🎞️ Letterboxd Film Database Scraper

🚀 Pull Letterboxd films with cast, directors, writers, themes, languages, studios, rating, watch counts, TMDB and IMDB IDs. 38 fields per film.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-08 · 📊 38 fields per record · Letterboxd films · cast + directors + writers + editors + producers + composers · genres + themes + languages + studios · rating + watch / like / list counts · TMDB + IMDB IDs

The Letterboxd Film Database Scraper pulls film records from Letterboxd, the social network for cinephiles. Output includes poster URL, slug, title + original title, year, runtime, tagline, description, directors + writers + editors + producers + cinematography + composers, full cast (names) + cast with character roles, genres + themes, primary language + spoken languages, production companies + studios, countries, alternative titles, average rating, rating count, watched-by count, liked-by count, appears-in-lists count, trailer URL, TMDB + IMDB IDs, and the Letterboxd URL.

Direct lookup only - feed a list of slugs (e.g. the-godfather, pulp-fiction), get rich records back. Each record is parsed from the film's HTML page. The scraper uses Chrome TLS fingerprinting via impit to bypass Cloudflare without needing a residential proxy, so 100 lookups complete in under a minute.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Film recommender builders, cinephiles, ML researchers, journalists, content marketers, fan-app developers	Film-recommender training, cinephile content, retrospective writing, watch-history analytics, fan apps

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📋 What the Letterboxd Film Database Scraper does

Five filtering workflows in a single run:

• 🆔 Direct slug lookup. One slug per line, full film record per slug.
• 🎭 Full cast + crew. Cast (with character roles), directors, writers, editors, producers, composers.
• 🏷️ Genres + themes. Both Letterboxd's genres tab and themes tab.
• 📊 Member stats. Watched-by, liked-by, and appears-in-lists counts.
• ⚡ Fast no-proxy bypass. Chrome TLS fingerprint via impit. 100 films in under a minute.

💡 Why it matters: clean, server-side filtering and fresh data on every run.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan up to 1,000,000.
slugs	string	""	Newline-separated film slugs (e.g. `the-godfather`, `inception`). Full URLs are also accepted.

Example: classic films.

{
    "maxItems": 10,
    "slugs": "the-godfather\nthe-shawshank-redemption\npulp-fiction\ngoodfellas\nschindlers-list\nthe-dark-knight\ninception\nfight-club\nforrest-gump\ninterstellar"
}

Example: foreign cinema.

{
    "maxItems": 10,
    "slugs": "spirited-away\nparasite-2019\noldboy-2003\namelie\nrome-open-city\ntokyo-story\nseven-samurai"
}

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📊 Output

Each record contains 38 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🖼️ posterUrl	string	"https://a.ltrbxd.com/.../poster.jpg"
🆔 slug	string	"the-godfather"
📛 title	string	"The Godfather"
📅 year	number	1972
⏱️ runtimeMinutes	number	175
📜 tagline	string	"An offer you can't refuse."
📜 description	string	"The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty..."
🎬 directors	array	["Francis Ford Coppola"]
🎭 cast	array	["Marlon Brando","Al Pacino","James Caan",...]
🎭 castWithRoles	array of objects	[{"name":"Marlon Brando","role":"Don Vito Corleone"},...]
✍️ writers	array	["Mario Puzo","Francis Ford Coppola"]
✂️ editors	array	["William Reynolds","Peter Zinner"]
🏷️ genres	array	["Crime","Drama"]
🏷️ themes	array	["Mafia","Family Dynasty"]
🌐 primaryLanguage	string	"English"
🏢 studios	array	["Paramount Pictures","Alfran Productions"]
⭐ averageRating	number	4.5
🗳️ ratingCount	number	987456
👁️ watchedBy	number	2400000
❤️ likedBy	number	850000
🆔 tmdbId	number	238
🆔 imdbId	string	"tt0068646"
🌐 letterboxdUrl	string	"https://letterboxd.com/film/the-godfather/"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🎭	Real cast + crew. Cast names with character roles, full director / writer / editor / producer / composer credits.
📊	Letterboxd-only metrics. Watched-by, liked-by, appears-in-lists counts unique to Letterboxd.
🏷️	Themes alongside genres. Letterboxd's themes (e.g. Mafia, Existentialism, Family Dynasty), richer than generic genres.
🆔	TMDB + IMDB IDs. Cross-platform joins out of the box.
⚡	Fast no-proxy bypass. 100 films in under a minute, no residential proxy needed.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ This Actor	$5 free credit	Letterboxd	Live per run	Lookup	⚡ 1 min
TMDB API	Free with key	Same films	Live	Yes	🐢 Code
OMDb (paid)	$1+/1k	IMDB-style	Live	Yes	🐢 Account
Manual scraping	Free	All	Live	DIY	🐢 Days

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Find the Letterboxd Film Database Scraper on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick filters and maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start.
5. 📥 Download. Grab results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

🎬 Film Recommender + Apps Build a Letterboxd-style app Train cast-based similarity Discover-by-theme tools Cinephile newsletters	📰 Film Journalism Director retrospectives Cast filmographies Theme-based pieces Award-season coverage
🤖 ML + Research Cast-graph extraction Theme-genre embeddings Rating-prediction models Cross-platform ID joins	🎓 Film Studies Course materials Research on film networks Reproducible film datasets Hobbyist criticism

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🔌 Automating Letterboxd Film Database Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows.

🎓 Research and academia Film studies datasets Cast-network analysis Reproducible Letterboxd snapshots Theme-evolution research	🎨 Personal and creative Personal watchlist apps Cinephile blogs Side projects with film data Letterboxd-style hobby projects
🤝 Non-profit and civic Library cinema programs Free film-education content Heritage cinema preservation Community film clubs	🧪 Experimentation Train recommender systems Prototype theme-discovery tools Build cast-graph visualizers Test rating-prediction models

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Provide a list of Letterboxd film slugs. The Actor fetches each film's HTML page (using Chrome TLS fingerprinting), parses JSON-LD plus structured DOM, and emits one record per film.

📊 How many fields per record?

38, including cast (with roles), directors, writers, editors, producers, themes, languages, studios, rating, watch / like / list counts, TMDB and IMDB IDs.

🆔 Where do I get slugs?

From Letterboxd URLs - https://letterboxd.com/film/the-godfather/ → slug = the-godfather. The Actor accepts both formats.

⚡ Why so fast without a proxy?

The Actor uses impit (Rust-backed HTTP client) which mimics Chrome's TLS fingerprint. Letterboxd's Cloudflare lets it through without challenge.

🎭 Does it return the full cast?

All cast members listed on the film's main page (typically 20-30+ depending on film).

🏷️ What are themes?

Letterboxd's curated thematic tags (e.g. Mafia, Existentialism, Coming of Age) - distinct from generic genres.

📊 Are member stats live?

Yes. Watched-by / liked-by / appears-in-lists are pulled from each film's main page on every run.

🆔 Are TMDB and IMDB IDs always present?

Yes for the vast majority of films. Letterboxd cross-references both.

🆓 Do I need an API key?

No. Letterboxd has no public API; the Actor scrapes HTML.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free plan covers preview runs (10 records).

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🔌 Integrate with any app

Letterboxd Film Database Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications
• Airbyte - Pipe data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits
• Google Drive - Export datasets to Sheets

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Letterboxd, its maintainers, the Letterboxd community, or any film studio, distributor, director, or actor. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open data is collected.