If you are building a website about movies and want to access movie information from Imdb then you can get it only by web scrapping because Imdb doesn’t provide any API to access its movie database. But there are some third-party API which provides information from Imdb.
In this article I will explain how to use following two APIs
- omdbapi.com (Requires API key)
- imdbapi.org (stopped working)
Working With omdbapi.com
Service Endpoint http://www.omdbapi.com/
| Parameter | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| apikey | string (required) | Get a free API key http://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx |
| s | string (optional) | title of a movie to search for |
| i | string (optional) | a valid IMDb movie id |
| t | string (optional) | title of a movie to return |
| y | year (optional) | year of the movie |
| r | JSON, XML | response data type (JSON default) |
| plot | short, full | short or extended plot (short default) |
| callback | name (optional) | JSONP callback name |
| tomatoes | true (optional) | adds rotten tomatoes d |
Sample Request: http://www.omdbapi.com/?apikey=[your-api-key]&t=titanic&y=1997
Sample Response :
{"Title":"Titanic","Year":"1997","Rated":"PG-13","Released":"19 Dec 1997","Runtime":"3 h 14 min","Genre":"Drama, Romance","Director":"James Cameron","Writer":"James Cameron","Actors":"Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates","Plot":"A seventeen-year-old aristocrat, expecting to be married to a rich claimant by her mother, falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.","Poster":"http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjExNzM0NDM0N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzkxOTUwNw@@._V1_SX300.jpg","imdbRating":"7.6","imdbVotes":"449,162","imdbID":"tt0120338","Type":"movie","Response":"True"}
php code to access movie information omdbapi.com
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<?$json=file_get_contents("http://www.omdbapi.com/?apikey=[your-api-key]&t=titanic&y=1997");$info=json_decode($json);print_r($info);?> |
Working With imdbapi.org
Service Endpoint http://imdbapi.org/
| Parameter | Required | Valid options | Default Value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| id (or ids) | No if title | /^ttd+$/ | The IMDB ID of the movie you wish to get the info for (e.g. tt0120689)id – only one IMDb ID.ids – max 10 IMDb ID (comma-separated). | |
| title | No if id | movie title | The valid imdb title of movie you wish to get the info for.(e.g. titanic) | |
| type | No | json, jsonp, xml | json | The data type you wish the API to return. |
| plot | No | none, simple, full | simple | The plot type you wish the API to return. |
| episode | No | 1,0 | 1 | When the parameter is 0, “episodes” is not included in the result. |
| lang | No | en-US, zh-CN | en-US | The data language you wish the API to reutrn. |
| aka | No | simple,full | simple | The aka type you wish the API to return. |
| release | No | simple,full | simple | The release date type you wish the API to return. |
| business | No | 1, 0 | 0 | Whether to include the business field in the result. |
| tech | No | 1, 0 | 0 | Whether to include the technical field in the result. |
Sample Request: http://imdbapi.org/?title=titanic
Sample response:
[{"runtime": ["194 min"], "rating": 7.6, "genres": ["Drama", "Romance"], "rated": "PG_13", "language": ["English", "French", "German", "Swedish", "Italian", "Russian"], "title": "Titanic", "filming_locations": "Santa Clarita, California, USA", "poster": "http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjExNzM0NDM0N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzkxOTUwNw@@._V1._SY317_CR0,0,214,317_.jpg", "imdb_url": "http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/", "writers": ["James Cameron"], "imdb_id": "tt0120338", "directors": ["James Cameron"], "rating_count": 426376, "actors": ["Leonardo DiCaprio", "Kate Winslet", "Billy Zane", "Kathy Bates", "Frances Fisher", "Gloria Stuart", "Bill Paxton", "Bernard Hill", "David Warner", "Victor Garber", "Jonathan Hyde", "Suzy Amis", "Lewis Abernathy", "Nicholas Cascone", "Anatoly M. Sagalevitch"], "plot_simple": "A seventeen-year-old aristocrat, expecting to be married to a rich claimant by her mother, falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.", "year": 1997, "country": ["USA"], "type": "M", "release_date": 19980403, "also_known_as": ["Titanic in 3D"]}]
php code to access movie information from imdbapi.org
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<?$json=file_get_contents("http://imdbapi.org/?title=titanic");$info=json_decode($json);print_r($info);?> |
I think the imdbapi is no longer providing any api.
yes imdbapi is no longer working
Hi,
the IMDB Info Box plugin for WordPress does not seem to be working anymore 🙁 are you going to make an update? PLEAAAAASE? 🙂
A loyal fan 🙂
Yes I am planing to release an update soon
Oh i was search imdb api for a while and i found your post on omdb api. Thanks Sunny for sharing this. Excellent movie database api code.