Does IMDB provide an API? [closed]

Question

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?

Answer 1

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).

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

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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.