Playing with OMDb API

Yeah you read that title correctly and no it’s not a typo. OMDb that’s right. And for reasons unbeknownst to the differing names (maybe it’s not managed IMDb), it is indeed an API that uses information from IMDB, the movies/tv shows database that many people use.

Using the API was pretty much painless, it jsut required a registration at their website: www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx

Signing up only requires your life and soul but virtually harmless. After following their procedure you will be provided with an Api key. Please note that this api key has a limit of 1000 daily uses. If that is not enough, you can donate to their patreon for unlimited uses (? I didn’t look into it, 1000 uses was more than enough for me).

Next is the link to fetch from. Now type the following into your URL bar http://www.omdbapi.com/?apikey=(your api key)&s=Avengers and remember to replace the (your api key) with your api key. You should end up with something like this:

Next is all up to you on what to do with this information. I made an app that specifically stores movies as nominees using a Ruby on Rails back end and a ReactJs front end. It looks like this:

I intend to make another app using this API create a more comprehensive app to keep track of what I have watched and want to watch. I’m sure more ideas on how to surface as I work on this. If you have any ideas, please comment down below. Thanks for reading.