The Movie Database Support
Support → API Support
Support for franchise/universe querying
posted by johnmurphySTAFFMOD on August 11, 2017 at 2:01 PM
I'd like to be able to retrieve a list of movie franchises and universes then subsequently gather a list of movies based on a particular franchise or universe. From my understanding, there are basically 3 ways to accomplish this with each having corresponding problems:
- Keywords - I had started adding keywords on each movie that would fall under a movie universe or franchise. My keywords were recently removed because they were not considered essential. I was told to use lists or collections. Even if my keywords were not removed, I would have had to store a local list of valid keywords that only pertained to franchises or universes, since keywords can be a myriad of things.
- Lists - Lists are pretty quickly a non-starter because you have to be authenticated to get your lists and the site I am trying to develop cannot rely on a single person's authentication.
- Collections - Collections are okay but, like keywords, contain either incomplete or missing information. For instance, the Spider-Man collection, which I would assume are all of the movies under the Spider-Man franchise is actually just the 3 Sam Raimi directed films. Let's say a new Spiderman collection was created to encompass the entire franchise, would the original collection need to be renamed to Sam Raimi Spiderman Collection? Or would the new collection need to be called Spiderman Franchise Collection? Then there's the instance of missing collections(there is no Disney Collection?).
Ultimately, my request is that there is an endpoint in which I can:
- get a list of movie franchises/universes by searching using a query parameter, language, etc.. similar to the search keywords endpoint
- get a list of movies based on the "franchise/universe" id, ideally as part of the discover endpoint, which is really awesome already
I realize this is possibly a huge request, but also I just don't see how TMDB doesn't already have a way to filter movies based on franchise and also contain a list of franchises to enumerate.
Thanks in advance and if I can help in any way I would be happy to do so.
Reply by Marr 🇳🇱
on August 11, 2017 at 4:33 PM
Some notes, not really an answer, but still:
Reply by Travis Bell
on August 11, 2017 at 5:12 PM
To zero in on point #3 made by @alltimemarr, I have plans to implement real, proper universes. Until that feature is built, there is no such functionality right now on TMDb.
Reply by johnmurphy
on August 13, 2017 at 1:41 AM
Thanks for the clarification on what a collection is. I guess for now my own database can contain franchise/universe lists and contain an array of TMDb movie ids of movies that belong in a franchise/universe. Looking forward to franchise/shared universe categories/filters in TMDb!
Reply by alp82
on January 12, 2025 at 8:12 AM
@travisbell any progress on the universe feature? would love to see it in TMDb
Reply by ticao2 🇧🇷 pt-BR
on January 12, 2025 at 12:38 PM
There are plans to add this feature.
It's already on Trello's To-Do list.
There is no implementation deadline.
If you want you can vote. More votes, faster. :-)
See here:
https://trello.com/c/cRiMnOvH/79-create-universes-franchises