canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/imdb-api.com/imdb-api # IMDb-API Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for IMDb-API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. IMDb-API is a third-party gateway that exposes movie, series, and cast information sourced from IMDb data. The API supports search by title, name, or company, plus deep lookups for full cast, ratings, user reviews, season episodes, awards, images, and trailers. The API key is supplied as a path parameter rather than a header, which is unusual but documented across every endpoint. ## For AI agents Search IMDb for titles, people, and companies, and pull ratings, full cast, episodes, reviews, and trailers from a single REST surface. ## Scope Does not handle streaming availability, ticket booking, or original IMDb account data - use for IMDb-sourced title, person, and company lookups only. ## Capabilities - Search IMDb by title, movie, series, name, or company name - Look up full title details by IMDb ID including plot, runtime, and language - Retrieve the full cast and crew for a title - Pull aggregated and per-source ratings for a title - List all episodes for a chosen season of a series - Fetch a person's biography, awards, and known-for credits - Surface trailers, posters, and image galleries for titles ## Use cases ### Movie Discovery and Recommendation Apps Side-project recommendation apps and watchlist tools need a reliable source of titles, ratings, and metadata. IMDb-API exposes the search and lookup surface that powers a 'find movies similar to X' flow: search by title, retrieve the IMDb ID, and pull ratings plus poster art for each result. The 29-endpoint surface covers most fan-app needs without scraping IMDb directly. Example prompt: GET `/SearchTitle/{apiKey}/{expression}` for the user's query, then for each result call `/Title/{apiKey}/{id}` and `/Ratings/{apiKey}/{id}` to assemble the result card. ### TV Series Episode Trackers Series tracking apps need season-by-season episode lists with air dates and short synopses. /SeasonEpisodes returns the episode list per season for a given series ID, which a tracker can store locally and refresh weekly. Combined with /UserRatings the same view shows community scores per episode. Example prompt: GET `/SeasonEpisodes/{apiKey}/{id}/{seasonNumber}` for each known season of a series and persist the episode list with air dates. ### Cast and Crew Enrichment for Editorial Editorial sites running interviews and reviews want a structured cast credit list per article subject. /FullCast returns the cast and crew for a title and /Name returns biographical detail per credit. Editors can render filmographies and 'related people' sections without manual research. Example prompt: GET `/FullCast/{apiKey}/{id}`, then for each top-billed cast member call `/Name/{apiKey}/{id}` to enrich the article with biography snippets. ### Agent-Driven Movie Q&A An assistant that answers movie trivia questions can search IMDb-API by title, fetch the canonical record, and cite ratings and awards in its answer. Through Jentic the agent finds the right operation by intent and runs it without juggling 29 endpoint signatures or remembering the path-based API key pattern. Example prompt: Search Jentic for 'look up a movie by title on IMDb', execute /SearchTitle followed by /Title and /Ratings, and cite the returned data in the answer. ## Key endpoints | Method | Path | Description | | --- | --- | --- | | GET | `/SearchTitle/{apiKey}/{expression}` | Search titles by free-text expression | | GET | `/Title/{apiKey}/{id}` | Look up full title details | | GET | `/FullCast/{apiKey}/{id}` | Retrieve full cast and crew | | GET | `/Ratings/{apiKey}/{id}` | Retrieve aggregated ratings | | GET | `/SeasonEpisodes/{apiKey}/{id}/{seasonNumber}` | List episodes in a season | | GET | `/Name/{apiKey}/{id}` | Look up a person's details | | GET | `/SearchName/{apiKey}/{expression}` | Search people by name | ## Key resources - **Search** — Search IMDb by title, movie, series, name, or company. - **Title** — Look up title details, ratings, full cast, awards, images, and trailers. - **Series** — Retrieve season episodes and series-level metadata. - **Name** — Look up person details, biography, and awards. ## Why Jentic - **Setup:** Wiring IMDb-API by hand means placing the API key directly in the URL path segment for every request against imdb-api.com and building each title, name, and rating path yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import the IMDb-API from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it. - **Permission scoping:** IMDb-API puts the title or person id in the URL path (`/Title/{apiKey}/{id}`, `/Name/{apiKey}/{id}`), so a rule can pin your agent to the read lookups it needs, such as title, full cast, and ratings. Because these are read-only lookups and you choose the allowed operations, the agent is limited to the queries you have named. - **Credential handling:** Your IMDb-API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and inserted into the path at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context. - **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'look up a movie by title on IMDb', and Jentic returns the matching operation with its parameter schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without building the path-based key pattern by hand. ## Related APIs - **The Movie Database** — TMDb is a community-maintained movie and TV database with a generous free tier and JSON API. - **OMDb API** — OMDb is a long-running IMDb-style lookup API focused on simple title lookups. - **Giant Bomb** — Giant Bomb covers video game titles and characters that often cross over with film and TV adaptations. ## FAQ ### Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for IMDb-API? IMDb-API.com is a third-party reseller of IMDb data and does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call IMDb-API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer. ### What authentication does the IMDb-API use? The API uses an API key passed as a path parameter on every endpoint, not a header. For example, `/SearchTitle/{apiKey}/{expression}.` Through Jentic the key is stored in the encrypted vault and inserted into the path at execute time. ### Can I list all episodes for a series? Yes. GET `/SeasonEpisodes/{apiKey}/{id}/{seasonNumber}` returns the episodes in a given season. Iterate through known season numbers to assemble a full episode list for a series. ### Can I look up the full cast for a film? Yes. GET `/FullCast/{apiKey}/{id}` returns the cast and crew for a title. For deeper biographical detail on a specific person, follow up with `/Name/{apiKey}/{id}.` ### How do I search IMDb through Jentic? Run pip install jentic, search for 'search IMDb for a movie title', load the /SearchTitle schema, and execute with the user's query expression. Jentic supplies the API key from the vault. ### What are the rate limits for IMDb-API? The OpenAPI spec does not list explicit rate limits. IMDb-API enforces per-plan request quotas on imdb-api.com; back off on HTTP 429 responses if running batch enrichment over thousands of titles. ### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the IMDb API? Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which IMDb-API operations the agent may call, so you can pin it to just the read lookups it needs, such as /Title, /FullCast, /Ratings, and /Name. Every operation is a read-only GET with the title or person id in the URL path, and the agent can only invoke the operations you have named. Any endpoint you leave out, including search or season episodes, stays off limits to the agent.