Does IMDB provide an API? [closed]

Asked 27/12, 2009 at 17:40 Answered 18/8, 2016 at 3:45

682

I recently found a movie organizer application which fetches its data from the IMDB database.

Does IMDB provide an API for this, or any third party APIs available?

Himmler answered 27/12, 2009 at 17:40 Comment(4)

Is there any API for reviews on IMDB ? – Flattop 6/4, 2011 at 7:20

To just link IMDB use following format.<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/{{{ $imdb_id }}}">{{{ $imdb_id }}}</a> BTW: imdb_id follows this pattern: tt0000000 – Snuck 29/3, 2014 at 17:11

whats the name of this movie organizer application? I am looking for something like that – Rotation 8/7, 2014 at 18:38

@Rotation Possibly Plex. I know for sure that one organizes movies and can retrieve data from IMDB. – Delk 7/11, 2014 at 19:7

479

The IMDb has a public API that, although undocumented, is fast and reliable (used on the official website through AJAX).

Search Suggestions API

https://sg.media-imdb.com/suggests/h/hello.json
https://v2.sg.media-imdb.com/suggests/h/hello.json (as of 2019)
- Format: JSON-P
- Caveat: It's in JSON-P format, and the callback parameter can not customised. To use it cross-domain you'll have to use their function name for the callback (which is in the imdb${searchphrase} format). Alternatively, one could strip or replace the padding via a local proxy.
https://v2.sg.media-imdb.com/suggestion/h/hello.json (as of 2020)
- Format: JSON
- Caveat: It's not CORS-enabled. This is fine for use in apps and server-side scripts. For use in a web app, you'll need to route it through a simple proxy (and consider enabling caching, too!)

// 1) Vanilla JavaScript (JSON-P)
function addScript(src) { var s = document.createElement('script'); s.src = src; document.head.appendChild(s); }
window.imdb$foo = function (results) {
  /* ... */
};
addScript('https://sg.media-imdb.com/suggests/f/foo.json');

// 2) Using jQuery (JSON-P)
jQuery.ajax({
    url: 'https://sg.media-imdb.com/suggests/f/foo.json',
    dataType: 'jsonp',
    cache: true,
    jsonp: false,
    jsonpCallback: 'imdb$foo'
}).then(function (results) {
    /* ... */
});

// 3) Pure JSON (with jQuery)
// Use a local proxy to the clean `/suggestion` API.
jQuery.getJSON('/api/imdb/?q=foo', function (results) {
    /* ... */
});

// 4) Pure JSON (plain JavaScript; Modern ES6, ES2017, and Fetch API)
// Serve a "/api" route in your app, that proxies (and caches!)
// to v2.sg.media-imdb.com/suggestion/h/hello.json
const resp = await fetch('/api/imdb/?q=foo');
const results = await resp.json();

Advanced Search

~~Name search (json): http://www.imdb.com/xml/find?json=1&nr=1&nm=on&q=jeniffer+garner~~
Title search (xml): http://www.imdb.com/xml/find?xml=1&nr=1&tt=on&q=lost
Format: XML
Upside: Supports both film titles and actor names (unlike Suggestions API).

Beware that these APIs are unofficial and could change at any time!

Update (January 2019): The Advanced API no longer exists. The good news is, that the Suggestions API now supports the "advanced" features of searching by film titles and actor names as well.

Consciencestricken answered 12/10, 2011 at 17:56 Comment(11)

RE: The JSONP API not gracefully falling back, (at least) it does return an HTTP error code, but I agree that it's funny that the response body is XML. – Brodsky 22/12, 2011 at 5:0

I recently noticed that it also includes an 'i' property for images. The url mentioned therein however is a very large image (likely the original). To get a thumbnail, IMDb uses the following: if (ua.i) { c.img = { src: ua.i[0].replace("._V1_.jpg", "._V1._SX40_CR0,0,40,54_.jpg"), width: 40, height: 54 } }. – Consciencestricken 29/9, 2012 at 0:1

could you not just specify jsonp with.Ajax if you getting json with jquery and i think getjson has been deprecated even when this was written it was deprecated i do believe – Incept 8/12, 2012 at 6:56

@ChrisMcGrath: I hadn't thought about using jQuery.ajax jsonpCallback, I've added it to the answer, Thanks! As for $.getJSON: No, that has most certainly not been deprecated. It is just a small wrapper around $.ajax. – Consciencestricken 9/12, 2012 at 18:42

Does anyone know how to get included images in the advanced search? Seems they only come with the suggestions... – Crackbrain 17/2, 2013 at 19:58

How do you include in the image and plot and artist on this api search? – Mystery 19/5, 2014 at 7:37

@Krinkle how 'i' property works? I tried this, but no url / raw data in the json: http://www.imdb.com/xml/find?json=1&nr=1&tt=on&i=on&q=lost also tried i=1 – Lobito 6/2, 2015 at 13:26

Forgive my ignorance, but how is this not screen scraping or otherwise data mining, which, as noted below, IMdB does not allow? Or is it? – Coley 26/1, 2016 at 3:27

These return 404's now. – Verdellverderer 14/1, 2019 at 1:41

About the size of images, you can replace the V1 with SX123 or SY456 giving a result with width(X)=123 or height(Y)=456 (...QXVyMDM2NDM2MQ@@._SY140_.jpg) – Nunnery 16/7, 2019 at 13:2

and how to use advanced search with suggestions API? – Chumash 21/9, 2021 at 9:32

225

new api @ http://www.omdbapi.com

edit: due to legal issues had to move the service to a new domain :)

Menes answered 24/11, 2010 at 17:18 Comment(17)

That's awesome, not sure if this is actually yours or you just found it but would love to see something around uptime stats so I could know how much I can count on it :D – Space 13/4, 2011 at 3:19

In case anyone is wondering, this is not the official API. See Pekka or Krinkle answers for that. – Kearney 28/12, 2011 at 8:53

its really slow..;( – Huygens 17/2, 2012 at 23:9

@IanDavis, I'm currently working on getting a new faster/bigger dedicated server for the API, Which isn't cheap! I've almost got enough donations to acquire this within the next few days. The API is getting over 2 million requests a day! – Menes 4/5, 2012 at 23:59

Where can I find documentation for this API? Thanks. – Ukase 11/7, 2012 at 8:23

thanks! this is awesome. using it for my app csomakk.github.io/IWatchSeriez source available on github – Hennebery 24/12, 2013 at 14:52

@OptimusCrime I had an issue the other day with IP's from the 85.XXX.XXX.XXX range and had to temporarily block ALL of them until I could get things under control. Sadly this is one of the trade-offs I have to deal with by not requiring API keys, people tend to just abuse the hell out of it. – Menes 1/7, 2014 at 16:14

do you support keyword search? – Lazurite 16/12, 2014 at 20:36

Very slow indeed. Tried a search for "the" in the title. – Appendicle 18/2, 2015 at 1:35

This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with IMDb.com – Stacey 13/9, 2015 at 11:14

@Dan Damscalescu search for an actual movie and it's actually decently fast - search for "mad max" – Oreilly 5/8, 2016 at 11:38

@Menes You made this API.Awesome! But searching for mad+max giving me the 1979 movie, not the one released in 2015. Shouldn't the API return all matching movie results? – Dahomey 21/8, 2016 at 16:52

@JerryGoyal you aren't using the correct parameter for searching try "s" instead of "t". – Menes 23/8, 2016 at 17:47

@Menes - Great API, congratulations on this! Unfortunately, I currently have the same problem described above - when typing "Mad Max" into the example title search, it only returns one result, which in this case is the 1979 version. Any idea why this might be? – Eelpout 6/10, 2016 at 1:46

@bfritz: where do you get your data from? – Birdsong 13/6, 2017 at 17:58

@Glavić I believe he is getting the data from imdb.com/interfaces – Troche 6/2, 2018 at 7:14

@RajaSimon actually, the majority of data comes from Wikidata.org. – Menes 8/2, 2018 at 21:11

100

IMDB themselves seem to distribute data, but only in text files:

http://www.imdb.com/interfaces

there are several APIs around this that you can Google. Screen scraping is explicitly forbidden. A official API seems to be in the works, but has been that for years already.

Trigg answered 27/12, 2009 at 17:47 Comment(12)

How is it possible for screen scraping to be forbidden? – Rebba 1/1, 2011 at 21:11

@omouse From the terms:

Robots and Screen Scraping: You may not use data mining, robots, screen scraping, or similar data gathering and extraction tools on this site, except with our express written consent as noted below.

that doesn't make these terms automatically enforceable in every jurisdiction, but they are in many. – Trigg 1/1, 2011 at 21:19

Yes but this dialog was directed at "Robots". Apparently my robot doesn't understand English so oh well. – Skelp 12/5, 2013 at 10:58

@boomhauer For many sub-folders of their main site, yes they do. The funny thing is they single out Yahoo in their robots file – Doorplate 30/12, 2013 at 22:2

Are there any known parsers to the text files imdb provides? – Unearthly 31/1, 2016 at 14:11

This is a pretty old thread. It was helpful only to the extent of reaching imdb interfaces page. The journey from their isn't straight. The data is available in flat files via FTP location ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/misc/movies/database. To convert it into a database, you need to configure and run moviedb software. github.com/jeffWelling/moviedb – Dropkick 20/11, 2016 at 10:34

As of December 2017, these files are no longer being updated by IMDb. There is a new API that supplies data in a new format. While easier to parse, this new format is a very small subset of the previous format. – Exude 22/12, 2017 at 4:22

I realize this is an extremely old question and answer. However, data mining publicly accessible data is not legally enforceable if you didn't sign a EULA. Even if you did, if the information is publicly accessible through other means, the EULA is still not legally binding. A major decision was recently made to this very effect against LinkedIn. See: eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/… IANAL but the EFF are. It's a very sensible ruling. If you put information on the Internet, you should expect people to do stuff with it. – Mercia 29/2, 2020 at 22:47

@David Chappelle As of June 2021, I confirm the files ARE updated with recent titles from 2020 - 2021. Also there is this statement from IMDB: "The dataset files can be accessed and downloaded from datasets.imdbws.com. The data is refreshed daily." – Venison 12/6, 2021 at 4:8

@Venison yes, this information is updated, but it is a small subset of the data that used to be available pre 2017. There was a complete archival dump available that had been updated weekly since the 90s, this is no longer available. – Exude 24/7, 2021 at 0:21

@DavidChappelle can you elaborate? what kind of data was removed? – Guddle 7/10, 2022 at 12:14

@MOHAMMADRASIM there used be most of the data that was on IMDb. complete actor listings, technical credits, foreign titles, etc. Now you just get a few lead actor credits and some other common info. It's very limited. – Exude 11/9, 2023 at 2:54

Another legal alternative to get movie info is the Rotten-Tomatoes API (by Fandango).

Selda answered 26/7, 2011 at 11:47 Comment(9)

Is the rotten tomatoes API free to use in a commercial application? Say, for example, to have users get the details of a movie from its title? – Spanos 26/7, 2012 at 21:27

It doesn't look like they're making any distinction between commercial or non-commercial app. You can always have a look at their TOS here: developer.rottentomatoes.com/apps/tos Although you will be limited to 10,000 calls per day and 10 per seconds – Selda 27/7, 2012 at 9:23

If you are providing a non-commercial program and need more than 10,000 calls per day, you can talk to them about licencing. The terms are fairly simple and easy to comply with, in that you have to display their logo and/or a particular phrase of wording for the rating. – Names 21/8, 2012 at 8:56

thanks! this is awesome. using it for my app csomakk.github.io/IWatchSeriez source available on github – Hennebery 24/12, 2013 at 14:53

Additionally, you are restricted in creating derivative works i.e. you cannot create an application which creates an offline movie database using RT API. Source developer.rottentomatoes.com/API_Terms_of_Use – Animadversion 28/12, 2014 at 14:46

It seems the RT db is missing localized movie names – Keyser 9/2, 2015 at 23:17

WTF? "The API is intended for use in the U.S. only. Deploying content outside of this territory must be approved by the Rotten Tomatoes team. The API may NOT be shared with any third parties." – Appendicle 18/2, 2015 at 1:23

@DanDascalescu What a pity. I was going to use it outside de US – Elihu 5/4, 2020 at 12:43

https://developer.fandango.com/docs/API_Movie_Methods returns not found? they removed it? – Beabeach 2/10, 2020 at 17:14

What about TMDb API ?

You can search by imdb_id with GET /find/{external_id}

https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/find/find-by-id

Deteriorate answered 5/1, 2011 at 13:36 Comment(5)

Requires a registration and a 3 business day approval process though – Lillia 3/4, 2011 at 11:30

tmdb api can use the dvd's unique id to lookup the imdb_id, if that helps. Assuming they have it listed, of course. dvdid.info might help, too. – Maggs 24/6, 2011 at 21:41

vrinek - wrong, it sent me API key immediately. – Arillode 14/1, 2014 at 20:24

It's no problem to get an API key for this. Have been using one for years, and its API is well designed. – Shaper 14/5, 2019 at 9:27

@Lillia Not for development account. The dev account is instantly registered. – Equipollent 18/5, 2021 at 18:50

Yes, but not for free.

.....annual fees ranging from $15,000 to higher depending on the audience for the data and which data are being licensed.

URL :- http://www.imdb.com/licensing/

Antiphonal answered 5/2, 2010 at 4:7 Comment(4)

appears it's free for "personal" use only otherwise you have to contact them...wow we really need an open equivalent of imdb, though I suppose tmdb is close... – Maggs 24/6, 2011 at 21:54

hi, this is not really an answer to the question, more a comment to above. – Nealah 21/7, 2013 at 20:31

@IanVaughan, I believe my answer directly addresses this question: Q: "Does IMDB provide an API for this...?". A: "Yes...[link to data licensing info]." It's not my fault, IMDB doesn't publicly document an API reference. – Antiphonal 22/7, 2013 at 21:0

Sorry, I think you are right, I stand corrected. Apologies. – Nealah 23/7, 2013 at 13:2

There is a JSON API for use by mobile applications at http://app.imdb.com

However, the warning is fairly severe:

For use only by clients authorized in writing by IMDb.
Authors and users of unauthorized clients accept full legal exposure/liability for their actions.

I presume this is for those developers that pay for the licence to access the data via their API.

EDIT: Just for kicks, I wrote a client library to attempt to read the data from the API, you can find it here: api-imdb

Obviously, you should pay attention to the warning, and really, use something like TheMovieDB as a better and more open database.

Then you can use this Java API wrapper (that I wrote): api-themoviedb

Names answered 9/5, 2012 at 9:15 Comment(3)

I will write your library for NodeJS. Thank you for sharing! – Stallard 25/12, 2014 at 17:36

How could someone get API key for using it? – Indoor 17/8, 2017 at 16:30

A Python library using this API: pypi.org/project/imdbpie code.richard.do/richardARPANET/imdb-pie @Mohammed See imdb.com/licensing – Merla 27/6, 2018 at 19:16

Found this one

IMDbPY is a Python package useful to retrieve and manage the data of the IMDb movie database about movies, people, characters and companies.

http://imdbpy.sourceforge.net/

Hals answered 30/12, 2013 at 21:52 Comment(1)

It's also available from PyPi: pypi.org/project/IMDbPY – Windowshop 6/10, 2019 at 9:18

https://deanclatworthy.com/tools.html is an IMDB API but has been down due to abuse.

Uplift answered 27/12, 2009 at 17:42 Comment(6)

unfortunately, it will be closed down soon. Do you know how does it work? – Unclinch 26/1, 2010 at 15:11

It only offers a very limited search too, by movie title only – Aprylapse 17/1, 2011 at 0:15

Checkout malhar2010.blogspot.com/2011/02/… for using IMDb api. – Swore 25/2, 2011 at 11:54

As the author of this API, I should point out that the above comments are now redundant as it's not being closed down, and that you can now search by IMDB ID. – Orthopsychiatry 17/3, 2012 at 22:15

for free imdb API see this 99webtools.com/get-movie-info-imdb.php – Radu 22/11, 2013 at 17:18

Yes Dan. Maybe it will be back soon. Let's see. – Orthopsychiatry 18/2, 2015 at 10:16

IMDB doesn't seem to have a direct API as of August 2016 yet but I saw many people writing scrapers and stuff above. Here is a more standard way to access movie data using box office buzz API. All responses in JSON format and 5000 queries per day on a free plan

List of things provided by the API

Movie Credits
Movie ID
Movie Images
Get movie by IMDB id
Get latest movies list
Get new releases
Get movie release dates
Get the list of translations available for a specific movie
Get videos, trailers, and teasers for a movie
Search for a movie by title
Also supports TV shows, games and videos

Teleology answered 18/8, 2016 at 3:45 Comment(0)

If you want movie details API then you can consider

OMDB API which is Open movies Database. It returns IMDB Ratings, IMDB Votes and it also has Rotten Tomato rating.

Or else You can use

My Api Films which allows you to search with IMDB ID, it returns detailed information but it has request limits.

Tacnode answered 25/3, 2016 at 13:16 Comment(0)

that deanclatworthy still seems to work and there's another one: http://imdbapi.poromenos.org/

Famish answered 23/7, 2010 at 20:32 Comment(1)

and (I almost wrote, "even better!", the developer-caveman-instinct is strong ;-) the latter's source is at github.com/skorokithakis/imdbapi – Backsword 25/10, 2010 at 2:16

Here is a simple solution that fetches shows by name based on the query from Krinkle:

You can get around the same-origin policy by having your server fetch the URL instead of trying to fetch it directly with AJAX and you don't have to use JSONP to do it.

Javascript (jQuery):

function getShowOptionsFromName (name) {
    $.ajax({
        url: "ajax.php",
        method: "GET",
        data: {q: name},
        dataType: "json"
    }).done(function(data){
        console.log(data);
    });
}

PHP (in file ajax.php):

$q = urlencode($_GET["q"]);
echo file_get_contents("http://www.imdb.com/xml/find?json=1&nr=1&tt=on&q=$q");

Uam answered 16/11, 2013 at 21:0 Comment(0)

Recently at SXSWi 2012, in their "Mashery Lounge", there was a booth for an IMDB-like API called from rovi. It's not a free API, but according to the sales guy I talked to they offer either a rev share or a flat fee for usage, depending on your budget. I haven't used it yet but it seems pretty cool.

Quattlebaum answered 15/3, 2012 at 23:1 Comment(1)

no longer alive. – Bouncing 23/4, 2019 at 15:45

NetFilx is more of personalized media service but you can use it for public information regarding movies. It supports Javascript and OData.
Also look JMDb: The information is basically the same as you can get when using the IMDb website.

Cuprite answered 10/9, 2012 at 14:32 Comment(1)

Netflix shut down their public API almost a year ago. Since they took down the entire developer sub-domain, including the post saying they were shutting it down, here's a link to a news piece on it: gigaom.com/2014/11/14/… – Awn 23/8, 2015 at 23:31

ok i found this one IMDB scraper

for C#: http://web3o.blogspot.de/2010/11/aspnetc-imdb-scraping-api.html

PHP here: http://web3o.blogspot.de/2010/10/php-imdb-scraper-for-new-imdb-template.html

alternatively a imdbapi.org implementation for c#:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using HtmlAgilityPack; // http://htmlagilitypack.codeplex.com/


public class IMDBHelper
{

    public static imdbitem GetInfoByTitle(string Title)
    {
        string url = "http://imdbapi.org/?type=xml&limit=1&title=" + Title;
        HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
        req.Method = "GET";
        req.UserAgent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; MSIE 9.0; WIndows NT 9.0; en-US))";
        string source;
        using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream()))
        {
            source = reader.ReadToEnd();
        }
        HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument();
        doc.LoadHtml(source);        
        XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Parse(doc.DocumentNode.InnerHtml, LoadOptions.None);
        imdbitem i = new imdbitem();
        i.rating = xdoc.Descendants("rating").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.rating_count = xdoc.Descendants("rating_count").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.year = xdoc.Descendants("year").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.rated = xdoc.Descendants("rated").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.title = xdoc.Descendants("title").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.imdb_url = xdoc.Descendants("imdb_url").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.plot_simple = xdoc.Descendants("plot_simple").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.type = xdoc.Descendants("type").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.poster = xdoc.Descendants("poster").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.imdb_id = xdoc.Descendants("imdb_id").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.also_known_as = xdoc.Descendants("also_known_as").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.language = xdoc.Descendants("language").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.country = xdoc.Descendants("country").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.release_date = xdoc.Descendants("release_date").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.filming_locations = xdoc.Descendants("filming_locations").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.runtime = xdoc.Descendants("runtime").Select(x => x.Value).FirstOrDefault();
        i.directors = xdoc.Descendants("directors").Descendants("item").Select(x => x.Value).ToList();
        i.writers = xdoc.Descendants("writers").Descendants("item").Select(x => x.Value).ToList();
        i.actors = xdoc.Descendants("actors").Descendants("item").Select(x => x.Value).ToList();
        i.genres = xdoc.Descendants("genres").Descendants("item").Select(x => x.Value).ToList();
        return i;
    }

    public class imdbitem
    {
        public string rating { get; set; }
        public string rating_count { get; set; }
        public string year { get; set; }
        public string rated { get; set; }
        public string title { get; set; }
        public string imdb_url { get; set; }
        public string plot_simple { get; set; }
        public string type { get; set; }
        public string poster { get; set; }
        public string imdb_id { get; set; }
        public string also_known_as { get; set; }
        public string language { get; set; }
        public string country { get; set; }
        public string release_date { get; set; }
        public string filming_locations { get; set; }
        public string runtime { get; set; }
        public List<string> directors { get; set; }
        public List<string> writers { get; set; }
        public List<string> actors { get; set; }
        public List<string> genres { get; set; }
    }

}

Pacifist answered 28/5, 2013 at 18:12 Comment(1)

It looks good but according to IMDB, it's forbidden to use this kind of tools. More information help.imdb.com/article/imdb/general-information/… – Elihu 5/4, 2020 at 12:56

Here is a Python module providing API's to get data from IMDB website

http://techdiary-viki.blogspot.com/2011/03/imdb-api.html

Contortive answered 10/3, 2011 at 15:12 Comment(3)

That module uses screen-scraping, which is against the TOS – Piggott 18/4, 2011 at 12:40

Using IMDB at all in an app is against their TOS, apparently... – Maggs 24/6, 2011 at 21:51

ya, you have to contact them and request to use their content in your commercial application. It says in their TOS you have to have written consent from IMDB. – Wetterhorn 4/5, 2012 at 4:21

Im pretty confident that the application you found actually gets their information form Themoviedb.org's API(they get most of there stuff from IMDB). They have a free open API that is used alot of the movie organizer/XMBC applications.

Wetterhorn answered 4/5, 2012 at 4:22 Comment(0)

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