IMDb Search Scraper

Searches IMDb the same way its own search box does, by calling the public suggestion endpoint behind it. Type breaking bad or tom hanks and you get back the IMDb id, the title or name, what kind of thing it is, the year, the "stars / known for" line, the poster or headshot, IMDb's popularity rank, and the canonical imdb.com URL. No API key, no account, no HTML parsing.

$2.50 per 1,000 results ($0.0025 each), and there is no run-start fee, so a run that finds nothing costs exactly nothing.

Be clear on what this returns

This is the autocomplete index, not the full title page. That means two things worth knowing before you build on it:

• No ratings, no vote counts, no genre, no runtime, no plot, no full cast. Those live on the title page and the suggestion endpoint doesn't carry them. What you get is the identity of the thing plus the fields listed below.
• Roughly 8 results per query, and no pagination. That's the endpoint's own cap. Setting maxItems to 200 won't produce 200 rows from one query — pass more terms in queries instead and the rows are merged and de-duplicated by IMDb id.

If you need ratings and full metadata, this actor is the wrong tool. It's good at resolving a name to an IMDb id fast and cheaply, which is usually what you want first.

What you get per result

Field	Notes
id	IMDb id: tt0903747 for titles, nm0000158 for people, co… for companies.
kind	title, person, company or other, derived from the id prefix.
title	The title, or the person's name.
category	IMDb's own label, such as feature, TV series, video game. null for people.
year	Release year for titles. null where it doesn't apply.
yearRange	Run span for series, e.g. 2008-2013.
starsOrKnownFor	Main cast for a title, or the "known for" line for a person.
rank	IMDb popularity rank. Lower is more popular.
image	Poster or headshot URL. null when IMDb has none.
url	imdb.com/title/{id}/ or imdb.com/name/{id}/. null for the odd kind: "other" row, like a franchise entry, which has no canonical page.

A real row:

{
  "ok": true,
  "id": "tt0903747",
  "kind": "title",
  "title": "Breaking Bad",
  "category": "TV series",
  "year": 2008,
  "yearRange": "2008-2013",
  "starsOrKnownFor": "Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul",
  "rank": 41,
  "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOWE4NTc3YmYt….jpg",
  "url": "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903747/"
}

Input

Field	Notes
query	One search term.
queries	An array of terms searched in the same run, merged and de-duplicated by id. This is how you get past the ~8-row ceiling.
type	all (default), titles (ids starting tt), or people (ids starting nm).
maxItems	Cap on de-duplicated rows across all queries. Default 50.

{ "queries": ["inception", "the matrix", "arrival"], "type": "titles" }

{ "query": "tom hanks", "type": "people" }

Billing

You pay $0.0025 per result row, and nothing else. There's no run-start fee.

Nothing is charged for a run that returns no results, for bad input, or for a rate limit or network error. Those come back as a single ok: false row with an errorCode of BAD_INPUT, NO_RESULTS, RATE_LIMITED or NETWORK.

Because each query tops out near 8 rows, a single-query run costs about $0.02 and a 20-term run lands near $0.40.

Proxy

Off by default, and you almost certainly want to leave it that way. The suggestion endpoint is public, needs no auth, and has no anti-bot in front of it, so a proxy just adds cost. Turn Apify Proxy on only if you're running high enough volume to hit an IP rate limit.

If something looks wrong

• NO_RESULTS with type set — the endpoint may have returned only the other kind. Try type: "all".
• Fewer rows than you asked for — that's the ~8 per query cap. Add more terms to queries.