IMDb Scraper - Top 250 Movies & TV Shows Chart, Ratings

IMDb Scraper returns the IMDb Top 250 movies chart or the Top 250 TV shows chart, and the latest IMDb news by category, as clean, flat JSON, in one run. Every record has the chart rank, IMDb ID and link, title in your language and the original title, year, release date, IMDb rating, number of votes, the weighted rating IMDb ranks the chart by, and the poster. Pick one of 10 languages for the titles. It is for film and TV researchers, recommendation and list sites, newsletter writers and data teams who want an IMDb API alternative with no IMDb account, API keys, proxies or cookies. Pricing is pay-per-event: $0.0045 per record (a chart title or a news item), plus a $0.009 start fee per run.

What data can you get?

Three modes, one record per item. Mode chart: one record per chart entry, in chart order.

Field	What it contains
rank	Position in the chart (1 to 250)
imdbId	IMDb title ID (tt followed by digits)
url	Link to the IMDb title page
title	Title in the requested language
originalTitle	Title in its original language
titleType	IMDb title type, for example movie, tvSeries or tvMiniSeries
year	Release year (first year for a TV show)
endYear	Last year of a TV show; empty for movies and for shows that are not over
releaseDate	Release date IMDb lists first, as YYYY-MM-DD
releaseDateCountry	Country code of that release date
rating	IMDb user rating out of 10, as shown on the title page
voteCount	Number of votes behind the chart rating
weightedRating	The weighted rating IMDb ranks the chart by (more exact than rating)
imageUrl	Poster image
chart	Chart the title was read from: movie or tv
language	Language and country code the titles were requested in
type	Record type, always chartEntry

Mode news: IMDb news by category

One record per news item, newest first (about 100 per run).

Field	What it contains
newsId	IMDb news ID (ni followed by digits)
imdbUrl	Link to the news item on IMDb
url	Link to the original article on the publisher's site
title	Headline
text	News text as IMDb gives it: a plain-text excerpt that may stop mid-sentence
publishedAt	Publication time in UTC (ISO 8601)
author	Author named on the item (empty when none)
sourceName, sourceUrl	Publication the item comes from, and its section page
imageUrl, imageWidth, imageHeight	News image and its size
category	News section: TOP, MOVIE, TV or CELEBRITY
language	Language and country code requested
type	Always newsItem

How the data is shaped

• Numbers you can use. rank, year, voteCount, rating and weightedRating are numbers.
• Flat fields, nothing nested. One record per title.
• Not included. No genres, cast, plot or reviews.

How to use IMDb Scraper

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console.
2. Choose the mode: Top 250 chart or News by category.
3. For the chart, choose the Chart: Top 250 movies or Top 250 TV shows. For news, choose the News category.
4. Choose the Language of the titles and news.
5. Set Max results: the first N records (250 at most for a chart, about 100 news items).
6. Click Start. When the run finishes, download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it through the Apify API.

The Actor also runs in seconds with an empty input: {} returns the first 20 titles of the Top 250 movies.

Input

Field	Type	Required	What it does	Default
mode	string	Optional	chart (Top 250 chart), or news (news by category)	chart
chart	string	Optional	movie (Top 250 movies) or tv (Top 250 TV shows)	movie
newsCategory	string	Optional	Mode news: TOP, MOVIE, TV or CELEBRITY	TOP
language	string	Optional	Language of the titles and news: en_US, fr_CA, fr_FR, de_DE, hi_IN, it_IT, pt_BR, es_ES, es_US, es_MX	en_US
maxResults	integer	Optional	Number of records to return: titles from rank 1 downwards (a chart holds 250), news items newest first (about 100 per run). You are charged per record returned	20

Example: the full Top 250 TV chart in German

{
  "mode": "chart",
  "chart": "tv",
  "language": "de_DE",
  "maxResults": 250
}

Example: latest movie news

{
  "mode": "news",
  "newsCategory": "MOVIE",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Output example

Mode chart:

{
  "type": "chartEntry",
  "rank": 1,
  "imdbId": "tt0111161",
  "url": "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/",
  "chart": "movie",
  "language": "en_US",
  "title": "The Shawshank Redemption",
  "originalTitle": "The Shawshank Redemption",
  "titleType": "movie",
  "year": 1994,
  "endYear": null,
  "releaseDate": "1994-10-14",
  "releaseDateCountry": "US",
  "rating": 9.3,
  "voteCount": 3258126,
  "weightedRating": 9.2408,
  "imageUrl": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/example.jpg"
}

Mode news:

{
  "type": "newsItem",
  "newsId": "ni66078173",
  "imdbUrl": "https://www.imdb.com/news/ni66078173/",
  "url": "https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/example/",
  "category": "MOVIE",
  "language": "en_US",
  "title": "Example headline",
  "text": "Example excerpt of the article...",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-25T16:06:11Z",
  "author": "Example Author",
  "sourceName": "The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News",
  "sourceUrl": "http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/movies",
  "imageUrl": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/example.jpg",
  "imageWidth": 200,
  "imageHeight": 200
}

How much does it cost?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. These are the charge events and their prices:

Event	Price (USD)	When it is charged
run-start	$0.009	Once per run, charged when the request to the data source succeeds. It is not charged when the data source fails, or when your spending limit cannot cover it.
result	$0.0045	For each record returned: a chart title or a news item

Worked examples:

• The default run (20 titles): $0.009 + 20 x $0.0045 = $0.099.
• A full chart (250 titles): $0.009 + 250 x $0.0045 = $1.134.
• Both full charts (two runs): 2 x $1.134 = $2.268.
• A full news run (about 100 items): $0.009 + 100 x $0.0045 = $0.459.

You never pay for more than maxResults items, you are never charged for items that were not delivered, and the run stops by itself if your spending limit is reached.

On the free Apify plan, every run returns a sample dataset: a real result of this Actor's prefilled input, captured on the date shown in the run status, so you can see exactly what the output looks like. Your own input is not used and nothing is charged. To run your own queries, use any paid Apify plan.

Use cases

• Lists and newsletters: publish the current Top 250 with ratings and vote counts.
• Chart monitoring: run daily or weekly and compare ranks and ratings over time.
• Recommendation and catalog projects: seed a catalog with IMDb IDs, years and posters.
• News monitoring: pull movie, TV or celebrity news on a schedule and feed a newsletter or alert.
• Localised lists: get the chart with titles in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or Hindi.

Integrations and API

You can start runs from your own code with the Apify API, schedule runs (for example a weekly chart snapshot), and connect the dataset to Apify integrations and webhooks. Results can be read from the API as JSON, CSV or Excel.

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("clover_folktale/imdb-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "chart",
    "chart": "movie",
    "language": "en_US",
    "maxResults": 250,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["rank"], item["title"], item["rating"])

Tips and limits

• One request per run. The whole chart or the latest news comes back at once, so a run takes a few seconds whatever maxResults is. You are charged only for the records you ask for. News is what IMDb shows now; there is no way to go back further.
• Rating vs weighted rating. rating is the number shown on the title page (one decimal). weightedRating is the more exact figure IMDb sorts the chart by.
• Release date. releaseDate is the first release date IMDb lists and can differ from year (for example a later re-release).
• Titles in other languages. title is the local release name where IMDb has one, otherwise the original title; originalTitle is always the original.
• Free plan. Every run on the free Apify plan returns a stored sample dataset; your own input is not used and nothing is charged.
• Feedback. Missing a field? Open an issue from the Actor page and it will be looked at.

FAQ

Do I need an IMDb account, API key or cookies?

No. You only need an Apify account to run the Actor.

Is it legal to scrape IMDb?

The Actor returns only public data: what anyone sees on IMDb's Top 250 pages, and news pages. It returns no account data and no private data. You are responsible for how you use the data and for following the laws and terms that apply to you.

How fresh is the data?

Each run reads the chart or news at the time of the run.

Can I get one title's details, cast or reviews?

Not with this Actor. It returns the Top 250 charts and news.

Can I schedule runs and export the data?

Yes. You can schedule runs in Apify, start them through the API, and export every dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel.

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