IINA

IINA is a video player built from scratch for modern macOS, using mpv under the hood for best-in-class decoding while wrapping it in a genuinely native Cocoa interface. It plays essentially anything — video, audio, subtitles, playlists, chapters — without reaching for a browser plugin or a bundled VLC skin.

Why it makes the list

Most free Mac video players are ports that merely tolerate macOS. IINA is designed for it: Force Touch, picture-in-picture, Touch Bar controls, and multiple color schemes, all while staying open source under the GPL-3.0 license with tens of thousands of GitHub stars. It's actively maintained, with nightly builds for anyone who wants the newest features first.

Standout features

• mpv-powered playback for wide format support and reliable hardware decoding

• Picture-in-picture and Force Touch support built into the player chrome

• Standalone Music Mode for a compact, audio-focused interface

• Online subtitle search with intelligent local subtitle matching

• Fully customizable controls — keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and gestures

• Command line tool and browser extensions for launching IINA from anywhere

Pricing

Free and open source. Download it from the Mac App Store, the GitHub releases page, or Homebrew.