Rotten Tomatoes Movie & TV Show Scraper

Scrape movie and TV show data from Rotten Tomatoes. Returns Tomatometer and audience scores, certification status, cast, directors, genres, synopsis, content rating, and release date — everything the RT detail page carries, in clean JSON.

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What Data Does It Return?

Each record covers one title. Movies and TV shows follow the same schema.

{
  "url": "https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/oppenheimer_2023",
  "title": "Oppenheimer",
  "type": "Movie",
  "tomatometer_score": "93%",
  "tomatometer_sentiment": "POSITIVE",
  "tomatometer_certified": true,
  "audience_score": "91%",
  "audience_sentiment": "POSITIVE",
  "audience_review_count": 6024,
  "synopsis": "Written and directed by Christopher Nolan...",
  "rating": "R",
  "genres": "Biography, History, Drama",
  "release_date": "Jul 21, 2023",
  "runtime": "PT3H",
  "cast": "Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr.",
  "directors": "Christopher Nolan",
  "ems_id": "07d7f9a2-3fa1-342a-b6ca-27fd594e04c6",
  "scraped_at": "2026-06-04T15:00:00.000Z"
}

Field	Type	Description
url	String	Rotten Tomatoes URL of the title
title	String	Title of the movie or TV show
type	String	Content type: Movie or TvSeries
tomatometer_score	String	Critics score as a percentage (e.g. 93%)
tomatometer_sentiment	String	POSITIVE or NEGATIVE
tomatometer_certified	Boolean	Whether the title has Certified Fresh status
audience_score	String	Audience Popcornmeter score as a percentage
audience_sentiment	String	POSITIVE or NEGATIVE
audience_review_count	Number/String	Number of audience ratings
synopsis	String	Plot description
rating	String	MPAA or TV content rating (e.g. R, TV-MA)
genres	String	Comma-separated list of genres
release_date	String	Release date string
runtime	String	ISO 8601 duration (e.g. PT3H) or null
cast	String	Top cast members, comma-separated
directors	String	Directors (movies) or creators (TV shows)
ems_id	String	Rotten Tomatoes internal EMS identifier
scraped_at	String	ISO timestamp of when the record was scraped

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Who Uses This?

• Researchers and analysts — building datasets of critic vs. audience score divergence across genres or eras
• Recommendation engines — enriching title metadata with quality signals beyond IMDb ratings
• Entertainment journalists — tracking score trends for new releases or historical titles
• Data aggregators — combining RT scores with streaming availability or box office data

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How Rotten Tomatoes Scraper Works

1. You provide a list of RT movie or TV show URLs
2. The scraper fetches each page using an HTTP crawler with Chrome fingerprinting
3. Scores are extracted from server-rendered JSON embedded in the page — no JavaScript execution needed
4. Each record is saved to the dataset in the schema above

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Input

{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/oppenheimer_2023",
    "https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/breaking_bad",
    "https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_godfather"
  ],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
urls	Array	Yes	—	List of Rotten Tomatoes movie (/m/) or TV show (/tv/) URLs
maxItems	Integer	No	10	Maximum records to return. 0 = no limit

Movie URLs follow the pattern /m/<slug>. TV show URLs follow /tv/<slug>. Both work.

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FAQ

Does it handle both movies and TV shows?

Yes. The scraper detects the content type from the URL and extracts the correct score block for each. Movies embed scores in reviewsData; TV shows use mediaScorecard. The output schema is the same either way.

Does it need a proxy?

No. Rotten Tomatoes pages are served without Cloudflare challenge or aggressive bot detection. The scraper uses Chrome TLS fingerprinting which passes passive checks cleanly.

How do I find the URL for a specific title?

Navigate to the title on Rotten Tomatoes and copy the URL from your browser. Movie pages are at rottentomatoes.com/m/<slug>, TV series at rottentomatoes.com/tv/<slug>.

What's the difference between Tomatometer and audience score?

Tomatometer is the critic aggregation (percentage of positive reviews from approved critics). The audience score (Popcornmeter) is based on verified ratings from users who watched the title. Both are included, along with certification status for Certified Fresh titles.

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Need More Features?

Open a request on the Apify Store listing to suggest features like bulk URL import, season-level TV data, or review text extraction.

Why Use Rotten Tomatoes Scraper?

• Clean schema — scores, sentiment, certification, and metadata in one flat record per title
• No proxy required — Rotten Tomatoes serves data without CF challenges; runs cheap on datacenter
• Works for both content types — movies and TV shows in a single actor, same output shape