IMDb Scraper - Movies, TV Shows, Ratings & Cast

Scrape IMDb movie and TV show data: titles, ratings, cast, genres, director, plot, and more.

What you get

Extract structured data from IMDb for any movie or TV show. Search by name or provide IMDb URLs directly. Get ratings, votes, genres, director, cast, plot summaries, runtime, posters, and content ratings.

Output fields

Field	Description
title	Movie or TV show title
year	Release year
rating	IMDb rating (1-10)
votes	Number of votes
genres	List of genres
director	Director name
cast	Main cast members
plot	Plot summary
runtime	Runtime in minutes
poster	Poster image URL
content_rating	Content rating (PG, R, etc.)
url	IMDb URL

Example output

{
    "title": "The Shawshank Redemption",
    "year": "1994",
    "rating": 9.3,
    "votes": 2800000,
    "genres": ["Drama"],
    "director": "Frank Darabont",
    "cast": ["Tim Robbins", "Morgan Freeman", "Bob Gunton"],
    "plot": "Over the course of several years, two convicts form a friendship...",
    "runtime": "142 min",
    "poster": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/...",
    "content_rating": "R",
    "url": "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/"
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
searchQuery	No	Movie or TV show name to search (e.g. "inception"). Provide this OR urls.
urls	No	List of IMDb title URLs to scrape directly (e.g. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/).
maxResults	No	Cap on titles returned. Default 15, max 100.

Example input

{
    "searchQuery": "inception",
    "maxResults": 10
}

Use cases

• Entertainment apps: Build movie databases with ratings and cast info
• Data analysts: Study movie trends, ratings, and genre patterns
• Content platforms: Enrich your catalog with IMDb metadata
• Researchers: Analyze film industry trends over time
• Recommendation engines: Enrich titles with genres, cast, and ratings for ML features

Limitations

• Search results depend on IMDb's own ranking (the first match may not be the exact title you wanted).
• Some fields may be empty for older or less popular titles (cast, runtime, content rating).
• TV show records cover the series — individual episodes are not returned.
• Vote counts reflect IMDb's public total at the time of the run.

Compared to alternatives

• vs. official IMDb datasets (imdb.com/interfaces): Official dataset dumps are bulk-only and refreshed daily with no search interface. This actor returns fresh per-title data on demand.
• vs. OMDb API: OMDb is free but throttled to 1000 calls/day without a paid key; fields are a subset. This actor has no daily cap.

Pairs well with YouTube Scraper for video-side metadata and Reddit Scraper for audience sentiment.

FAQ

Can I scrape every movie on IMDb? No — this is an on-demand scraper. Provide a list of names or URLs, and the actor returns those titles.

Does it return episode-level data for TV shows? No. Only the series record (series-level rating, cast, genres, plot).

Is ratings data live? Yes — each run fetches the current IMDb rating and vote count at run time.

Can I use this for commercial projects? You're responsible for complying with IMDb's terms. Typical uses (internal analytics, recommendation testing, research) are fine; redistribution of full datasets is not.

Last verified: 2026-05

More scrapers at thirdwatch.dev.