Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does imdby need an official IMDb API key?

A: No. imdby scrapes IMDb's own pages directly, so there's no API key, approval process, or rate-limit request needed.

Q: Which Python versions are supported?

A: Python 3.10 and newer — imdby is tested through Python 3.14.

Q: Why do the search_* methods ask me to type a number instead of just returning a result?

A: search_movie(), search_person(), search_company(), search_event(), search_character(), and search_news() are interactive — they print up to 20 numbered matches to the console and use input() to read the serial number(s) of the one(s) you want, then resolve those to names and IMDb ids. upcoming_releases() works the same way for picking a region.

Q: Why does user_reviews() need Google Chrome installed?

A: user_reviews() uses Selenium to load additional review pages beyond the first. It requires a local Google Chrome install; the matching chromedriver is downloaded automatically by Selenium's built-in Selenium Manager, so no separate driver package is needed.

Q: How are user review sentiment scores calculated?

A: Each review is scored with both VADER (via nltk) and TextBlob sentiment analysis. The VADER lexicon downloads automatically the first time it's needed.

Q: Do results come back as plain objects or DataFrames?

A: Both, depending on the method. Title and search methods return plain Python objects with named attributes, while chart and listing methods (imdb_charts(), top_india_charts(), trending_now_in_india()) return pandas DataFrames.

Q: What license is imdby released under?

A: MIT.

Q: Where do I report a bug or request a feature?

A: Open an issue on GitHub.