---

name: tmdb description: >- Query TMDb metadata for films and television, then enrich results with details, credits, providers, and external IDs. Do not use this skill for personal watch history, watchlists, or tracking; use trakt for user activity and watch-state workflows. license: MIT compatibility: Requires TMDB_ACCESS_TOKEN or TMDB_API_KEY, Python 3.8+, and requests. metadata: tags: tmdb, movies, tv, film, cinema, metadata sources: https://developer.themoviedb.org/reference

TMDb metadata from the terminal

Setup

Create credentials at TMDb API settings. Prefer the API Read Access Token:

export TMDB_ACCESS_TOKEN="YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN"
# Or use the v3 key: export TMDB_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

The CLI sends either Authorization: Bearer $TMDB_ACCESS_TOKEN or ?api_key=$TMDB_API_KEY. Both forms have the same v3 access level; configure only one. --help and --dry-run do not need credentials.

Essential commands

Search and identify

tmdb movie search --term "dune" --limit 5 --json
tmdb tv search --term "severance" --limit 5
tmdb find tt0111161 --source imdb_id --json

--source accepts one of the official external-source values: imdb_id, facebook_id, instagram_id, tvdb_id, tiktok_id, twitter_id, wikidata_id, and youtube_id. Freebase lookups are not supported: the retired freebase_mid and freebase_id values are rejected. The response is split into movie_results, tv_results, person_results, tv_season_results, and tv_episode_results.

Details and enrichment

tmdb movie detail 550 --append credits,videos --json
tmdb movie detail 550 --append 'credits,watch/providers,external_ids' --json

Compound responses use the requested names as top-level keys. Encode the slash in watch/providers when constructing raw URLs.

Discover and browse

tmdb movie discover --genre horror --rating 7 --limit 10
tmdb movie discover --genre horror --certification R --from 2024-01-01 --to 2024-12-31
tmdb trending --type all --window week --limit 20 --json
tmdb genre list --type movie --json
tmdb genre list --type tv --json
tmdb certification --json

Use vote_count.gte with vote_average.desc in raw discover requests so a title with very few votes does not dominate. In current TMDb docs, comma-separated genre IDs are AND and pipe-separated IDs are OR.

Pipeline recipes

IMDb ID to enriched movie

1. Resolve the IMDb identifier:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TMDB_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  'https://api.themoviedb.org/3/find/tt0111161?external_source=imdb_id' > /tmp/find.json
id=$(jq -r '.movie_results[0].id' /tmp/find.json)

2. Fetch details and compound resources:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TMDB_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  "https://api.themoviedb.org/3/movie/$id?append_to_response=credits,videos,watch%2Fproviders" \
  | jq '{title, runtime, director: [.credits.crew[] | select(.job == "Director") | .name], cast: [.credits.cast[0:5][].name], providers: .["watch/providers"].results.US}'

Search then detail

tmdb movie search --term "dune" --limit 1 --json > /tmp/search.json
id=$(jq -r '.results[0].id' /tmp/search.json)
tmdb movie detail "$id" --append recommendations,similar --json

Filter reliable discoveries

For direct API use, combine a date window, pipe-OR or comma-AND genre expression, vote_count.gte, and sort_by=vote_average.desc. Then retain only the fields needed by the next workflow step with jq.

JSON and jq

Put --json before or after the subcommand. JSON search output has results and usually pagination fields page, total_pages, and total_results; the service limits page numbers to 500. Use jq -r '.results[] | [.id, (.title // .name)] | @tsv' for stable tabular handoff.

Known gotchas

• Credential duality: api_key and Bearer are alternatives, not values to mix. A rejected credential commonly produces HTTP 401, status_code: 7, and Invalid API key: You must be granted a valid key. Permission failures use code 3. Code 33 means an invalid request token, not this API-key message.
• Pagination ceiling: pages start at 1 and max at 500; over-limit requests fail. Search/discover access is effectively capped at 10,000 results, even where totals look larger. Rate guidance is around 40 requests/second and 429 responses should honor Retry-After.
• Compound syntax: append values are comma-separated and limited to 20 calls. watch/providers contains a slash, so URL-encode it in curl and use jq's .\"watch/providers\" notation.
• External-ID shape: /find/ does not return one generic id; inspect the appropriate nested array before choosing movie or TV detail. Only the eight documented external_source values are valid, and the retired Freebase sources (freebase_mid, freebase_id) are rejected.
• Provider filters: with_watch_providers requires watch_region; provider data carries JustWatch attribution requirements.
• Localization and images: use language=en-US and a market region when reproducibility matters. Build image URLs from /3/configuration's secure base URL, a valid size, and the returned path.

When to use

Use this skill for read-only film and TV metadata discovery, credits, release information, certifications, images, recommendations, and provider metadata.

When not to use

Do not use it for torrent or piracy searches, playing or downloading a stream, or maintaining personal watched/unwatched state. Use trakt for watch-history workflows and a playback/catalog integration for availability actions.

Reference files

File	Use it for
references/auth-pagination-and-errors.md	Credentials, pagination, rate limits, errors, language, regions, and images
references/find-and-details.md	IMDb/TVDB lookup, response mapping, detail fields, compound requests
references/search-discover-trending.md	Search, discover filters, trending, genre, certification, and release lists

Available scripts and prerequisites

• scripts/tmdb is an executable Python CLI using only the standard library and requests; it preserves --json, --dry-run, --quiet, and --verbose.
• scripts/test_tmdb.py is an offline unittest/pytest suite; all HTTP behavior is mocked.
• Requires Python 3.8+ and requests. No service is started by this skill.