cinestyle 0.2.0

Cinematic matplotlib styles inspired by iconic films, plus a reusable-brand API

cinestyle

Cinematic data-viz theming, done with color science. Twenty-four film-inspired themes that are beautiful, correct, and accessible, defined once and applied to matplotlib, Plotly, or Altair, plus an API for defining your own brand.

Every theme plots data from its own film. Same data, cinematic finish:

Why this exists

Most "pretty matplotlib" packages pick colors by eye and only look right on the one chart in their README. cinestyle is built differently:

• Perceptually derived. Each theme's categorical palette and its sequential and diverging colormaps are computed in a perceptual color space (OKLCH, with CIEDE2000 distances) from a few sourced "hero" colors, not hand-waved. Sequential maps have monotonic lightness; diverging maps are symmetric.
• One spec, three backends. Define a theme once and apply it to matplotlib, Plotly, or Altair. The palette, the sequential/diverging colormaps, and the chrome all travel; you stop caring which plotting library wins.
• Works on every chart type. On matplotlib it only sets rcParams and registers colormaps. Lines, bars, scatter, hist, boxplots, pies, heatmaps, errorbars: all themed. You never switch themes mid-deck.
• Accessible by design. audit() any palette (or theme) for color-vision deficiency and contrast; repair() turns it into a colorblind-safe variant.
• Reproducible. Themes ship their fonts (SIL OFL), so a matplotlib chart looks the same on every machine.
• Cinematic extras (matplotlib). A neon glow for the dark themes, and film-look LUTs you can apply to image plots and export as .cube.

Install

pip install cinestyle

Latest unreleased build: pip install git+https://github.com/Burton-David/cinematic-matplotlib.git.

Optional extras: cinestyle[plotly], cinestyle[altair] (the other backends), cinestyle[a11y] (color-vision checks), cinestyle[luts] (reading external .cube LUTs). For development: pip install -e ".[dev]". Requires Python 3.10+.

Quick start

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import cinestyle

x = np.linspace(0, 12, 200)

# 1. Scoped: styling is restored when the block exits
with cinestyle.use("blade_runner"):
    fig, ax = plt.subplots()
    for i in range(4):
        ax.plot(x, np.sin(x + i * 0.6) + i * 0.4)
    cinestyle.add_glow(ax)          # the neon glow

# 2. Registered style sheet: use it like any matplotlib style
cinestyle.register()
plt.style.use("cinestyle-dune")

# 3. The Theme object itself: palette, colormaps, and more
theme = cinestyle.get_theme("ghibli")
plt.imshow(data, cmap=theme.sequential)

Other backends

The same theme drives Plotly and Altair. The palette, colormaps, and chrome carry over; glow and LUTs stay matplotlib-only.

import cinestyle

# Plotly
cinestyle.register_plotly()
fig.update_layout(template="cinestyle-blade_runner")   # or use_plotly("dune")

# Altair
cinestyle.register_altair(enable="dune")               # enables the theme

See docs/gallery.md for the same theme rendered across all three backends side by side.

Gallery

Each card plots something from its own film: Blade Runner's "Tears in Rain", the Bride's kill count, the Balance of the Force. All regenerated from deterministic data by python scripts/generate_gallery.py (add --reel to rebuild the GIF).

The themes

Theme	Film	Font
noir	Film noir / chiaroscuro	Oswald
ghibli	Studio Ghibli	EB Garamond
wes_anderson	Wes Anderson	Jost
blade_runner	Blade Runner (neon-noir)	Share Tech Mono
star_wars	Star Wars	Oswald
matrix	The Matrix	Share Tech Mono
dune	Dune (Villeneuve)	Space Grotesk
fury_road	Mad Max: Fury Road	Anton
kill_bill	Kill Bill	Bebas Neue
in_the_mood	In the Mood for Love	EB Garamond
sin_city	Sin City	Anton
akira	Akira	Share Tech Mono
the_fall	The Fall (Tarsem)	EB Garamond
tron	Tron: Legacy	Share Tech Mono
amelie	Amélie	EB Garamond
the_shining	The Shining (Kubrick)	Bebas Neue
drive	Drive	Share Tech Mono
grand_budapest	The Grand Budapest Hotel	Jost
nolan	Nolan (Interstellar, Inception)	Space Grotesk
hero	Hero (Zhang Yimou)	Oswald
suspiria	Suspiria	Anton
moonlight	Moonlight	Jost
blade_runner_2049	Blade Runner 2049	Space Grotesk
her	Her	EB Garamond

Each Theme exposes its palette, sequential and diverging colormaps, heroes, and chrome. cinestyle.list_themes() lists them all.

Color, done right

The palette and colormaps are derived from the hero colors, preserving the film's mood (hue identity and chroma) while spacing colors perceptually:

theme = cinestyle.get_theme("dune")
theme.palette       # categorical cycle, perceptually separated
theme.sequential    # monotonic-lightness sequential colormap
theme.diverging     # symmetric diverging colormap

Accessibility

audit() and repair() work on any palette, theme name, or Theme, not just ours:

cinestyle.audit("blade_runner").summary()   # CIEDE2000 under protan/deutan/tritan + contrast
cinestyle.audit(["#D62728", "#2CA02C"])      # check your own colors
safe = cinestyle.repair("blade_runner")      # a colorblind-safe version

Checks simulate the palette under each color-vision deficiency and flag any pair that collapses (CIEDE2000), plus WCAG non-text contrast against the background. The repair keeps the film's mood where it can and borrows from known-safe palettes (Okabe-Ito, Paul Tol) where it must.

Film looks

look = cinestyle.get_look("teal_orange")
im = ax.imshow(image)
look.apply_to_image(im)          # grade an image plot / heatmap
look.to_cube("teal_orange.cube") # export a 3D LUT for video tools

Looks are original parametric grades (lift/gamma/gain, saturation, split-tone). They matter most for image and heatmap plots; flat bar/line charts are carried by the palette and chrome.

Define your own brand

brand = cinestyle.define_brand(
    "acme",
    palette=["#0B5FFF", "#FF6B00", "#00B5AD"],
    background="#FBFBFD",
    foreground="#1A1A2E",
)
with brand.use():
    ...
brand.register()                  # plt.style.use("cinestyle-acme")
brand.to_matplotlibrc("acme.mplstyle")

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
black --check . && ruff check . && mypy cinestyle && pytest
python scripts/generate_gallery.py   # regenerate the gallery

Tests run headless (Agg) and assert that styling is actually applied: rcParams change, artist colors match the palette, colormaps are monotonic/symmetric, the scoped context restores global state, palettes pass the accessibility checks.

Credits

cinestyle is an independent, inspired-by tribute and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any rights holder; film titles are trademarks of their owners. See NOTICE.md for palette sources (incl. the wesanderson and ghibli palette projects) and bundled-font licenses.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Author

David Burton, databurton.com