# TMDB MCP Server [Health: Active]

**Category:** 🗄️ Databases  
**Repository:** https://github.com/Grinv/tmdb-mcp  
**GitHub Stars:** 4  
**Views:** 4  
**Installs:** 0  
**Upvotes:** 0  
**Directory Page:** https://allmcps.com/mcp/tmdb-mcp-server

## Description
MCP server for The Movie Database (TMDB) with IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic ratings via OMDb.

## Tools
Capabilities this server exposes over MCP:

- **search_movies** — Search TMDB movies by title; returns compact summaries with the TMDB id that the other movie tools (get_movie, get_movie_credits, …) require, plus pagination info. Use this over search_multi when you already know the result is a movie. `region` here only picks which country's release_date is shown per result (e.g. a title's US vs. India theatrical date) — verified live, it does not filter which movies match or reorder them; for actual region-based availability use get_watch_providers instead.
- **search_tv** — Search TMDB TV shows by name; returns compact summaries with the TMDB id that get_tv and the other TV tools require. Use this over search_multi when you already know the result is a TV show.
- **search_multi** — Search movies, TV shows and people in one call. Each result carries a media_type ('movie' | 'tv' | 'person') so you can route to the right get_* tool. Use when the user's query could be any of these; if you already know the type, search_movies/search_tv/search_people are more precise.
- **search_people** — Search TMDB people (actors, directors, crew) by name; returns the TMDB id needed by get_person plus their top 5 best-known titles (known_for). Use this over search_multi when you already know the result is a person.
- **search_keywords** — Resolve keyword names to TMDB keyword ids (e.g. 'time travel', 'based on true story'). Feed the ids into discover_movies/discover_tv via with_keywords / without_keywords.
- **search_companies** — Resolve a production company's name to its TMDB numeric id (e.g. 'A24', 'Pixar'). Feed the id into discover_movies/discover_tv via with_companies. Company names aren't unique — TMDB can have several unrelated companies sharing the same name (e.g. two different 'A24's, one US and one GB) — check origin_country and logo_url to tell rows apart when a name matches more than one.
- **search_watch_providers** — Resolve a streaming/rental/purchase service's name (e.g. 'Netflix', 'Disney Plus') to its TMDB numeric provider id. Feed the id into discover_movies/discover_tv's with_watch_providers (with watch_region set to the same region given here, if any) to find top titles on that service — TMDB has no name-based lookup of its own for this, only numeric ids, and there are hundreds of providers (269+ for the US alone, more elsewhere), so don't guess an id. A provider's id and even whether it's offered at all can differ by region (e.g. a service bundled as a channel add-on in one country vs. standalone in another) — pass watch_region to match what discover_movies/discover_tv will actually see; omitting it searches the full global provider list instead, which may include ids not valid for the region the caller actually cares about.
- **get_movie** — Get full details for one movie by TMDB id: overview, genres, runtime, budget/revenue, vote average, the age/content rating (certification) for `region` — falling back to the US rating, then any available country, when `region` has none; check `certification_region` to see which one was used — and links (TMDB + IMDb). By default also includes IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic ratings and an awards summary (see include_ratings), plus OMDb's own age rating (`ratings.rated` — separate from this tool's own `certification` above; the two can differ) from OMDb (set include_ratings=false to skip); if unavailable (no OMDB_API_KEY, no imdb_id, or the OMDb lookup fails), `ratings` degrades to `{found:false, reason}` instead of failing the call. If you only need the headline info (title/year/genres/vote average) — for one id or several — use get_movies instead; it's trimmed on purpose and skips the rest of this payload. Get the id from search_movies.
- **get_tv** — Get full details for one TV show by TMDB id: overview, genres, seasons/episodes counts, networks, created_by (the show's creator(s)), status, the age/content rating (certification) for `region` — falling back to the US rating, then any available country, when `region` has none; check `certification_region` to see which one was used — and links. By default also includes IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic ratings and an awards summary (see include_ratings), plus OMDb's own age rating (`ratings.rated` — separate from this tool's own `certification` above; the two can differ) from OMDb (set include_ratings=false to skip); if unavailable (no OMDB_API_KEY, no imdb_id, or the OMDb lookup fails), `ratings` degrades to `{found:false, reason}` instead of failing the call. Set expand_episodes=true to also pull every season's episode list in one extra request instead of calling get_tv_season per season. If you only need the headline info (name/year/genres/vote average, season/episode counts) — for one id or several — use get_tv_shows instead; it's trimmed on purpose and skips the rest of this payload. Get the id from search_tv.
- **get_movies** — Get a compact card — title, year, genres, vote average, and (opt-in) ratings — for 1-20 movies by TMDB id in one call. Deliberately trimmed (no overview, cast, budget, certifications, production companies, etc.): use this for a single id too when you only need that headline info and not the full get_movie payload, not just for checking many at once. Call get_movie instead when you need the full details for a title (including region-specific certification). A bad/unknown id never fails the whole call — that entry comes back `{id, found:false, reason}` instead, in the same order as `ids`.
- **get_tv_shows** — Get a compact card — name, year, genres, vote average, season/episode counts, and (opt-in) ratings — for 1-20 TV shows by TMDB id in one call. A quick way to spot short/miniseries shows (low episode count) across many candidates without a per-title get_tv call. Deliberately trimmed otherwise (no overview, the actual episode list, networks, certifications, etc.): use this for a single id too when you only need that headline info and not the full get_tv payload, not just for checking many at once. Call get_tv instead when you need the full details for a title (including region-specific certification). A bad/unknown id never fails the whole call — that entry comes back `{id, found:false, reason}` instead, in the same order as `ids`.
- **get_person** — Get full details for one person by TMDB id: biography, birthday/deathday, department, and links (TMDB + IMDb). Does not include filmography — use get_person_credits for that. Get the id from search_people or a credits list.
- **get_movie_credits** — List the top-billed cast (up to 20) and the headline crew (director, writers, composer, DoP, …) of a movie by TMDB id. Get the id from search_movies.
- **get_tv_credits** — List the main cast (up to 20) and production crew (executive producers, producers, composer, DoP, …) of a TV show by TMDB id. TMDB's show-level TV credits data does not reliably expose director/writer/creator credits — verified live across several shows (Breaking Bad, Stranger Things, Chernobyl, The Queen's Gambit): each show's actual creator/head-writer/director appears only as 'Executive Producer', never as 'Writer', 'Director' or 'Creator'. For who created the show, use get_tv's own `created_by` field instead; for a specific episode's actual director/writer (which TMDB does track reliably at that level), use get_tv_episode. Get the id from search_tv.
- **get_movie_recommendations** — Get movies TMDB recommends for the given movie id, based on co-viewing/personalization data (what users who liked this also liked) — usually the more thematically relevant list. Prefer this over get_similar as the default choice; get_similar matches on shared genres/keywords, a blunter heuristic that can surface tonally unrelated titles. Get the id from search_movies.
- **get_tv_recommendations** — Get TV shows TMDB recommends for the given show id, based on co-viewing/personalization data (what users who liked this also liked) — usually the more thematically relevant list. Prefer this over get_similar as the default choice; get_similar matches on shared genres/keywords, a blunter heuristic that can surface tonally unrelated titles. Get the id from search_tv.
- **get_similar** — Get titles TMDB considers similar to a given movie or TV show, based on shared genres and keywords — a blunter heuristic than get_movie_recommendations'/get_tv_recommendations' behavioral (co-viewing) data, so results can still be thematically noisy (matching on a shared keyword despite an unrelated tone or plot). Results sharing only the source title's broadest genre (e.g. two titles that are both merely tagged 'Drama' among several genres) are filtered out per page, since a title with a common genre can otherwise return results spanning TMDB's entire catalog; a page can come back thin or empty for a niche title once that filter applies. `total_pages`/`total_results` reflect TMDB's raw, pre-filter counts, not how many titles actually pass this filter — don't use them to gauge how many genuinely similar titles exist or when to stop paging; expect per-page result counts well under 20, sometimes 0 (verified live: a real title returned total_pages:23897/total_results:477939 but only 3-6 actual results per page). Try recommendations first for thematically closer picks; use this when you specifically want genre/keyword-adjacent titles. Get the id from search_movies/search_tv.
- **get_reviews** — Get user reviews for a movie or TV show (author, their rating if the reviewer left one — it can be null, and the review text, clipped to ~1500 characters). Get the id from search_movies/search_tv.
- **get_collection** — Get a movie collection/franchise and all its parts in release order (e.g. the whole 'The Dark Knight Collection'). Get the collection id from a movie's `collection` field in get_movie.
- **get_person_credits** — List the movies and TV shows a person is known for (cast roles and crew jobs), most popular first, capped to the top 25 of each by default; talk-show/awards-show guest appearances ('Self'/'Himself'/'Herself') and repeat entries for the same title are excluded so the list stays about actual roles. A title with several crew jobs (writer AND director AND producer on one film) still only counts once against the crew cap. Cast entries include a vote_average; crew entries (director, writer, …) do not — call get_movie/get_tv on the id for a crew credit's rating. Pass department (e.g. 'Directing') to restrict crew to just that role — the reliable way to get someone's complete filmography in one department when their other departments would otherwise compete for the same cap; for a handful of exceptionally prolific people even that isn't enough (e.g. 50+ directing credits), so raise `limit` too when department alone still looks short. Use for 'what has this actor/director been in'. This tool has no genre filter — for 'which of X's movies are animated/horror/etc.' use discover_movies instead, combining with_cast/with_crew/with_people with with_genres (discover_tv has no equivalent — it can't filter by person at all — so for a person's TV work in one genre, call this tool and check the returned media_type 'tv' entries' genres yourself, e.g. via get_tv_shows). Get the id from search_people.
- **get_trending** — Get what's trending on TMDB. media_type selects movies, TV, people, or all; time_window is the trending period (today vs this week). Good for 'what's popular right now'. Each result row carries its own media_type ('movie' | 'tv' | 'person') — check it to route to the right get_* tool, especially when media_type is left at 'all'.
- **get_movie_genres** — List TMDB movie genres with their numeric ids and names (reference data; rarely changes). Feed the ids into discover_movies' with_genres/without_genres.
- **get_tv_genres** — List TMDB TV genres with their numeric ids and names (reference data; rarely changes). Feed the ids into discover_tv's with_genres/without_genres.
- **discover_movies** — Find movies by structured filters instead of a title query: genres (include/exclude), year or release-date range, rating range, vote count, runtime range, original language, cast/crew/people, companies, keywords, watch providers, certification, a region code (minor effect only — see its own description), an adult-content toggle, and sort order. certification/with_watch_providers have validation and silent-fallback rules — see their own field descriptions. Use for 'popular sci-fi from the 1990s rated above 7 available on Netflix', or for a specific person's work in one genre — 'which of this director's/actor's/composer's films are animated' — via with_crew/with_cast/with_people + with_genres together; get_person_credits has no genre filter, so this combination is the right tool for that question, not that one. Resolve ids with get_movie_genres, search_people, search_keywords, search_companies, search_watch_providers.
- **discover_tv** — Find TV shows by structured filters (genres, first-air year or date range, rating range, vote count, runtime, language, companies, networks, keywords, watch providers, type, status, certification, an adult-content toggle, sort) — but NOT cast/crew/person: this tool doesn't accept those params for TV at all (calling with them is a validation error, not a silent no-op) because TMDB's own /discover/tv would silently ignore them anyway, unlike /discover/movie; to find TV shows featuring someone, call get_person_credits instead and filter its results to media_type 'tv'. certification/with_watch_providers have validation and silent-fallback rules — see their own field descriptions. The TV counterpart of discover_movies; use with_networks for 'HBO shows', with_type='Miniseries' for short/limited series (e.g. 'best miniseries to binge in a weekend'), with_status='Ended' to exclude shows still airing, certification='TV-Y7' + certification_country='US' for 'shows appropriate for a young kid'. Resolve ids with get_tv_genres, search_companies, search_keywords, search_watch_providers.
- **get_watch_providers** — Find where a movie or TV show can be streamed, rented or bought in a given country (JustWatch data via TMDB). Returns provider names per access type for that country; if it has no data, returns `available:false` plus `available_regions` to retry with. Get the id from search_movies/search_tv.
- **get_videos** — List trailers, teasers and clips for a movie or TV show; YouTube entries include a watch URL. Get the id from search_movies/search_tv. Results are filtered to the server's configured TMDB_LANGUAGE (default 'en-US') — this tool has no per-call language override, so a title with plenty of videos in other languages can come back with few or none if the server is configured for a different language (verified live: 29 results for a title under 'en-US' vs. 2 under 'de-DE').
- **find_by_imdb_id** — Resolve an IMDb id (e.g. 'tt0133093') to TMDB entities — returns matching movie, TV and person results. Use when you only have an IMDb id and need the TMDB id for the other tools. Only matches whole movies/shows/people: IMDb also assigns 'tt' ids to individual episodes (verified live, e.g. Breaking Bad's pilot 'tt0959621'), which this tool does not resolve — such an id comes back with every result list empty, indistinguishable from a genuinely unknown id.
- **get_tv_season** — Get one season of a TV show (by show id + season number): overview and the episode list with air dates, runtimes and ratings, capped at 50 episodes (`episode_count` reports the true total). Season 0 is usually specials, which can run to hundreds of bonus clips on a long-running show. Use get_tv with expand_episodes=true instead if you need every season's episodes in one call. Get the show id from search_tv.
- **get_tv_episode** — Get one episode of a TV show by show id + season number + episode number: overview, air date, runtime, rating, guest stars (up to 15) and director/writer. Get the show id from search_tv.
- **get_ratings** — Look up IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings, an awards summary (major-award wins/nominations — Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, etc.; free text, not a structured count, for the whole film/show, not one person), and OMDb's own age rating (`rated`), from OMDb by IMDb id (preferred, e.g. 'tt0133093') or by title (+ optional year/type). Prefer get_movie/get_tv when you have a TMDB id — they already include this. Requires OMDB_API_KEY. One of imdb_id or title is required; omitting both returns an error. A no-match lookup is not an error: it returns `{found:false, reason}`.

## Claude Desktop Quick Installation
Install path detected from listing signals. Uses `npx` (confidence: high):

```json
"mcpServers": {
  "tmdb-mcp-server": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y","tmdb-mcp"],
    "env": {
      "TMDB_API_TOKEN": ""
    }
  }
}
```

**Requires environment variables:** `TMDB_API_TOKEN` — the values above are empty placeholders; fill in real credentials before running (see the repository for what each one is for).

## Documentation

## What TMDB MCP Server MCP server does

TMDB MCP Server MCP server gives MCP clients access to The Movie Database for movie, TV, and person research. It can search titles and people, retrieve TMDB identifiers, and return either compact cards or detailed records. Movie and TV details can include overviews, genres, runtime or season information, ratings averages, certifications, links, and credits. Person records include biographies and links, while person credits provide cast and crew filmographies.

The server also supports discovery workflows. Agents can find movies or shows by genres, dates, ratings, vote counts, languages, companies, keywords, providers, certifications, and other filters. Movie discovery supports cast, crew, and person filters; TV discovery does not support those person-based filters, so TV work by an individual should be found through their credits. Search helpers resolve genre, keyword, company, and watch-provider names into IDs for later discovery calls.

## How it works

The server communicates over MCP stdio and can be used by clients such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Cline. Most workflows begin with a search tool, then pass the returned TMDB ID to a detail, credit, recommendation, or media tool. Separate batch tools retrieve compact information for up to 20 movies or TV shows at once.

TMDB is the primary data source. When an IMDb ID is available and an OMDb key has been configured, detailed movie and TV lookups can add IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic scores plus an awards summary. OMDb failures or missing keys return an unavailable ratings result rather than preventing the main TMDB lookup. The server also provides MCP prompts for planning similar-title searches and finding highly regarded titles associated with a person or production company.

## Setup and configuration

Install the package through npm with `npx -y tmdb-mcp`, then add the command to the MCP client's configuration. Set `TMDB_API_TOKEN` to a TMDB v4 Read Access Token; this is the only required credential. `OMDB_API_KEY` is optional and enables external ratings enrichment. `TMDB_LANGUAGE` controls localization and defaults to `en-US`, while `TMDB_REGION` can set the region used for certification and related localized behavior.

Claude Desktop users can alternatively install the `.mcpb` bundle from a release and enter the token in the installation dialog. From source, clone the repository, run `npm ci && npm run build`, and start the resulting `dist/index.js` with Node and the same environment variables.

## Tools and capabilities

TMDB MCP Server MCP server includes tools for:

- Searching movies, TV shows, people, or mixed media, including IMDb-to-TMDB ID resolution.
- Retrieving full or compact title details, certifications, ratings, reviews, collections, credits, and person filmographies.
- Finding recommendations, genre- or keyword-based similar titles, trending media, trailers, teasers, and clips.
- Discovering movies and TV shows with structured filters such as dates, ratings, providers, companies, networks, status, and certification.
- Checking streaming, rental, and purchase availability by country through TMDB's JustWatch data.
- Reading TV season episode lists and individual episode details, including episode directors and writers.

## Limitations and notes

Regional behavior varies by tool. `get_watch_providers` is the appropriate choice for availability by country, while a movie search region mainly selects the release date displayed in results. Certifications fall back from the requested region to the US and then another available country; the response identifies which region supplied the value.

TV discovery cannot filter by cast, crew, or person. TV show-level credits also may not reliably identify creators, writers, or directors, so use `get_tv.created_by` for show creators and `get_tv_episode` for episode-level writing and directing information. Similar-title result counts reflect TMDB's unfiltered totals even when the server removes weak broad-genre matches, so pages may contain few or no usable results. Video results are limited by the configured `TMDB_LANGUAGE` and have no per-call language override.

_Full upstream README: https://allmcps.com/mcp/tmdb-mcp-server/readme_