie Details Modal
├── Cards
├── FAQ
└── Footer
The movie details popup was particularly useful for practicing React state.
When a user selects a poster, the application keeps track of the selected movie and displays the appropriate information inside the modal.
This allowed me to practice the basic React flow of:
User clicks poster
↓
Update state
↓
Selected movie changes
↓
Modal appears
↓
Movie information is displayed
📱 Making the Landing Page Responsive
I also worked on making the frontend responsive across different screen sizes.
The layout changes depending on the available screen space, including:
- Movie poster dimensions
- Card sizes
- Spacing
- Typography
- Hero section
- Navigation
- Content layout
The goal was to keep the same overall design while making the page usable on smaller screens.
☁️ Deploying the React Application to AWS S3
This was one of the most useful parts of the project for me.
Building the application locally is one thing.
Taking that application and making it accessible through a public URL is another.
Since this project is a frontend/static application, Amazon S3 is suitable for hosting the production build.
The deployment process was essentially:
React Application
↓
npm run build
↓
Production Build
↓
Upload Build Files
↓
Amazon S3 Bucket
↓
Static Website Hosting
↓
Live Website
1. Creating the Production Build
Once the React application was finished, I generated the production build:
npm run build
Vite generated the production-ready files in the dist directory.
These are the files that need to be served to visitors instead of the development files used by npm run dev.
2. Creating the S3 Bucket
I created an S3 bucket specifically for the website.
The bucket is used to store the static files generated by the React build.
Instead of running a development server on my computer, the files are stored in AWS and served from there.
3. Uploading the Build
I uploaded the contents of the production build to the S3 bucket.
The important part here is uploading the contents of dist, rather than simply uploading the entire project folder.
The bucket therefore contains the files needed by the browser to load the application.
4. Configuring Static Website Hosting
I configured the S3 bucket for static website hosting.
This tells S3 that the bucket is being used to serve a website rather than simply storing files.
The website's entry point is the React application's index.html.
5. Making the Website Accessible
After configuring the required S3 settings and permissions, the files could be accessed through the S3 website endpoint.
This allowed the React application to be opened from a browser without running anything locally.
And that's the part I liked most about the deployment:
The application went from a local React project to an actual live website hosted on AWS.
🔄 Updating the Deployed Application
Another useful thing I learned was that deployment doesn't mean the project is permanently finished.
When I make changes to the React application, I can create a new production build:
npm run build
and upload the updated build files to S3.
So the workflow becomes:
Make changes
↓
Test locally
↓
npm run build
↓
Upload updated files
↓
Refresh live website
This gave me a simple introduction to the basic idea of a frontend deployment workflow.
🧠 What I Learned
This project helped me practice both frontend development and basic cloud deployment.
React
I became more comfortable with:
- Reusable components
- Props and state
- Interactive UI
- Modals
- Rendering movie data
- Component organization
Frontend Development
I practiced:
- Responsive layouts
- CSS
- UI structure
- Cards
- Navigation
- FAQ interactions
- Designing a complete landing page
AWS
Most importantly, I got hands-on experience with:
- Amazon S3
- S3 buckets
- Static website hosting
- Uploading production files
- Hosting a frontend application on AWS
The AWS part was especially useful because it showed me that cloud services aren't only something to read about — I can actually use them to deploy something I've built.
🚧 What's Not Included
This is a frontend project, so it does not currently include:
- User authentication
- User accounts
- Watchlists
- Custom backend
- Database
- Personalized recommendations
- Actual video streaming
Those would require additional backend and infrastructure work.
For this project, I intentionally focused on the frontend experience and deployment.
🎯 Final Thoughts
This project was more than just recreating a familiar UI.
I got to take the project through the complete basic workflow:
Build
↓
Test
↓
Create production build
↓
Deploy
↓
Make it publicly accessible
The combination of React + AWS S3 gave me practical experience with taking a frontend application from local development to a real deployed website.
The project is now live, so feel free to check it out.
🎬 Live Demo: http://netflixlanding-605365943139-us-east-1-an.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com
💻 GitHub: https://github.com/himbukharidev
🔗 Connect With Me
If you're interested in following my journey as I continue learning Java, Spring Boot, React, and AWS, you can connect with me on LinkedIn:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bilalbukhari-dev
Thanks for reading!
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