IMDb Search API for films and television
Search IMDb over HTTP and receive the release year, the popularity rank, and the top-billed cast in a single field, enough to disambiguate a title without opening a page.
Endpoint
Results arrive in the same JSON shape as every other engine, so existing parsing continues to work.
The title carries a marker such as (feature), separating films from series.
The snippet begins with a popularity rank and the year.
The rest of the snippet lists the leading actors.
Useful for
Title lookup / Media catalogues / Recommendations
Enough metadata to pick the right title
Set `search_service` to `imdb` and the results come from IMDb records. The endpoint, the authentication, and the response shape are the same as every other engine.
Year and cast in the snippet
The `snippet` field follows the pattern `Rank: N | year | cast`, which is usually enough to tell a remake from an original.
Type marker in the title
The `title` field carries a marker such as `(feature)`, so films and series can be separated without a second call.
A popularity signal for ranking
The rank gives an ordering when a query matches many records with similar names.
Standard Search parameters
`max_results` up to 50, plus `include_sites`, `exclude_sites`, and `time_range`.
What is an IMDb search API?
An IMDb search API is an HTTP interface that returns IMDb records as structured results. IMDb does not offer a general-purpose public search API; its commercial data products are aimed at licensing rather than at a developer making a handful of lookups, so most integrations end up scraping. Search1API exposes IMDb as one of the search services on its Search endpoint, returning the title with its type marker, the IMDb link, and a snippet carrying the popularity rank, the release year, and the top-billed cast, in the same JSON shape it returns for its other engines. That combination is what disambiguation actually needs: two films sharing a name are told apart by year and cast, not by title.
Typical workflow
Search IMDb over HTTP and receive the release year, the popularity rank, and the top-billed cast in a single field, enough to disambiguate a title without opening a page.
Send a query with `search_service` set to `imdb`.
Split `snippet` on the pipe to separate rank, year, and cast.
Set `crawl_results` when the workflow needs the title page rather than the record summary.
One request, titles you can disambiguate
A single call searches IMDb and returns the year and cast with each result, so a remake and its original are distinguishable without opening either page.
bash
Best for
Assistants resolving a film or series a user named loosely.
Media catalogues that enrich entries with year and cast.
Recommendation flows that need a canonical title record.
Content tools that separate films from series programmatically.
FAQ
Is there an official IMDb API?
IMDb does not publish a general-purpose public search API. Its commercial data offerings are licensing products rather than a per-request developer API, which is why most integrations scrape the site. Search1API covers the lookup case by offering IMDb as one of the engines on its Search endpoint.
What metadata comes back with a result?
The title with a type marker such as `(feature)`, the IMDb link, and a snippet in the form `Rank: N | year | top-billed cast`.
Can I get ratings?
The search result carries a popularity rank rather than a user rating. Set `crawl_results` to fetch the title page when the workflow needs what is rendered there.
What does an IMDb search cost?
One credit per search, and one additional credit for each page retrieved successfully through `crawl_results`. At the base top-up rate of $1 for 1,000 credits, that is $1 per 1,000 searches. Signup includes 100 free credits with no credit card.
Can I tell films and series apart?
Yes. The type marker in the title distinguishes them, so results can be filtered without a second request.
Which other reference sources are supported?
The same Search endpoint accepts `wikipedia` for reference articles and `youtube` for video, alongside general web engines and the Chinese-language engines, for 17 engines in total on one contract.