Search IMDb

Try in Playground

Search IMDb titles and people by keyword, with type, year, rating and vote count for titles and professions and a known-for title for people. Pass nextCursor to read the next page.

GET/v1/imdb/searchx-api-key

Headers

Get your API key

x-api-keystringrequiredheader

Your ScrapeAtlas customer key. Create one on /account/ and set SCRAPEATLAS_API_KEY.

Query parameters

querystringrequiredquery

Search text, 1 to 100 characters.

max 100 chars

Examplestar wars

typeenumquery

all (default), titles or people.

one of: all, titles, people

Exampletitles

limitstringquery

Results per page, 1 to 50 (default 20).

Example10

cursorstringquery

nextCursor from the previous page.

max 1024 chars

Response fields

successboolean

True when usable data is returned; inspect status and coverage.

statusenum

success or partial for usable data; failed or challenged for a failure.

one of: success, partial

requestIdstring

Request correlation UUID.

sourceUrlstring

Public imdb.com page the data describes.

absolute HTTPS URL

fetchedAtstring

UTC retrieval timestamp.

Returned-page coverage and mapping warnings.

coverage.sourcestring

IMDb's public web API.

coverage.completeboolean

Whether every supported field was mapped without a reported omission.

coverage.warningsenum[]

Named warnings: source_field_error (IMDb could not supply a field, which is null), invalid_item (an entry without an ID or name was skipped), record_limit (a list was capped) or total_unavailable (no total count).

Retrieval attempt, source byte and timing measurements.

accounting.upstreamRequestsinteger

Upstream request attempts, including any retry.

≥ 0

accounting.responseBytesinteger

Decoded source bytes read during this request.

≥ 0

accounting.durationMsnumber

Elapsed operation time in milliseconds.

≥ 0

querystring

Search text, 1 to 100 characters.

typeenum

all (default), titles or people.

one of: all, titles, people

Matches in IMDb relevance order.

up to 50 items

results.kindstring

Always included.

results.idstring

Always included.

results.urlstring

Always included.

absolute HTTPS URL

results.titlestringoptional

Optional.

results.type.idstring

Always included.

results.type.textstring

Always included.

results.yearintegernullableoptional

Optional.

≥ 0

results.endYearintegernullableoptional

Optional.

≥ 0

results.ratingnumbernullableoptional

Optional.

0 – 10

results.voteCountintegernullableoptional

Optional.

≥ 0

results.imageUrlstringnullable

Always included.

absolute HTTPS URL

results.namestringoptional

Optional.

results.professionsstring[]optional

Optional.

up to 10 items

Optional.

results.knownFor.idstring

Always included.

results.knownFor.titlestring

Always included.

nextCursorstringnullable

Cursor for the next page, or null on the last page.

HTTP 200 returns the success variant. Check status: partial means usable data with warnings, and failed or challenged requests carry a failure object described in Errors & responses.

Error codes

HTTP	failure.code	Meaning
200	`partial`	Usable data with named field-error, invalid-item, record-limit or total warnings.
400	`invalid_request`	Missing, duplicate, malformed or unsupported parameters, or a cursor IMDb rejected.
401	`unauthorized`	Missing or invalid worker API key.
404	`not_found`	The requested IMDb title or person was not found.
422	`unsupported_page`	The IMDb response structure or identity could not be mapped.
502	`upstream_challenged`	IMDb challenged retrieval.
502	`upstream_rate_limited`	IMDb rate-limited retrieval.
502	`upstream_error`	Source retrieval did not complete.
502	`response_too_large`	Decoded source bytes exceeded the request limit.
502	`unsafe_redirect`	IMDb answered with a redirect, which is never followed.
502	`request_limit`	The upstream request budget was exhausted.
503	`busy`	Worker request or queue capacity was exceeded.
504	`timeout`	The operation deadline expired.

Code example

curl "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/imdb/search?query=star+wars&type=titles&limit=10" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/imdb/search?query=star+wars&type=titles&limit=10",
  {
    headers: {
      "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"
    }
  }
);

const data = await response.json();
console.log(data.status, data);

type Result = {
  status: "success" | "partial" | "failed" | "challenged";
  requestId: string;
  [field: string]: unknown;
};

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/imdb/search?query=star+wars&type=titles&limit=10",
  {
    headers: {
      "x-api-key": process.env.SCRAPEATLAS_API_KEY!
    }
  }
);

const data = (await response.json()) as Result;
if (data.status === "failed" || data.status === "challenged") {
  throw new Error(`IMDb request failed: ${data.requestId}`);
}
console.log(data);

import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/imdb/search",
    headers={"x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"},
    params={
        "query": "star wars",
        "type": "titles",
        "limit": "10"
    },
    timeout=60,
)
data = response.json()
print(data["status"], data)

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/imdb/search?query=star+wars&type=titles&limit=10", nil)
	req.Header.Set("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY")
	resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	var data map[string]interface{}
	json.NewDecoder(resp.Body).Decode(&data)
	fmt.Println(data["status"], data)
}

import java.net.URI;
import java.net.http.HttpClient;
import java.net.http.HttpRequest;
import java.net.http.HttpResponse;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        var client = HttpClient.newHttpClient();
        var request = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
            .uri(URI.create("https://api.scrapeatlas.com/v1/imdb/search?query=star+wars&type=titles&limit=10"))
            .GET()
            .header("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_KEY")
            .build();
        var response = client.send(request, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());
        System.out.println(response.body());
    }
}

Use your sa_live_… customer key at https://api.scrapeatlas.com.

Responses

Successful result. Synthetic example validated against the runtime contract.

{
  "success": true,
  "status": "success",
  "requestId": "00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000001",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=nolan",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-11-12T00:00:00.000Z",
  "coverage": {
    "source": "public_api",
    "complete": true,
    "warnings": []
  },
  "accounting": {
    "upstreamRequests": 1,
    "responseBytes": 2444,
    "durationMs": 600
  },
  "query": "nolan",
  "type": "all",
  "results": [
    {
      "kind": "person",
      "id": "nm0634240",
      "url": "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0634240/",
      "name": "Christopher Nolan",
      "imageUrl": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjE3NDQyOTYyMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODcyODU2Mw@@._V1_.jpg",
      "professions": [
        "Producer",
        "Writer",
        "Director"
      ],
      "knownFor": {
        "id": "tt6723592",
        "title": "Tenet"
      }
    },
    {
      "kind": "title",
      "id": "tt0076759",
      "url": "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/",
      "title": "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope",
      "type": {
        "id": "movie",
        "text": "Movie"
      },
      "year": 1977,
      "endYear": null,
      "rating": 8.6,
      "voteCount": 1597796,
      "imageUrl": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOGUwMDk0Y2MtNjBlNi00NmRiLTk2MWYtMGMyMDlhYmI4ZDBjXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg"
    }
  ],
  "nextCursor": "eyJlc1Rva2VuIjpbIjIiXX0="
}

Missing, duplicate, malformed or unsupported parameters, or a cursor IMDb rejected.

{
  "success": false,
  "status": "failed",
  "requestId": "9d2f1c0a-6b1e-4c7d-9a8e-2f3b4c5d6e7f",
  "accounting": {
    "upstreamRequests": 0,
    "responseBytes": 0,
    "durationMs": 0
  },
  "failure": {
    "code": "invalid_request",
    "message": "Invalid request: missing, duplicate, unsupported or malformed parameters."
  }
}