API key for themoviedb.org

Question

I need to use themoviedb.org for one of the apps I am working on. For using the API, I need an API key. How do I get an API key on themoviedb.org?

Answer 1

I found this in the forum: You can request an API key by clicking on the "API" link from within your account page on the left hand sidebar. See here

Answer 2

In terms of making things faster for people, the URL for application is here these days (Under Account>Settings>API as previously mentioned): https://www.themoviedb.org/settings/api

You'll want to start with a Developer key as wait time for a Developer key is zero (immediate). A commercial key, as far as I understand it, is only appropriate once the app is developed and running. Turnaround for a commercial API key is about 3 days-ish though obviously could vary.

Once you have a key, inside the doco pages there's a "Try It Out" tab which lets you do calls. The normal code flow (for getting movie details) would be something like:

• Get Configuration (needed for image paths, should be cached)
• Search Movies (returns a list, find the numeric id for the one you want in the list returned). Be aware there might be duplicates returned - you can use the year of release, title and language to find the one you want.
• Get Movie Details with the movie numeric ID, with "append_to_response" of "credits,images,trailers" so that actors, writers, directors, and trailers (aka videos) are returned.

Check doco for how to find the actual image paths, using configuration values fetched above. It's generally considered courteous to copy the images you want to use to your own server rather than serving them from TMDB's server.