Does IMDB provide an API? [closed]

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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/a/aa.json
• https://v2.sg.media-imdb.com/suggests/h/hello.json (alternate)
• 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 the function name they choose (which is in the imdb${searchphrase} format). Alternatively, one could strip or replace the padding via a local proxy.

// 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 that strips the "padding" of JSON-P,
// e.g. "imdb$foo(" and ")", leaving pure JSON only.
jQuery.getJSON('/api/imdb/?q=foo', function (results) {
    /* ... */
});

// 4) Pure JSON (ES2017 and Fetch API)
// Using a custom proxy at "/api" that strips the JSON-P padding.
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.

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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

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