What Makes IMDB API One of the Best Movie APIs of 2020

Internet Movie Database API (IMDb API) is an online website directory that keeps information related to TV programs, films, internet streams, and video games. It also has data for each of these listings such as the relevant directors, cast, producers, trivia, plot summaries, ratings, and fan reviews. The data on the IMDb database is collected from users and content generated by the users. The IMDb API helps one to easily query for all this information – related to the TV programs, films, internet streams, and video games on the IMDb directory.

Why IMDb API?

IMDb API is one of the best movie APIs of 2020. The API does almost everything that one would want it to do and will provide all the information in detail. The API comes with two GET endpoints without POST options. The two GET endpoints include;

• Title or ID
• Search

Title or ID

The Title or ID endpoint will require you to have the movie title or IMDb ID for you to do a search. With that, it will return a detailed result about the specific title that you have. The endpoint has optional parameters for the search. They include;

• type parameter that specifies the result type that you want to be returned. The available types include series, movie, and episode.
• plot parameter specifies the summary you want to return. You can choose between short and full summary.
• r parameter specifies the data type (XML or JSON) to return.
• callback parameter specifies the name of the JSONP callback.
• y parameter specifies the year of release of the search results.
• i parameter specifies the IMDb ID

Search

The Search endpoint is used for searching TV shows and movies by their title. When the search endpoint is used, the API will return a list of TV shows or movies depending on the search query. There are optional parameters that can be used to return specified results. They include;

• r parameter used to specify the format of the results. You can get the results in either XML or JSON format.
• page parameter that returns the results by page.
• type parameter used to select the type of results that you want to return. There are three types of results – series, movie, and episode.
• y parameter that specifies the year that the series, movie, or episode was released.

If you would like to test these endpoints, get a sample JSON response for a movie query. You will notice that the API returns the title, release year, IMDb ID, type, and movie poster image using the search endpoint. If you were to take the IMDb ID from these results and use it on the Title or ID endpoint, you will get a more detailed result that includes the title, release year, rating, release date, runtime, genres, directors, writers, actors, plot summary, languages, countries, awards won, movie posters, ratings received, Metascore, IMDb ratings, IMDb votes, IMDb ID, type, production company, and websites. It is such detailed information that makes the IMDb API one of the best movie APIs of 2020.

IMDb API Pricing

Apart from doing the work it is supposed to do better than other APIs, the IMDb API is quite affordable. It also has a free version with a limit of up to 1,000 API requests each day. Those that need a higher limit can choose from one of the following premium plans.