Given an IMDB movie id, how do I programmatically get its poster image?

Question

movie id tt0438097 can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0438097/

What\'s the url for its poster image?

Answer 1

You can use imdb-cli tool to download movie's poster, e.g.

omdbtool -t "Ice Age: The Meltdown" | wget `sed -n '/^poster/{n;p;}'`

Answer 2

$Movies = Get-ChildItem -path "Z:\MOVIES\COMEDY" | Where-Object {$_.Extension -eq ".avi" -or $_.Extension -eq ".mp4" -or $_.Extension -eq ".mkv" -or $_.Extension -eq<br>  <br>".flv" -or $_.Extension -eq ".xvid" -or $_.Extension -eq ".divx"} | Select-Object Name, FullName | Sort Name <br>
#Grab all the extension types and filter the ones I ONLY want <br>
<br>
$COMEDY = ForEach($Movie in $Movies) <br>
{<br>
        $Title = $($Movie.Name)<br>
        #Remove the file extension<br>
        $Title = $Title.split('.')[0] <br>       
<br>
        #Changing the case to all lower <br>       
        $Title = $Title.ToLower()<br>
<br>
        #Replace a space w/ %20 for the search structure<br>
        $searchTitle = $Title.Replace(' ','%20')       <br>
<br>
        #Fetching search results<br>
        $moviesearch = Invoke-WebRequest "http://www.imdb.com/search/title?title=$searchTitle&title_type=feature"<br>
         <br>
        #Moving html elements into variable<br>
        $titleclassarray = $moviesearch.AllElements | where Class -eq 'title' | select -First 1<br>
<br>
        #Checking if result contains movies<br>
        try<br><br>
        {
            $titleclass = $titleclassarray[0]<br>
        }<br>
        catch<br>
        {<br>
            Write-Warning "No movie found matching that title http://www.imdb.com/search/title?title=$searchTitle&title_type=feature"<br>
        }      <br>
                   <br>
        #Parcing HTML for movie link<br>
        $regex = "<\s*a\s*[^>]*?href\s*=\s*[`"']*([^`"'>]+)[^>]*?>"<br>
        $linksFound = [Regex]::Matches($titleclass.innerHTML, $regex, "IgnoreCase")<br>
         <br><br>

        #Fetching the first result from <br>
        $titlelink = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList<br>
        foreach($link in $linksFound)<br>
        {<br>
            $trimmedlink = $link.Groups[1].Value.Trim()<br>
            if ($trimmedlink.Contains('/title/'))<br>
            {<br>
                [void] $titlelink.Add($trimmedlink)<br>
            }<br>
        }<br>
        #Fetching movie page<br>
        $movieURL = "http://www.imdb.com$($titlelink[0])"<br>
        <br>
        #Grabbing the URL for the Movie Poster<br>
        $MoviePoster = ((Invoke-WebRequest –Uri $movieURL).Images | Where-Object {$_.title -like "$Title Poster"} | Where src -like "http:*").src  <br> 
<br>
        $MyVariable = "<a href=" + '"' + $($Movie.FullName) + '"' + " " + "title='$Title'" + ">"<br>
        $ImgLocation = "<img src=" + '"' + "$MoviePoster" + '"' + "width=" + '"' + "225" + '"' + "height=" + '"' + "275" + '"' + "border=" + '"' + "0" + '"' + "alt=" +<br> '"' + $Title + '"' + "></a>" + "&nbsp;" + "&nbsp;" + "&nbsp;"+ "&nbsp;" + "&nbsp;" + "&nbsp;"+ "&nbsp;" + "&nbsp;" + "&nbsp;"<br>
        <br>
        Write-Output $MyVariable, $ImgLocation<br>
       <br>
    }$COMEDY | Out-File z:\db\COMEDY.htm  <br>
<br>
    $after = Get-Content z:\db\COMEDY.htm <br>
<br>
    #adding a back button to the Index <br>
    $before = Get-Content z:\db\before.txt<br>
<br>
    #adding the back button prior to the poster images content<br>
    Set-Content z:\db\COMEDY.htm –value $before, $after<br>

Answer 3

Check out http://www.imdbapi.com/, It returns Poster url in string.

For example, check http://www.imdbapi.com/?i=&t=inception and you'll get the poster address: Poster":"http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjAxMzY3NjcxNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTI5OTM0Mw@@._V1._SX320.jpg"

Update: Seems like the site owner had some arguments with IMDB legal staff. As mentioned in the original site, new site's address is http://www.omdbapi.com/

Answer 4

The URL is a random string as far as I can tell.

It can still be easily retrieved. It is the only img inside the anchor named poster.

So, if you are reading the source, simply search for <a name="poster" and it will be the text following the first src=" from there.

However, you will need to keep the screen scraping code updated because that will probably change.

---

You should also be aware that the images are copyrighted, so be careful to only use the image under a good "fair use" rationale.

Answer 5

Be aware tough, that the terms of service explicitly forbid screenscraping. You can download the IMDB database as a set of text files, but as I understand it, the IMDB movie ID is nowhere to be found in these text files.