@jhyunlee said:

I'm interested in tracking the trending/popularity of a single movie over time.
I noticed in the API guidelines for popularity &trending say that popularity data is available starting from 2017.
Is there a recommended approach or method to accomplish this?
Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

I don't know of a way to get the daily Popularity value of a movie since 2017.
What we have available are the "Daily ID Exports" files
https://developer.themoviedb.org/docs/daily-id-exports
But they are available for approximately 90 days.
In addition to the ID, the Popularity is also reported in the movie file.

Example of movie_ids_05_15_2023

{"adult":false,"id":2,"original_title":"Ariel","popularity":6.969,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":3,"original_title":"Varjoja paratiisissa","popularity":6.834,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":5,"original_title":"Four Rooms","popularity":18.263,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":6,"original_title":"Judgment Night","popularity":11.233,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":8,"original_title":"Life in Loops (A Megacities RMX)","popularity":1.863,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":9,"original_title":"Sonntag im August","popularity":1.131,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":11,"original_title":"Star Wars","popularity":107.69,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":12,"original_title":"Finding Nemo","popularity":84.98,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":13,"original_title":"Forrest Gump","popularity":55.977,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":14,"original_title":"American Beauty","popularity":35.829,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":15,"original_title":"Citizen Kane","popularity":20.755,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":16,"original_title":"Dancer in the Dark","popularity":14.613,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":17,"original_title":"The Dark","popularity":9.824,"video":false}
{"adult":false,"id":18,"original_title":"The Fifth Element","popularity":45.937,"video":false}

@ticao2 Thank you for your response. Just to clarify: does this mean that if I want to track a movie’s trending/popularity—for example, “Star Wars” from January 2023 to January 2024—I won't be able to access historical, time-variant popularity/trending data unless I archive the Daily ID Exports myself?

@jhyunlee said:
@ticao2 Thank you for your response.
Just to clarify: does this mean that if I want to track a movie’s trending/popularity—for example, “Star Wars” from January 2023 to January 2024—I won't be able to access historical, time-variant popularity/trending data

You can only get Popularity for the last 90 days.

unless I archive the Daily ID Exports myself?

Yes, you have to store this data yourself.
But in this case of getting daily data you can get Popularity and Trending.
Popularity - https://developer.themoviedb.org/reference/movie-popular-list
Trending - https://developer.themoviedb.org/reference/trending-all