TMDB Movies, TV Shows and People Scraper

TMDB Movies, TV Shows and People Scraper

Scrape movies, TV shows, and people from TMDB by search term or curated list, up to a million items per run. Each result returns its title, ratings, release date, overview, and poster path. Use the public API key or bring your own for higher limits. Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML.

TMDB's own API is free but rate-limited and requires a key for anything beyond basic lookups. This Actor reads the public v3 API directly, searching by movie, TV show, or person name, or pulling from popular, trending, top-rated, now-playing, and upcoming lists. You get a flat dataset of matched titles with their core metadata, ready for analysis or enrichment.

Who uses it	What they scrape TMDB for
Content aggregators	Build a catalog of currently popular or top-rated movies and shows.
Market researchers	Track which genres and titles are trending this week.
Recommendation engine builders	Gather title metadata and ratings to seed a discovery algorithm.
Data journalists	Analyze release patterns, rating distributions, or cast networks.

What it does

This Actor collects TMDB movie, TV show, and person records by search query or curated list and returns each one as a flat row with title, type, ratings, release date, overview, and poster path.

• 🎬 Movie search: find films by title, optionally filtered by release year.
• 📺 TV show search: find series by name.
• 👤 Person search: find actors, directors, and crew by name.
• 🔀 Multi search: search across movies, TV, and people in one call.
• 🔥 Popular and trending: pull the current popular movies, popular TV, trending today, or trending this week lists.
• ⭐ Top rated: get the highest-rated movies or TV shows on TMDB.
• 🎟️ Now playing and upcoming: collect movies currently in theaters or soon to be released.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with TMDB data

📈 Monitor what is trending.

A media analyst runs the trending today and trending this week modes daily to track which titles are gaining momentum across TMDB.

🎞️ Build a movie catalog.

A content aggregator pulls the top-rated movies list with maxItems set to 500 to populate a discovery page with high-quality titles.

🔍 Enrich a title database.

A developer searches for movies by name and year to fill in missing TMDB ratings, overviews, and poster paths in an existing catalog.

👥 Map cast networks.

A researcher searches for actors by name, collects their known-for titles, and cross-references co-stars for a network graph.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key required	The public read-only key is built in so you can start scraping immediately.
Curated lists	Pull popular, trending, top-rated, now-playing, and upcoming titles without a search term.
Multi-type search	Search movies, TV, and people at once with the multi mode.
Language control	Request results in any ISO 639-1 + region code, like es-ES or pt-BR.
Flat output	Every record arrives as one row, ready for CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML export.

How it compares

This Actor focuses on fast, flat search and list pulls from TMDB. Two other scrapers drill deeper into individual title details like cast, episodes, and social links.

Feature	ParseForge	TMDB Scraper: Movies, TV Shows, Cast & Episodes	TheMovieDB Scraper - Low-cost
Search by movie, TV, or person name	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Pull curated lists (trending, popular, top rated)	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Full cast and crew for each title	Not listed	Yes	Not listed
Season and episode data	Not listed	Yes	Not listed
Built-in public API key (no signup required)	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Language filter for translated results	Yes	Not listed	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a search term and mode, or pick a curated list like trending or top-rated. Set a maximum item count and a language code to control the output. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "mode": "movie",
 "query": "inception",
 "year": 0,
 "language": "en-US"
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "mode": "movie",
 "query": "inception",
 "year": 0,
 "language": "en-US"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01867 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.87
1,000 results	$18.67
10,000 results	$186.70

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the TMDB Movies, TV Shows and People Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to TMDB through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/tmdb-movies-tv-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

I am getting no results for my search query.

Check that the mode matches your query. A movie title in TV search mode returns nothing. Also try a shorter or more common term, and verify the language code is one TMDB supports.

The Actor returns fewer items than my maxItems setting.

TMDB may have fewer results than your limit. For curated lists like trending or popular, TMDB caps the total available pages. Try a broader search or a different mode.

I am hitting rate limits.

The built-in public key has shared rate limits. Sign up for a free TMDB API key at themoviedb.org/signup and paste it into the optional TMDB API key field for your own quota.

The year filter is not working.

The year filter only applies to the 'Movie search' mode. It is ignored in TV, person, multi, and all curated list modes.

My results are in the wrong language.

Set the 'Result language' field to a valid ISO 639-1 code like es-ES or de-DE. If TMDB does not have a translation for that language, it falls back to the original language.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a TMDB API key?	No. The Actor includes a public read-only key. If you need higher rate limits or want to use your own quota, you can provide your free v3 API key from themoviedb.org/settings/api.
What data does each result contain?	Every row includes the title, media type, TMDB ID, popularity score, vote average, vote count, release date, original language, overview, and poster path. Additional fields like backdrop path and genre IDs are also included.
Can I search for a movie and a TV show at the same time?	Yes. Set the mode to 'Multi (movies + TV + people)' and the Actor searches all three types with one query.
How do I get only movies from a specific year?	Use the 'Movie search' mode and set the year filter to the release year you want. The Actor passes it to the TMDB API as a filter.
What language will the results be in?	You control the language with the 'Result language' field. Enter an ISO 639-1 code with an optional region, like en-US, fr-FR, or pt-BR. TMDB returns translated overviews and titles when available.
How many items can I scrape?	Free Apify users are limited to 10 items as a preview. Paid users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000, though the actual number returned depends on what TMDB has for the query or list.
What is the difference between trending today and trending this week?	Trending today returns titles with the highest momentum over the last 24 hours. Trending this week uses a 7-day window. Both include movies, TV shows, and people.
Can I get the full cast and crew for a title?	This Actor returns the core metadata for each title. It does not fetch full credits, seasons, or episodes. For that depth, consider a dedicated TMDB scraper that drills into individual title endpoints.
What output formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS from the Apify platform.
Does this Actor handle pagination automatically?	Yes. It pages through the TMDB API until it reaches your maxItems limit or TMDB has no more results.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by TMDB. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.