Is there a movie showtime api? [closed]

T

13

71

Does anyone know of any (preferrably free) supported api's for accessing movie showtimes by zip code?

I don't believe any existing api's, such as netflix or imdb, provide this information.

Tenure answered 13/1, 2009 at 17:9 Comment(1)

Does anyone publish an actual api for this, like a web service? I'd hate to do screen scraping. I'd really love to write a phone or ipad app that had a timeline which showed what movies play nearby in the next 2 hours. No web page shows it this way,and it's typically how I want to see it. "What shows can I see in the next couple of hours?" I'd love to write the app if I can get the data. Any leads? JR – Tanganyika 7/2, 2011 at 12:30

M

14

when "allow_url_fopen" is disabled then use

    <?php
/**
 * Google Showtime grabber
 * 
 * This file will grab the last showtimes of theatres nearby your zipcode.
 * Please make the URL your own! You can also add parameters to this URL: 
 * &date=0|1|2|3 => today|1 day|2 days|etc.. 
 * &start=10 gets the second page etc...
 * 
 * Please download the latest version of simple_html_dom.php on sourceForge:
 * http://sourceforge.net/projects/simplehtmldom/files/
 * 
 * @author Bas van Dorst <[email protected]>
 * @version 0.1 
 * @package GoogleShowtime
 *
 * @modifyed by stephen byrne <[email protected]>
 * @GoldMinelabs.com 
 */

require_once('simple_html_dom.php');

$curl = curl_init(); 
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.google.ie/movies?near=dublin');  
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);  
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 10);  
$str = curl_exec($curl);  
curl_close($curl);  

$html = str_get_html($str);

print '<pre>';
foreach($html->find('#movie_results .theater') as $div) {
    // print theater and address info
    print "Theate:  ".$div->find('h2 a',0)->innertext."\n";
    //print "Address: ". $div->find('.info',0)->innertext."\n";

    // print all the movies with showtimes
    foreach($div->find('.movie') as $movie) {
        print "Movie:    ".$movie->find('.name a',0)->innertext.'<br />';
        print "Time:    ".$movie->find('.times',0)->innertext.'<br />';
    }
    print "\n\n";
}

// clean up memory
$html->clear();
?>

Mournful answered 4/2, 2011 at 11:3 Comment(6)

you're hero of the day! Thanks a lot! – Priapic 13/11, 2012 at 20:6

Seriously, +10 if i could! it's really too bad that Google has no public API for this :) – Fourpence 19/3, 2013 at 18:8

Don't want to sound bitchy, but how about the past records? – Rohn 20/7, 2016 at 18:9

Doesn't exist anymore . Google removed that – Foyer 19/7, 2018 at 10:46

This is already dead. Google killed this. – Partain 22/2, 2019 at 9:41

This data is controlled as it has a commercial advantage (If you can manipulate it you can manipulate where people go see films and spend money), and as such, public APIs have all been shut down. It's just the shitty world we live in. – Pteropod 4/8, 2022 at 0:43

S

8

Yep, Yahoo apparently removed their secret movie API in November 2009.
It seems everyone gets their data from TMS Data Direct: http://www.tmsdatadirect.com/

Sosa answered 23/11, 2009 at 21:19 Comment(5)

@Brook While signing up for tmsdatadirect.com it asks for certificate code, What value should be given while signing up? – Euonymus 7/2, 2011 at 12:30

That undocumented YAHOO api referenced above has been great... I've been using it for a while... unfortunately YAHOO has just made it disappear (after 11/4/09)... without some YAHOO authorization... and it doesn't look like they are giving that out! :( (I hope another idea above works out for me) -- Thomas – Kissel 7/2, 2011 at 12:31

Did Yahoo just remove their undocumented APIs? I can't access it anymore but I can't find anybody talking about it (the removal) either. – Conner 7/2, 2011 at 12:31

The link is dead now. – Brandabrandais 14/9, 2015 at 2:23

US and Canada only :-( – Clepsydra 6/2, 2016 at 15:38

S

5

Don't know if Google exposes it as an api but this looks a lot like what you want. http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&near=90210&dq=movie+times+90210&sa=X&oi=showtimes&ct=title&cd=1

Santoyo answered 13/1, 2009 at 17:16 Comment(2)

thanks for the suggestion. i've already implemented a screen scrape from this with python's beautifulsoup. but i'd like to avoid using this in the long term, as it's explicitly against their terms of service. hence the search for a supported/documented api. – Tenure 13/1, 2009 at 18:23

This link as been discontinued by Google. Sorry. – Latrice 20/1, 2020 at 3:56

T

1

sorry, should've searched a bit more before posting the question.

some creative searching on del.icio.us has revealed an undocumented yahoo! movies api (sample api call).

looks nice.

Tenure answered 13/1, 2009 at 18:34 Comment(1)

dead, no longer working – Pteropod 4/8, 2022 at 0:36

S

1

After looking around a little bit, I found Dapper (open.dapper.net) to be a great solution for creating this type of feed...

Here is the feed I made, which takes a movie title and a zip code as parameters. (most others available only searched by ZIP)

http://www.dapper.net/dapp-howto-use.php?dappName=GoogleMoviesbynameANDzip

took about 5 minutes to set up...

Shana answered 6/8, 2009 at 10:16 Comment(1)

Feed was blocked by Google and isn't available anymore in here – Roehm 2/2, 2011 at 11:4

E

1

I too am looking for showtimes I can legitimately scrape and republish. Yahoo's sound like if you don't do it for commercial purposes, it's not prohibited... or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.

You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion or use of, or access to, the Yahoo! Services

Eldrid answered 3/1, 2010 at 21:2 Comment(0)

D

1

Fandango seems to have RSS feeds that allow you to search for movies near you.

They can be found here:

https://www.fandango.com/rss/moviefeed

Dyandyana answered 1/8, 2011 at 14:37 Comment(3)

This link doesn't appear to work any more. – Latrice 20/1, 2020 at 3:58

I updated the link – Dyandyana 1/2, 2020 at 3:40

After reviewing your change, I rescind my previous negative comment and upvote this answer. – Latrice 1/2, 2020 at 3:49

D

1

Not sure if it's legal to scrape the html from this, but, it's the cleanest pseudo-API I've found. http://opensocial.flixster.com/igoogle/showtimes?date=20111025&postal=23226 - just scrape the html with something like...

$('div.showtime', response).each(function() {
   // ... process each showtime div
});

Draughts answered 25/10, 2011 at 14:33 Comment(0)

G

0

My guess is that your best bet on that (unless these guys have RSS feeds) would be to scrape the HTML with a language that supports regular expressions.

Mind you, that's ugly and every time they change their code, yours -could- break.

Goldwin answered 13/1, 2009 at 17:13 Comment(1)

unfortunately none of them have rss. the scraping isn't bad with a decent html parser. but i'm more worried about violating terms of service than having to update code every once in a while. – Tenure 13/1, 2009 at 18:24

P

0

I can't find one.

You could try screen-scraping from Yahoo Movies: http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?z=60630&date=20090113&mid=1810038822

z    = zip code
date = year + month + day (as a string)
mid  = movieID, which you will have to grab from Yahoo Movies

Piglet answered 13/1, 2009 at 17:15 Comment(0)

O

0

I was also looking for a showtime API, and like you, I have not found a good API for the movie showtimes. I decided to write my own "showtime API", based on the Google Showtimes. Please check it out.

It is a simple PHP-script, but "it does what it should do":

    <?php
/**
 * Google Showtime grabber
 * 
 * This file will grab the last showtimes of theatres nearby your zipcode.
 * Please make the URL your own! You can also add parameters to this URL: 
 * &date=0|1|2|3 => today|1 day|2 days|etc.. 
 * 
 * Please download the latest version of simple_html_dom.php on sourceForge:
 * http://sourceforge.net/projects/simplehtmldom/files/
 * 
 * @author Bas van Dorst <[email protected]>
 * @version 0.1 
 * @package GoogleShowtime
 */

require_once('simple_html_dom.phps');

$html = new simple_html_dom();
$html->load_file('http://www.google.nl/movies?mid=&hl=en&near=1400AB');

print '<pre>';
foreach($html->find('#movie_results .theater') as $div) {
    // print theater and address info
    print "Theate:  ".$div->find('h2 a',0)->innertext."\n";
    print "Address: ". $div->find('.info',0)->innertext."\n";

    // print all the movies with showtimes
    foreach($div->find('.movie') as $movie) {
        print "\tMovie:    ".$movie->find('.name a',0)->innertext.'<br />';
        print "\tTime:    ".$movie->find('.times',0)->innertext.'<br />';
    }
    print "\n\n";
}

// clean up memory
$html->clear();

?>

Example: http:// code.basvd.nl/showtime_grabber_0.1/Google_showtime.php

Download simple_html_dom.php: http:// code.basvd.nl/showtime_grabber_0.1/

Obsequent answered 21/1, 2010 at 21:44 Comment(1)

Be aware that although it does extract Google's content properly, it is completely against Google's Terms of Service. Use with caution. – Roehm 2/2, 2011 at 11:2

B

-1

I know this is a bit old. I don't think there is an api for this yet but some providers do offer this service. I suggest you look at West World Media.

Bobodioulasso answered 6/2, 2012 at 18:0 Comment(0)

F

-3

http://www.google.com/ig/api?movies=YOUR_ZIP_HERE

Thanks to Nick. that's the link I will be using.

Feinstein answered 16/2, 2011 at 18:24 Comment(3)

view source on your browser after you paste it (mod it) and hit enter. an xml object is there with children and your movie list. if you see nothing, check for errors. – Feinstein 26/2, 2011 at 6:59

This doesn't work. It's the same listing every time with just the zipcode changed. I'm guessing it's used for testing purposes internally by Google. – Vellicate 17/5, 2011 at 1:4

@henry74, it's an iGoogle API. It's paged showing 3 at a time, that's why it's always the same response. – Enrollee 21/10, 2013 at 20:0

Recommended topics

Hot tags