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Frequently Asked Questions
Following is a list of questions we get asked so much, we created this page to answer them for you. Please also consult our site guide (a.k.a. the IMDb University) for more information.
FAQ Revised: Monday 23 June 2003 17:14:28
Table of Contents
- 1. General Info
- 2. Contacting us
- 3. Submitting information to the IMDb
- 4. How to find information
- 5. Questions about our data
- 6. Using IMDb data
- 7. Videos/DVD
- 8. Problems browsing the site
- 9. Registration
- 10. User comments and ratings
- 11. Boxoffice
- 12. Miscellaneous questions
1. General Info
- 1.1. What is the Internet Movie Database?
- The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a HUGE collection of movie information. We try to catalog every pertinent detail about a movie, from who was in it, to who made it, to trivia about it, to filming locations, and even where you can find reviews and fan sites on the web. We then do our best to present this information in a manner that is easy to search and access.
The IMDb started as a hobby project by an international group of movie fans (see history), essentially something by movie fans for movie fans. And despite our incredible growth, we retain that sensibility. The weekly editorial staff meeting is lunch and a movie. All the weekly status reports detail three things: what we did for work, what we did for fun, and what movies we saw. And our staff is still spread around the U.S. and Europe.
We are some of our site's most hardcore users. Our managing director claims to have seen over seven thousand movies. Most of our people could write or win a movie trivia game show. One of our proposed slogans was "we just love movies." As big and intimidating as we may seem because of our millions of monthly visitors, we're just a bunch of hardcore movie fans who still can't get over the fact that we're getting paid to keep improving this tool we use so much for our own pleasure.
- 1.2. How much does using the IMDb cost?
- Using the Internet Movie Database is free for non-commercial use. The
site is supported by revenues from our advertisers. If you would like to
support our efforts, we ask that you visit our advertisers by clicking on
their banners at the top of our pages, and when you're in the market for
books, videos, music, or any of the other products sold by Amazon.com,
you'll use our links to visit them and shop for those items. We make these
links available in the "buy related" boxes on our movie and people pages,
plus in our IMDb Recommends section.
If you work in the entertainment industry, you can probably find even more
useful information at IMDbPro.com, an
expanded version of the Internet Movie Database offering additional features
specifically aimed towards film industry professionals.
- 1.3. How/where you get your information? How accurate/reliable is it?
- The information in the Internet Movie Database comes from various sources.
Though we do some active gathering of information, the bulk of our
information is submitted by people in the industry and visitors like you.
In fact, about 70% of our staff is dedicated to processing the massive
amounts of information we receive and add to the database every week.
In addition to using as many sources as we can get our hands
on, our data goes through a verification process and we have a large number
of consistency check tools that we run to ensure it's as accurate and
reliable as possible.
However, there's absolutely no substitute for an international team of movie buffs
with an encyclopedic knowledge of trivia and a large assortment of reference
works (and we include in this group many of our loyal contributors). Our
main sources of information are on-screen credits. We also rely on press
kits, official bios, autobiographies, and interviews.
Given the sheer size (over 350,000 titles and 1.3 million names) and the
nature of the information we list, which is often subject to change
especially on yet-unreleased films or long-running TV series, occasional
mistakes are inevitable and, when spotted/reported, they are promptly
verified and fixed. That's why we welcome corrections and submissions.
However keep in mind that our service is provided for the information of users only. It is
not provided with the intention that users rely upon the information for any
purposes. Accordingly, IMDb shall under no circumstances be liable for any
loss or damage, including but not limited to loss of profits, goodwill or
indirect or consequential loss arising out of any use of or inaccuracies in
the information. All warranties express or implied are excluded to the
fullest extent permissible by law. Please see our terms of use and copyright
information for further details.
- 1.4. How much information do you actually have and how current is it?
- We currently store over 6.3 million individual film/TV credits, but since
the number of films and people listed in the database grows every day, we have a
separate page with the most current
statistics.
Our servers are constantly updated with information with all current and
upcoming movie releases. To see when each data section was last updated, you can check
this page.
- 1.5. How do I join the IMDb team?
- As a member of the Amazon.com family of companies, we now use their
Strategic Growth department as our recruiting arm. When a job opportunity
opens up, it is listed in their job
openings section, and we link to it from our job openings page. When such an opening
becomes available, we welcome all our friends and users who are interested
in the job and meet the qualifications to submit their resumes via
the channels presented.
2. Contacting us
- 2.1. I have a problem/question for you. How do I get in touch? What's your phone number?
- We're sorry but all our user feedback/interaction is through email only.
The Internet Movie Database is a free service and we are not able to to
provide telephone support of any kind. Please contact us through our
Feedback page and
your request will be routed to the appropriate person.
- 2.2. I sent you an email but haven't heard back from you. Don't you reply to your users?
- Please be aware that though we read every message and do our best to reply
to everyone in a timely fashion, we receive thousands of messages
every day and it may take some time for us to get back to you. We appreciate your patience.
Also, we regret that we are be unable to provide a personalized reply to questions that do not
directly involve the IMDb or that are already answered in this FAQ/help
text; we suggest you read through this whole page before contacting us, as
most of the inquiries we receive are already addressed and answered here.
If you have used our forms to submit data or contact us in the past but have not received a
reply, your ISP or e-mail client may be blocking e-mail from IMDb.com. If
you suspect this is happening, please consult the help section of your
e-mail program to see how to relax or remove the settings that filter or
block mail. Once you've established that you should be able to receive mail
from us, please contact us again with your question.
Want to check if
your ISP or e-mail client is blocking mail from IMDb.com? Try subscribing
for our IMDb Cool Today
newsletter. If you don't receive our daily email, you will know that
messages from IMDb.com are being blocked or deleted automatically.
3. Submitting information to the IMDb
- 3.1. How do I submit information for a film/actor?
- Due to the high volume of submissions, only properly formatted data submitted through our submissions interface
can be accepted.
All name/title pages on the Internet Movie Database feature an
"Update" button at the bottom. You need to click on it and follow
the instructions to add data or to correct existing data. This will
ensure the data is formatted correctly so it can be routed
automatically to the correct department and name/title.
Please see the tutorial for submitting data at
if you need help. This page also explains how to add new titles.
If you're a movie industry professional and need to add/change your
own credits, we have a special Resume guide
with additional details on how to update your own filmography.
- 3.2. Can I submit data for an unreleased/unfinished film?
- The decision to accept or reject
a new title is made by our staff on a case-by-case basis and as a rule, we
generally reject unfinished/unproduced projects unless they are in an
advanced stage of production (i.e. filming or in advanced pre-production)
and/or are submitted together with a sufficiently large number of credits and release information.
Many film projects, even some with high profile names attached to them,
never get made or undergo several cast/crew changes before actually being
filmed. So, to avoid confusion and errors, we usually wait until a film is
actually in an advanced stage of production before listing it.
We make exceptions for a few very high-profile titles whose early
production status is widely confirmed by reputable media sources. This is often the
case with follow-ups for successful films, whose production is usually
announced as soon as the previous film becomes a hit and whose cast is
usually already under obligation to do a sequel. That's why you may find
titles like Rush Hour 3 (2003) or Star Wars: Episode III (2005) listed even
with minimal cast/crew info. Those are rare exceptions, however.
We will be happy to list your project as soon as more verifiable cast/crew
members are attached to it and as soon as it enters a more advanced stage of
production.
- 3.3. How long does it take for new data to be added?
- All information submitted to the IMDb is not immediately available online
but must first be checked and processed by our staff.
Assuming there are no backlogs or technical delays, the majority of data is
processed within one or two weeks; however processing may take considerably
longer if you submitted information for new names or titles not already
present in the IMDb. Please also note that credits for films which are still
in production or unreleased or hard to obtain and for people without an
already established filmography can also take longer to process (and may be
rejected altogether if we are unable to verify them).
- 3.4. I sent several additions several weeks ago and nothing was added. Why?
- If you have submitted one or more new entries to the IMDb and they still haven't
shown up in the database after several weeks then the reason for this is
likely to be one of the following:
- The mail server has rejected your data. In this case you have received
a rejection mail. Please consult the addition guides for examples that
explain the syntax, fix the errors in your data and resubmit to the
mail server.
- We could not verify the submissions or they didn't meet our
rules for inclusion in the database as far as we could tell based on
our research. We process several thousands new names and titles every
week so research time for each one is severly limited. The
eligibility criteria for each section of the database are available
in our Submission Guides
Cast/crew additions to upcoming/unreleased films are the hardest to
to verify, especially if you're trying to add credits to a name that
currently isn't listed in the database yet. You need to provide as
much information as possible about your credits in order to help us
verify them. If you provide additional information for your data
that supports the view that it's eligible for inclusion in the
Internet Movie Database, your chances of getting the info quickly
into the database are much better. The correct mail server keyword
for such information is COMMENT.
IMDb retains the right to reject any submission whose eligibility according to
our rules is dubious or/and not verifiable. That includes data for titles that are
in their very first development stages. They may be rejected at that stage
but accepted later on when they are actually finished. IMDb retains the
right to change and adapt eligibility rules as circumstances require.
- 3.5. Why do updates to data or votes for smaller films take weeks while information and
user comments for big films are added almost overnight?
- Updates are performed at regularly scheduled intervals, regardless of a
film's importance. Data sections (i.e. information like the cast/crew of a
film) is usually updated on a weekly basis, while user votes are
recalculated on a daily schedule. Moreover, user ratings do not appear until
a minimum amount of votes has been collected. For obvious reasons, this
threshold is reached more quickly with popular films than on less
widely-released features. Likewise, it's easier and quicker for our staff to
process and verify data for a major release than for a more obscure film.
- 3.6. I own a photo or poster that you don't have, can I send it to you?
- Photo submissions are handled through IMDb Publicity Photo Services.
Visit the Publicity Photo Services page
for more information on what categories of photos we take and how you can submit them.
Please note that we can only take photos that are self-submitted or that
are from someone legally affiliated with the person or production for
which the photos are being submitted. We cannot and will not take
photos from fans.
- 3.7. Why can't I add any guest appearance credits for actor X?
- Unfortunately we can't accept a guest appearance submission if the name of the actor
is not already present in our records: to be eligible for acceptance to the guest appearance section, the person must
have appeared in at least one feature film or tv series (as a full time cast
member).
If this is not the case, the only way to get them accepted is to research
their past and submit any appearances in movies/tv first. Guest roles can
only be added to an already existing filmography, so the person must have at
least one other non-guest credit.
- 3.8. I know for a fact that the John Smith who worked on film X is not the same John Smith who worked on film Y. How do I delete the incorrect credits?
- Sometimes, especially when two or more people have similar
or identical names, correct credits can be associated to the wrong person.
If this is the case, please identify all the credits that belong to one of them and we'll
move the incorrect ones to the other person(s) sharing the same name.
When checking credits on their filmography pages please make a note of the titles
of all your valid credits, not their order number on the page: the position
of credits on filmography pages may be subject to change, so we need the
exact titles to positively identify the credits.
- 3.9. How do I change the order in which credits are displayed in a filmography?
- Whenever a person's filmography is displayed, the order of the categories is
based on the number of credits in each one.
For example if someone has 2 credits as director, 5 credits as
cinematographer and 1 as producer, his/her listing will display the
cinematographer credits first, then the directing credits and finally the
producing one.
This order isn't meant to imply anything about the relative
importance of the various credits. It's just a technical convention.
This is a software-dictated function which applies to all filmographies in
the IMDb and cannot be changed.
- 3.10. My submissions were rejected because of problems with something called a 'delimiter'. What is that?
- The character used as a delimiter in submissions sent to our mail server is called 'pipe' in
computer jargon. On screen and on most keyboards it looks like a straight
vertical line ("|"), though on some keyboards it looks like a colon made of
two dashes instead of dots...
This character is on the same key as the backslash character ("\"), i.e. you
press the backslash key together with the Shift key to produce the pipe
character.
On most US keyboards this key is located and above the "enter" key, at the
right end of the QWERTY row of characters.
On some US keyboards the "enter" key is much larger, and the backspace/pipe
key is smaller. On these keyboards, the pipe/backslash key is then located
to the immediate left of the backspace key (to the right of the equals key).
On non-english european keyboards the key is on the upper left corner,
right below the Esc key and next to the "1" key.
4. How to find information
- 4.1. You have so much information! Where should I start?
- The menu bar located at the top of every page at IMDb.com has links to
our main site features. All our pages also include a search box in the upper
left side to quickly locate a film or a name (just type something into the
box right under the heading "Search the database for" and click on the 'Go'
button). If you are looking for specific films or people and need more
powerful search functions you should check our Search
page.
We also have a very comprehensive index with an
alphabetical list of the most popular features available at IMDb.com.
And if you are not sure of what you are looking for and simply want to browse listings
of film titles and other film-related information, our
Section Browsers page is a good place to start.
- 4.2. I'm looking for a film but I can't remember the title... can you help me?
- We'd love to help everyone, but unfortunately our staff is unable to
provide a personal response service for individual queries about movies,
trivia, quizzes, release dates or "I remember that movie but can't remember
the name"-type questions. The IMDb can be searched in very sophisticated ways
that can help answer many questions so check out the search and extended
search functions. See, for example, our Power Search feature.
You can also try posting your question in one of our online message boards.
One of the boards, called I Need to Know, is
the right place to post those trivia questions you don't know the answer to.
Perhaps one of your fellow IMDb users can help.
- 4.3. You don't seem to list the information I need. Can you find it for me?
- Sorry, all the data we have on any movie is already online. If the information you're looking for
isn't there, then we don't have it.
Although we try to be as comprehensive as possible, some information (such as boxoffice or budget amounts)
may not always be available for a certain film.
The Internet Movie Database is constantly updated so keep checking regularly as we
may well uncover the information you are looking for at some point.
- 4.4. Can you put me in touch with this celebrity?
- We don't have any contact information in addition to what is
already available online. We do store agents and fan club addresses in the
database wherever possible. This information is held in the biography
section which is accessed by clicking the link labelled "Agent" under the
"Biographical" heading on their filmography page (on the leftmost column of
the page). If there's no such link then we don't have the information.
See here for an example of this information.
The best advice we can give you is this... for stars of current shows, check
out the web sites for the networks that air the shows in the United States.
Most of the major networks have FAQ's like this and one of the questions
they answer is how to contact stars of their shows, often providing
snail-mail (postal) and/or e-mail addresses. For stars of the past, we
suggest checking out our "official" and "miscellaneous" links pages for them
(if available) to find fan sites. Any "official" site will be their
authorized fan site and may provide contact information. "Miscellaneous"
(i.e. unauthorized) fan sites may still offer contact info.
As a last resort, you can enter the phrase "celebrity address" into any
search engine like Yahoo, Lycos or Ask Jeeves to pull up a list of sites
that provide celebrity contact addresses and search those. We cannot vouch
for the accuracy of these lists and suggest that you avoid any services
promising to deliver your letter or e-mail to a celebrity for a fee.
5. Questions about our data
- 5.1. Why does the film "The Seven Samurai" show up under the title "Shichinin no samurai" when I look it up?
Why aren't films listed under their english title?
- Our site is visited by millions of people from all over the world.
Though we try to list all titles variations/translations for most films, we
have to choose one to be used as the main/primary title, which is displayed
at the top of its page and in search results. By default we use the original
title (i.e. the title in the language of the film's original country of
production): spanish films are listed under their spanish title, german
films under their german title etc.
If we used the english-language title by default, we'd make things easier for US/UK users but we'd be doing
a disservice to people in other countries. For example, French users would
have to know the english-language title of French films to be able to
recognize them, which is clearly absurd. The only practical solution is to
list all films under their original title.
Please note that even on non-english language movies, the english-language
title is displayed in search result pages and on the film's title page
(under the heading 'Also Known As', after the cast/crew listing). Moreover,
if you access the site through our alternative server at
akas.imdb.com, all known title variations
are displayed and searched. Searching for 'Guerre Stellari' on
akas.imdb.com will return the page for
Star Wars (1977) and all known non-english language titles for the films will be listed on its page.
- 5.2. What's the deal with those Roman numerals, like (I) and (II), after people's names?
- Short answer: People's names are a key in our database structure, thus different people must have different names. If they have the same name, we have to use something to make them different. We use Roman numerals. For a more detailed explanation of how and why, read on...
We make two different types of uses of Roman numerals. When they are not in parentheses, like Lloyd Ahern II, this is an actual part of someone's name. In Lloyd's case, his father has the same name, so the familial relation is represented by the II. When some people more commonly or very consistently use "Jr." we do not use a roman numeral as the junior notation makes the names different.
When they are in parentheses, that is an internal notation for the database. We may have a costume designer, a director, and an actor all named John Smith, none of whom are related. If we did not separate them by use of parenthesized Roman numerals--the (I) and (II), etc., that you see--their credits would all be combined, meaning there would be one John Smith with all of their credits instead of three John Smiths with the proper credits for each.
There are no hard and fast rules as to how they get ordered, though we try to use one or more of the following standards: who is more famous, who came first chronologically, whose job is more popularly looked up (i.e. when people are looking up a name, they're more likely to be looking for information on a director or actor than a production assistant or key grip with the same name). Certain very famous people will have no Roman numeral at all (though the less famous people also having their name still will), such as Mel Gibson and Mel Gibson (II).
- 5.3. Some films have '(V)' or '(VG)' after the title. What does that mean?
- This is the meaning of those special attributes:
- (TV) = made for TV (TV-movies, MOWs, pilots, TV specials)
- (V) = made for video or direct-to-video release
- (VG) = video game
- (mini) = television miniseries
Also, the title of TV series and miniseries are surrounded by quote marks (").
- 5.4. What is the difference between "Screenplay" and "Written by" credits?
- The Screenplay credit is normally used when there's a separate credit for
the Story writer. When the same writer is the author of both Story and
Screenplay, the 'Written by' term is used. For more details, please see the
official definitions from the Writers Guild of America.
- 5.5. I know for a fact that there is only one John Smith registered with the
Screen Actors Guild, so all the other ones listed in the database must be
wrong. How do I delete them?
- We obviously can't remove a person from the database only because his/her
name is similar or identical to someone else's.
SAG is an American organization and its rules obviously cannot apply to
actors working in other countries or in films produced before SAG even
existed. It's therefore not uncommon to see different, unrelated people
sharing the same name.
To avoid confusion between two or more people using the same name we
usually add roman numerals to their names (see the previous question).
- 5.6. I spotted a mistake: you have the film Bottle Rocket listed twice. Why won't you correct it?
- Because it's not a mistake. The film Bottle
Rocket (1994) is not the same as Bottle
Rocket (1996), even if at first glance they look similar. The first one
was a 13 min. short, which was later remade/expanded into the 1996 feature.
For other examples of shorts later turned into full-length features, see:
Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade (1994), which became
Sling Blade (1996) and
Jimmy Zip (1996), later remade as
Jimmy Zip (1999)
- 5.7. You list George Reeves as the star of Superman (1973). Everyone knows Christopher Reeve was the star of Superman! George died in 1959, so he couldn't possibly appear in Superman (1973), could he?
- Actually he could and he did. Again, there's no mistake.
First of all, Christopher Reeve was the star of Superman (1978), not Superman (1973). Note the year difference.
Both the film's date and George Reeves'
death date are correct. As with all films in the Internet Movie Database,
the year listed in a movie title is the year of release, not of production.
The 1973 Superman feature was a compilation film edited out of old episodes of the TV series "Adventures of Superman" (1952-1957), starring
George Reeves. This information is listed in the Movie Connections link for Superman (1973) and
explains how George Reeves appeared in a Superman movie
released 14 years after his death.
Of course this isn't the only case:
it's not uncommon for actors to be featured in films released years after
their death. Another often-quoted example is Bela Lugosi, who passed away in 1956
but still managed to star in Plan 9 from Outer
Space (1959), which was filmed and released three years after his death (stock
footage and a double were used to create his posthumous performance).
- 5.8. You claim that Julianne Moore appeared in "As the World Turns" in (1956) but she was born in 1961 so how can this be correct?
- The credit is correct, there's no mistake.
There are several TV-series which have been running for many years, for
example "As the World Turns" started in 1956 and "The Doctors" in 1963.
Several actors and actresses began their careers by appearing in series such
as these, for example, Meg Ryan played Betsy Montgomery in "As the World
Turns".
Lists of movies (filmographies) are usually sorted into chronological order,
the year used being the year that the movie was released, or in the case of
long running TV-series, the year it was first broadcast. This means that you
can sometimes get information which at first glance seems to indicate that a particular performer appeared in a
TV-series before they were even born. For example, Julianne Moore was
born in 1961, but her filmography lists "As the World Turns" (1956) among her credits!
To reduce confusion, we try to use the character name to indicate the range of
years the people appeared in the show. In Julianne Moore's case, she
appeared in "As the World Turns" from 1985 to 1988, so her character name is
listed as "Frannie Hughes (1985-1988)".
- 5.9. On Jennifer Aniston's page you say she played Jeanie Bueller in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off but everyone knows the role of Ferris' sister was played by Jennifer Grey. Why won't you fix this mistake?
- Again, there's no mistake to fix. Please read carefully:
Jennifer Grey played Jeanie in the film
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).
Jennifer Aniston played Jeanie in the TV series
"Ferris Bueller" (1990).
Same role in different titles and years played by two different actresses.
The information is correctly listed on both films' and actresses' pages
- 5.10. Why is the USA running time listed for a film sometimes different from the running time listed for another country and/or for the video?
- A typical feature film is shot and projected at 24 frames per second. The
two main video standards in the US (NTSC) and in Europe (PAL) use different
frame rates (29.97 frames per second vs. 25 frames per second), which
usually means that the film has to be sped up when transferred to video to
avoid image synchonization problems. In the case of a PAL transfer, this
acceleration results in a 4% decrease in the film's total running time. In
other words, the European VHS tape or DVD of a 100-minutes theatrical
release will only be 96 minutes long. Other changes in running time may be
caused by cuts or alterations imposed by local censorship rules or other
minor changes between different releases of the film (such as shorter/longer
end titles, distributor's logos, copyright notices and various supplemental
material). Whenever available, detailed information about the various
versions of a film is listed in the
Alternative Versions section of the
database.
- 5.11. Why don't you always list the stars of a film at the top of its cast listing?
- Our pages display cast lists in the same order as they appeared in the
most complete onscreen listing found in the movie (usually the end credits). This
may be different than the billing order on movie posters or main titles. In
some movies cast members are credited in order of appearance, while in
others they are listed in alphabetical order. That's why sometimes movie
stars or important characters may appear towards the bottom of the listing
instead of the top. If you're looking only at the 'Main Details' page for a film,
which by default displays just the first 15 cast members, you might miss them: click on
the 'Combined Details' link on the left hand side column to display the
complete cast/crew list and you should find them further down the listing.
- 5.12. Why do some acting credits show up in a separate list under a category called "Himself" or "Herself" even if those people didn't actually appear as themselves?
- The database lists all kind of titles, not just films. We also list
appearances in TV specials, documentaries and other non-fiction productions.
The recent surge in popularity of 'making of' featurettes (especially due to
the DVD sales boom), reality TV series and other productions where famous
(and not-so-famous) people routinely appear as themselves had increased the
size of many filmographies to the point where it was hard to tell at a
glance which credits were actual movie acting roles.
In the long term, we're going to introduce more radical changes in the way
credits are stored in the database so that there's no confusion between film
acting and other non-acting appearances. In the meantime, we decided to take
some steps to reduce the clutter and list some of those credits separately
based on the type of title they appeared in: performances in regular films, TV-series, TV-movies etc. are
still listed in the main filmography section; appearances in documentaries,
TV-specials (like the Academy Awards ceremony broadcast), making-of
featurettes etc are now listed in a separate section called "Himself" or
"Herself", depending on the person's gender.
Since the distinction is based on the type of title and not on the
individual credit, a restricted number of appearances may show up in the
wrong section. For example, all performers in a reality TV series will
show up in the "Himself" category, regardless of their actual character name
or role.
Most documentaries include appearances of famous people as themselves (i.e.
being interviewed or in stock footage), but a few of them also feature
reenactments with actors portraying historical characters. Again, these will
end up in the "Himself" listing (even though the credit will still list the
proper character names).
We are aware of this issue, which affects only a very small number of people
while greatly improving the readability of the vast majority of
filmographies stored in the database. Also note that only name filmography
page are affected: credits on title pages are still displayed normally, in
the proper order and without being broken down into separare categories.
As we said, this is just a
temporary situation and we are working on a more extensive (and
definitive) solution that will enable us to categorize individual credits
under the proper section and eliminate any confusion.
- 5.13. Why does one of my credits now say that I worked on a film only during post-production? I worked on that film the whole time!
- The post-production (or pre-production, or filming)
attribute only refers to the film's current status, not to your individual
credit. In other words, it simply means that, to the best of our knowledge,
the film is still in the post-production stage.
This is reflected by the way the credit is displayed. When the attribute is
meant to indicate the film's current production status, it's listed
immediately after the title and is displayed in red italics, like this:
Hulk, The (2003) (post-production) (technical supervisor)
If we want to indicate that someone worked as a post-production techincal
supervisor, their credit will instead appear like this:
Hulk, The (2003) (technical supervisor: post-production)
Note that the first type of attribute changes over time, while the second
doesn't. In other words, as soon as the film is completed or released, the
post-production attribute will disappear and won't be displayed next
to the title anymore.
6. Using IMDb data
- 6.1. I want to use your photos/trailers on my site/show/magazine. Can you give me permission?
- All pictures and videos found on our site (including movie stills,
headshots, photo galleries and trailers) are licensed to IMDb only and we
are not permitted to sublicense them onwards or grant permission for other
to use them, sorry. We are also unable to help with licensing questions that
do not specifically involve the Internet Movie Database.
For photos in "Studio Stills" galleries, please contact the appropriate
studio or production company. For photos in "Famous Frames," "WireImage" or
"MPTv.net" galleries, the providing agency is usually linked below the
photo. If the link is there, clicking their name will direct you to a page with more information
on the company to license the photo
- 6.2. Can I use your data in a book/website/magazine then?
- Details on allowed use of IMDb data can be found in our Copyright page.
For all other uses, please see our Licensing section.
- 6.3. Do I need your permission to put a link to your site on my webpage or link to your filmographies?
- We always welcome links to our site! To get you started, we have a
'How to link' page which explains
how we prefer links to our home page to be worded, how to link to
specific titles or people, how to link to specific information, how to
include an IMDb search box on your site, a service that helps you build
links to specific people and titles, and logos you can use.
7. Videos/DVD
- 7.1. I want to buy a film. How do I find out if it's it available on video?
- We do not catalog information about VHS tapes, and we do not sell
anything ourselves. The Internet Movie Database is part of the Amazon.com group of companies:
we simply link to their catalog as a service to our visitors but all sales
of VHS tapes, DVDs, music, books, and more are handled directly by Amazon.com.
While there is an Amazon.com box for every title, only those entries that display links for DVD, VHS,
or CD are known to have products for sale at Amazon.com. We do
not attempt to accurately catalog books and other merchandise, but
rely on Amazon.com's search function.
Because our focus is not sales, we list every film/TV show we are
aware of that meet our criteria for inclusion, whether or not they
are available on video or ever have been; in some cases, there are
no known copies remaining in any form. This is not unlike an
encyclopedia that lists animal species that are extinct.
There are two ways to determine whether a particular title is available on video at Amazon.com:
- Search for the movie title at IMDb and look at the "SHOP" box
near the top right of the main title details page. If there is a link
labelled "Video (VHS)" or "DVDs" in the box, follow the format of your
choice to the Amazon site where it can be ordered.
- Visit the Amazon.com video store home page for your country of residence and search directly:
USA
Canada
UK
Germany
France
Japan
You might also be able to find used, out-of-print and hard to find videos on Amazon Auctions
or in the Amazon ZShops section.
- 7.2. How do I find out if a video has subtitles in another language?
- This is currently possible only when searching for DVDs. You can browse our DVD section
by subtitle language. See our DVD browser (scroll down
to the 'Browse Subtitles' section).
- 7.3. I live in the USA. Can I order a video from Amazon UK?
- Different countries have different standards for videos and television
signals. TV broadcasts and videos/DVDs for sale in the USA, Canada and Japan
are produced according to a standard called NTSC; most european countries
follow a different standard called PAL. We won't go into technical details
here: suffice to say that a PAL-format video requires a PAL-compatible VCR
and television set, and the same applies to NTSC. If you live in the USA you
cannot playback tapes manifactured for sale in the UK and viceversa. The
only exception is if own a high-end multi-standard VCR player and TV (i.e. a
set that is designed to be compatible with both video standards).
The
same is true for DVDs, with an additional limitation: DVDs are
region-encoded, i.e. have a special code to ensure they can be played only
on players sold in the same country or geographical region.
For example, even though Japan and the USA use the same video standard
(NTSC), a DVD released in Japan (region 2) will not play on a DVD player
sold in the USA (region 1).
8. Problems browsing the site
- 8.1. The 'celebrity photo' or other graphic/ad cover part of the page and I can't read all the text. Can you get rid of it?
- This looks like a browser/display problem. The picture/advertisements on
our site are placed so that they do not cover anything or interfere with the
site usability. Try resizing your browser window and/or a different browser
software. Our page are routinely tested using Netscape and Internet Explorer
and should not present a problem when used on normal-size displays (i.e. at
least 800x600).
- 8.2. Why does my browser crash when I try to access your site with Internet Explorer?
- We have had some problem reports by users of some releases of Internet Explorer 5.0.
There are a couple of options available:
- Try a different browser (or even a different release version of IE5.0)
- Close down your browser completely then restart it and visit this site:
http://aol.imdb.com/
which has slightly different page formats than the regular IMDb site and
may cause the IE5 bug not to show. It's very important that you close
down your browser first though as if you've visited the regular IMDb
site in the same session, IE is still likely to crash on the AOL version.
- 8.3. Why are some of the options on the left-hand side column grayed out?
- The links on the left side of the screen are active only if we have
information for that specific category. For example, a link under 'Release
Dates' may be active because we have release date information for a film,
while the link under 'Plot Summary' may be grayed out because we do not have a plot
summary for it yet.
If you have more details re: the missing information and wish to update the
page with new data, we'll be happy to add it.
If you're a registered user of the database, you should see an 'Update'
button at the bottom of the film's or person's page. You can use that to add any missing
piece of information: click on 'Update' and follow the onscreen
instructions.
9. Registration
- 9.1. What are the advantages of registering with IMDb.com?
- Registration gives you access to additional benefits features and
personalization options: you'll be able to cast votes and submit user
comments, partecipate in our message boards, take advantage of the MyMovies
feature, submit corrections and updates to the database, change your mailing
list subscription, get local movie showtimes and customize your site preferences.
Registration is free and only requires you to provide a valid email address.
Please see our Privacy Policy if you are worried
about giving out your email address.
- 9.2. I gave you my email address but I never received my registration email.
How do I login?
- When you register for IMDb.com, you're required to enter a valid, active
email address. Our automated server then sends to this address an activation
email with a special link, which you need to use to activate your IMDb.com
registration. This step is necessary to ensure that a valid email address is
provided and to verify that the person registering for IMDb.com is the
actual owner of that email address.
Here are some helpful hints if you don't get immediately get your activation
email:
- Be Patient: though most activation emails are sent and delivered
immediately, delays can always happen: for example we've noticed that email
sent to free email services (like Hotmail.com) often takes a bit longer then
average to be delivered. You should allow at least a couple of hours.
- Double-check your address: the activation link is sent to the
email address you provided. If you typed your address incorrectly, our
activation email will never reach you.
- Check your anti-spam filters: if you or your email provider have
activated some kind of anti-spam filter to discard junkmail, our activation
mail may have been trapped as a result. If you're using programs like
SpamCop or SpamArrest, which stop incoming email from being delivered unless
the sender manually clicks on the link provided in an automated reply, our
activation link may have been stopped as a result. Free email services like
Hotmail.com also offer 'junkmail' filters which, at the highest setting, can
trap most incoming email. Please check that the activation email isn't being
discarded by one of these filters. Most of these utilities include a feature to rescue incorrectly discarded email.
- 9.3. Why do I get an 'invalid activation code' error message when I click on the link in the activation email?
- Our activation message includes a unique code but the actual link is
generated by your email program (which reads the URL in the email and
creates a clickable link, launching your Internet browser).
Some email clients have trouble building the link when the URL is very long
and may truncate it after a certain number of characters: we've found this
to be the case with Hotmail.com and some versions of AOL.
If you get an 'invalid code' error message, please cut and paste the link
from our email into a new browser window instead of clicking directly on the
link from inside your email program.
- 9.4. When I try to login/register I'm told that I need to enable cookies. What are cookies?
- IMDb.com uses cookies to identify registered users. A cookie is simply a
piece of text that is saved in your browser's configuration to allow our
servers to recognize you every time you visit the Internet Movie Database.
Without cookies, our servers are not able to recognize you as a registered
user. No personal or sensitive information is stored in your IMDb cookie.
If your browser is configured to reject or disallow cookies, you may still access and
search the Internet Movie Database but you won't be able to use any of the
personalized features reserved to registered users. To make sure cookies are
enabled, you need to check your browser configuration (options for cookies
can usually be found under the Security or Advanced configuration section)
If you are using Netscape, go to the Edit/Preferences/Advanced menu.
In Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, go to View/Internet Options/Advanced
menu.
If you are using Internet Explorer version 5 or above, you'll find cookie
options in the Tools/Internet Options/Security menu.
You can find more technical information and background on cookies at
http://www.cookiecentral.com/faq/
- 9.5. Every time I try to login I am told my username/password are incorrect. How do I login?
- If the system doesn't seem to recognize you, please first
first click on this link to logout and clear your cookie, then
then try logging in again by going to our login page.
If you have forgotten your password, you can have a special link to reset
your password emailed to you by visiting our forgotten password page and entering the same
email address you used to sign up for IMDb.com.
10. User comments and ratings
- 10.1. The vote average for film "X" should be Y! Why are you displaying another rating?
- As explained on this page,
the Internet Movie Database does not use the arithmetic mean when calculating the ratings,
although the raw mean and median are shown under the detailed vote
breakdown graph on the ratings pages. Instead we use a weighted
average scheme. In order to avoid leaving the scheme open to abuse,
we do not disclose the exact methods used.
We can provide some more detail here to reassure you that the
methods are both sound and fair. First of all, the same scheme is
applied universally across the database to all movies without
exception so there is no bias in when and where the scheme operates.
Occasionally we receive mail from people who seem to assume that
some favorite movie has been victimized by the weighted ratings
whereas this is not the case.
The objective of the scheme is to present a more representative
rating which is immune from abuse by subsets of individuals who
have combined together with the aim of influencing (either up or
down) the ratings of specific movies. This includes people involved
in the production of a movie and their friends or fans trying to
unduly raise the rating of a movie far above that of where the
typical IMDb users would rate it.
The scheme combines a number of well-known and proven statistical
methods, including a trimmed mean to reduce extreme influences and,
most importantly a complex voter weighting system to make sure that
the final rating is representative of the general voting population
and not subject to over influence from individuals who are not
regular participants in the poll. The scheme has been developed
internally over the 10 years which the poll has been in operation
and tuned on a regular basis to make sure it remains fair.
This is all we are prepared to say and, owing to the way this whole
topic tends to result in heated arguments, we cannot enter into
any further correspondence on this issue. You will just have to
take our word that the scheme is unbiased. If you are still not
convinced of the impartiality, remember that the raw vote totals
are published along with the mean and median votes. If we did have
any bias, we would surely alter the raw vote totals instead and
leave the supposed manipulation completely undetectable!
If this is still not good enough as an explanation then all we can
suggest is that you ignore the ratings or simply use the raw mean
as shown on each detail page instead (available at the "user ratings"
link in the left column). It's your choice at the end of the day.
- 10.2. The user votes average on film X is 9.4, so it should appear in your top 250 films listing, yet it doesn't. Why?
- As indicated at the IMDb Top 250 Films page,
only votes from frequent IMDb voters are
considered when creating the top 250 out of the full voting database. This
explains any difference between the vote averages reported in the top 250
and those on the individual movie pages. This also explains why movies you
might think from their averages ought to appear on the list yet do not
actually appear there.
To maintain the effectiveness of the top 250 list, we deliberately do not
disclose the criteria used for a person to be counted as a frequent voter.
Please be aware that list only includes theatrical features: shorts, TV
movies, miniseries and documentaries are not included in the Top 250 chart.
Top-rated documentaries are listed in a separate chart.
- 10.3. Who are the Top 1000 voters? How do I know if I'm one of them?
- The top 1000 voters consist of the 1000 people who have voted for the most titles in our
ratings poll. We don't disclose the number of votes required for a person
to make this list nor can we confirm or deny whether you are on it, sorry.
- 10.4. The comment displayed on the page for film X is so negative! Can't you remove it?
- The Internet Movie Database provides the "User Comments" feature as a
forum where users can freely express their opinions about films. The
comments found on that page are posted by our users and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of the Internet Movie Database or its staff. We only
require that users follow our broad guidelines for acceptable content but
do not impose any special editorial guidance over them.
Due to space limitations, only one user comment can be featured on a film's
main title page. The choice of the featured comment is random and is changed
on a daily basis. The selection is performed as follows.
As our comment approvers read through user-submitted comments, they can
optionally and invisibly mark them as "suitable" for display on the main
page if, among other criteria, they appear to be objective, free from
external influences and well written (regardless of whether they are
positive or negative). The exact criteria used are not disclosed to avoid
leaving the scheme open to abuse and we cannot confirm or deny whether a
certain comment has been chosen as suitable for display on the main page.
The featured comment is then chosen randomly from among all suitable
comments for a title; if none have been marked suitable, then it's chosen at
random from all available comments. This random selection is repeated on a
periodic basis to provide variety and keep things interesting. The same
scheme is applied universally across the database to all movies without
exception so there is no bias in when and where the system operates.
If you feel that a comment on our site is
inappropriate please let us know and we'll review it and eventually remove
it if it's found to be in violation of our guidelines. We will not however
alter or influence the random placement of valid comments on the main page
based on their negative or positive content.
- 10.5. Why didn't you post my user comment for movie X?
- Unfortunately, owing to the massive volume of comments we have to process
each week, we simply do not have the staff to look into specific instances
of rejected comments. Please note that comments take between 4 and 7
business days to be approved so you may well find that your submission is
still waiting to go online. Comment may be rejected if found to be in
violation of our guidelines. If you
are sure that the comment was ok and more than 7 days have passed since you
submitted it, please resend it.
- 10.6. Your user comment guidelines state that users must not include 'spoilers' in comments. What are 'spoilers'?
- A spoiler is usually defined as a remark or piece of information which
reveals important plot elements (for example the ending or a major plot
twist), thus 'spoiling' a surprise and robbing the viewer of the suspense
and enjoyment of the film.
- 10.7. How do I delete/change a vote I cast on a film?
- To change your vote on a film, simply vote again. The new vote will replace the previous one.
To delete a vote just go to your Vote History page at
http://mymovies.imdb.com/MyMovies/list?votehistory
Click on Make Ballot.
Go to the movie you wish to delete, click on the pull down menu and
select x.
Then click on the cast vote button.
It may take 24 hours for your change to be reflected on the title's
rating page.
11. Boxoffice
- 11.1. How do I find out how much a movie made at the box office?
- Thousands of films in the IMDb have box-office/budget information.
Just go to the film's page in the IMDb and in the column on the left,
under the "Other Info" heading, look for a link that says "Box Office &
Business". If the link is inactive, it means we don't have any business
info for that particular film.
- 11.2. Do you have a list of all-time top grossing movies?
- We currently list three charts with all-time boxoffice figures, updated
weekly:
All time US boxoffice
All time non-US boxoffice
All time worldwide boxoffice
Weekend boxoffice charts are also available:
USA Top 10
UK Top 15
- 11.3. Where does your box-office information come from?
- Weekly box-office grosses for the US and UK are provided by AC Nielsen
EDI and Exhibitor Relations and are available on our Charts page.
Other data comes from various sources, including IMDb staff research and user submissions.
- 11.4. Why are your budget/gross figures for some movies different than those
listed by another source? Why do you have budget/gross data on some movies and not others?
- Movie grosses reporting isn't an exact science. Studios and distributors
have started disclosing detailed figures only recently; the information
for films released over 15 years ago are therefore very sketchy. The
longer you go back in time, the less reliable the information becomes.
Some sources often erroneously report theatrical rentals as grosses. Theatrical rentals are
the part of the box office take that goes back to the studio (i.e. the
gross minus the percentage for the exhibitors and distributors). On some
old or foreign films, only rental figures may be available instead of
grosses, and viceversa.
The info on movie budgets is even harder to find: studios are usually
very reticent when it comes to discussing how much a film cost,
especially when a movie performed poorly at the box-office; reported
budgets may change over time due to escalating costs (Waterworld and
Titanic are two high profile examples); costs may be difficult to
calculate (the salary for a star or director may be part of a sum agreed
for a package deal consisting of several films).
Reported budgets may also vary greatly depending on whether they only
include the cost of producing/shooting the film (the so-called 'negative
cost') or also additional expenses (like prints and advertising). For
low-budget movies, the promotional expenses can often be much larger
than the negative cost (see for example The Blair Witch Project).
Whenever possible/available, out budget figures refer to a film's
negative cost, unless otherwise indicated.
- 11.5. Do your box office figures also include video sales/rentals?
- No. Our information on grosses only refers to North American theatrical
receipts. Though grosses are marked as "USA" for brevity, they actually
include figures for both the USA and Canada. Our international figures
refer to grosses in the rest of the world; grosses marked as 'worldwide'
are the sum of the US and international figures.
- 11.6. What's the meaning of the date next to the boxoffice figures?
- Our gross figures are cumulative, i.e. they reflect the total amount of
money grossed by a movie up to a certain date in the specified
territory. Some movie may also include partial weekend grosses that
display the amount of money collected during that particular weekend.
Weekend grosses are not cumulative: each weekend gross amount therefore
doesn't include the money collected in the previous weekend. A date of
"final" next to a box office gross indicates the total amount of money
collected during the film's whole release period.
12. Miscellaneous questions
- 12.1. Why do you list Chow Yun-Fat's name as Yun-Fat Chow?
- For sorting purposes and consistency all the names in the IMDb are stored in
"lastname, firstname" format:
For example Mel Gibson becomes Gibson, Mel
Paul Newman becomes Newman, Paul and
James Earl Jones becomes Jones, James Earl.
When displaying filmographies and film credits, the names are reversed to
the more common/clearer "First Last" format (Cruise, Tom is shown as Tom
Cruise).
The Chinese however write their names putting the family name first:
the average asian name is usually composed of three parts and has the format
surname given-name-1 given-name-2
e.g. Wu Chin Lin
In Chow Yun-Fat's case, Chow is the family name (like "Smith") and Yun-Fat is the
first name (like "John").
Therefore, according to the rule above, the name is stored in the IMDb as
Chow, Yun-Fat and displayed in film credits as Yun-Fat Chow
By the way, a case like the above is easy to determine because there's a
dash in the name, which typically identifies the first name.
- 12.2. Every time I search for a quote, I get hundreds of matches but not the exact phrase I was looking for. Why?
- Sorry, word searches return a match on individual words. You can't search
for a full phrase: quotes including all the words you entered will return a
match. In other words, if you search the Quotes section for, say, "I Love You", you'd get both these:
Virginia Lewis: I really do like you. I like you a lot. And, I never want
to hurt you. I think I love you.
and
Sheriff Lucas Buck: I could never imagine myself in what you call
"love."
as valid matches, because they both include all three words "I", "Love" and
"You", regardless of their order.
Try using a longer, more detailed search phrase and you should get fewer matches.
- 12.3. Why do I keep getting titles of adult movies when I perform a search?
- The IMDb contains over 300,000 different movie titles. The aim of the
database is to cover as many titles and genres as possible. As a result,
some of these titles contain words or expressions that some of our users may
find inappropriate and some movies themselves may also fall into this
category.
To provide some level of control for those of a sensitive
nature some adult titles have been made searchable only by users who are
registered with the IMDb and have requested access to this material.
Adult titles cannot be located during a casual search. Only registered users
can update their registration profile and activate/deactivate the option to
include adult titles in searches and displays.
- 12.4. Why it is that, occasionally, well-known actors have significant roles in movies but are not listed in the credits?
- Sometimes well-known actors make a cameo appearance in a movie and their
name is not included in the credits to avoid spoiling the surprise or
drawing too much attention to what is essentially a very minor (but often
pivotal) role. Sometimes the missing credit is the result of a billing
dispute: a big-name actor makes an appearance in the film and, rather than
getting a minor or non-prominent credit, may prefer to take no credit at
all.
- 12.5. The ads on your site are really annoying. Can't you get rid of them?
- The vast majority of ads on our site are static but we occasionally
allow other formats because some of our advertisers have
expressed their preference for these alternative methods of promoting their
products and services.
We realize that some of these advertising methods may be more intrusive or
require more user interaction than regular banner ads, so we constantly work
together with our advertisers to substantially limit the frequency of such
ads and achieve a good balance between an effective promotional exposure and
maintaining great site usability.
Please keep in mind that the Internet Movie Database is a free service: our
advertisers help us to continue providing you with great movie information,
and thanks to them we can keep offering our popular service for free and
continually improve our site with new content and features.
We obviously do not wish to annoy or alienate our users, so rest assured
that if you are receiving an excessive number of pop-up ads or if these ads
crash your browser or cause other technical inconveniences, that wasn't
deliberate and we apologize for it.
If you are experiencing such problems or feel that our site is displaying an
unusually high number of ads, please let us know about your difficulties and
we'll try to fix things as soon as possible.
First of all, please verify that the ads were generated by a visit to our
site and not by some other website or application. Make sure that you close
ALL your browser windows, shutdown your browser then relaunch it and try
accessing our site again before reporting these incidents. Some ads are
designed to be loaded when you visit a site but are only displayed after a
long delay or when you close the browser window and leave the original site.
We want to make sure that the ads that are causing problems to you are
loaded from our site, not by someone else using deceptive advertising
tactics.
Also make sure that your browser is configured to accept cookies, which are
used to detect whether you've already been shown a particular ad. If you get
several pop-up windows at the same time and/or get the same pop-up ad
whenever you open a new page or click on a link, this is most likely the
cause. Enabling cookies and restarting your browser should take care of the
problem.
If, after trying the above suggestions, you still experience too many
instances of the same ad and you are sure they are generated by our site,
please let us know and provide as many details as you can about your system
(such as your operating system, the name and version of the browser you're
using, which specific ad caused the problem and what where you doing on the
site when it happened, possibly with a link to the exact page) so that we
can identify the nature of the problem and take appropriate action.
- 12.6. How do I break into show business?
- Semi-famous actors (often people who've done a lot of commercials or character roles), writers and agents/managers with varying levels of scruples keep certain arts-themed publications filled with ads, week after week, promising to tell you the secrets... if you pay for their seminar, service or book. In fact, preying on the "wannabe" is a cottage industry in any field that puts up barriers to entry, be it the movies or publishing or the music industry. We look at these people much like the get-rich-quick gurus on late-night TV... it stands to reason that they make more money telling you how to get rich with their secrets than they do using them, otherwise they'd be too busy using them to have time to sell them to you for $49.95.
The best advice we can give you are these few points...
- Don't quit your day job. It can take years and you'll need money to live. Harrison Ford quit acting and worked in construction for a few years before coming back and getting his break. Bruce Willis was a waiter and bartender while he tried to get stage work in New York. Even people who seem to be overnight sensations played bit parts and struggled before they suddenly burst onto the scene in a prominent role.
- A real agent or manager will not ask you for money (be it an "up-front fee" or "seed money"). They make money when they get you a job. Also, in California, talent agents must be licensed and there are laws governing their relationship with clients. Go to the unions, preferably SAG (Screen Actors Guild) or AFTRA (American Federation of Radio and Television Artists) or WGA (Writers Guild of America), and ask for their "franchised agency" list. You can buy it for a nominal fee or in some cases get it online for free. These lists will contain licensed agents who have signed contracts with the unions to follow specific rules when representing clients.
- Take classes. It may be hard figuring out whether the $10 per session class is as good as the $100 per session class, and we can't help you there, but classes give you two benefits. First, they help you hone and perfect your craft, whatever branch of show biz you want to be in. Second, they will help flesh out a weak resume. If you don't have credits, you need classes. If you're wondering about the credits of the person teaching the class, look them up in our database. Except for writers on individual TV show episodes, we keep pretty good records.
- Until you're commanding $20 million per film, you're not entitled to have a big ego. Don't reject parts you think are too small or insignificant because you're too busy looking for your big break. Judi Dench won an Oscar for six minutes of screen time.
If you're looking for books on breaking into the business, you may want to check out Amazon.com's entertainment book section where you can find books about screenwriting, acting, directing, etc.
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