Common Sense Media Scraper

Scrape Common Sense Media — the leading children's entertainment rating site covering 100,000+ movies, TV shows, games, books, apps, websites, and podcasts. Browse by category, search by title slug, or fetch specific review URLs. Extracts age ratings, editorial star ratings, detailed content ratings (violence, language, sex, drugs), genres, platforms, cast, director, and parent/kid review counts. HTTP-only. No auth, no proxy, no API key required.

What this actor does

• Three modes: byCategory, search, byUrl
• Six content types: movies, TV shows, games, books, apps, websites
• Age & category filters: filter results by minimum/maximum age rating and content type
• Full content breakdown: violence, language, sex, drugs, messages, role models, consumerism, diversity ratings (0–5 scale)
• Industry ratings: MPAA (movies), ESRB (games), TV rating
• Platform data: platform lists for games and apps
• Parent & kid review counts
• Empty fields are omitted — records never contain null values

Output per review

• title, contentType, slug
• ageRating — recommended minimum age (0–18)
• starRating — editorial rating (1–5)
• genres[]
• releaseYear
• mpaaRating, esrbRating, tvRating
• ratingViolence, ratingLanguage, ratingSex, ratingDrugs, ratingMessages, ratingRoleModels, ratingConsumerism, ratingDiversity (all 0–5)
• director, cast[]
• studio — production company / publisher / developer
• runtime — runtime in minutes (movies)
• platforms[] — supported platforms (games/apps)
• reviewText — editorial review body
• reviewSummary — short synopsis
• imageUrl — poster / cover image
• parentReviewCount, kidReviewCount
• isCommonSenseSelection — Common Sense Seal of approval
• dateReviewed
• commonSenseUrl
• scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	byCategory	byCategory / search / byUrl
category	string	movie	Content type: movie, tv, game, book, app, website
searchQuery	string	–	Title to search for (mode=search)
reviewUrls	array	–	Direct CSM review URLs to scrape (mode=byUrl)
minAgeRating	int	–	Only include reviews for age ≥ this value (0–18)
maxAgeRating	int	–	Only include reviews for age ≤ this value (0–18)
maxItems	int	50	Hard cap (1–500)

Example: Top movie reviews

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "category": "movie",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: Search for a specific title

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "minecraft",
  "category": "game"
}

Example: Fetch specific review URLs

{
  "mode": "byUrl",
  "reviewUrls": [
    "https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/inception",
    "https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/minecraft"
  ]
}

Example: Kid-friendly movies (ages 5–10)

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "category": "movie",
  "minAgeRating": 5,
  "maxAgeRating": 10,
  "maxItems": 100
}

Content rating scale

Each rating detail (violence, language, etc.) is scored 0–5:

• 0 — Not present
• 1 — Very mild
• 2 — Mild
• 3 — Moderate
• 4 — Heavy
• 5 — Extreme

Use cases

• Parental control tools — bulk-export age ratings and content warnings for content filtering
• Family media guides — build curated lists of age-appropriate movies and games
• Educational platforms — filter books and apps by age range for classroom recommendations
• Content moderation pipelines — enrich your content catalog with Common Sense Media's editorial ratings
• Recommendation engines — feed genre, age rating, and content intensity scores into filtering algorithms
• Media research — analyze trends in age ratings across different content categories over time

FAQ

Does this require a Common Sense Media account or API key? No. All data comes from publicly accessible review pages on commonsensemedia.org.

How does the byCategory mode discover content? It walks the public sitemap at /reviews/sitemap.xml (11 pages, ~5,000 URLs each) and fetches matching review pages.

What does mode=search do exactly? It constructs a URL from the title slug and checks if a review exists. For example, searchQuery="minecraft" tries commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/minecraft. Best results come from exact title slugs.

Why does the age rating not match what I see on the site? Common Sense Media distinguishes between the "Common Sense Age" (editorial recommendation) and the industry rating (MPAA/ESRB). The ageRating field is the editorial age recommendation.

What's a Common Sense Selection? An award given to titles that set a positive example. The isCommonSenseSelection field is true for these titles.

Can I scrape TV show episodes? The actor scrapes show-level reviews (not individual episodes), which is how Common Sense Media organizes its database.

Are all 100,000+ reviews available? Yes — using mode=byCategory with maxItems=500 repeated across all categories will give you the full dataset. The sitemap contains all indexed reviews.

How fresh is the data? Common Sense Media editors publish new reviews regularly. Running the actor weekly will capture new additions.

Is the actor free to run? Yes — it runs on Apify free plan with zero configuration and uses no paid proxy.