This is an update to the IMDb parser I wrote years back. From time to time IMDb makes small changes to their setup that break my script. This time they decided to start blocking curl, or so it would seem. Even using a fake user-agent string doesn’t help. But wget still works fine (shhh!).

The search syntax is simple: "Title (Year)". Here’s an example:

# imdb "Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010)"

Title:  Machete Maidens Unleashed!
Year:   2010
Rating: 7.4/10
Dir:    Mark Hartley
Cast:   Roger Corman, John Landis, Pete Tombs, Mark Holcomb
Plot:   A fast moving odyssey into the subterranean world of the rarely explored province of Filipino genre filmmaking.

As a fallback strategy, the script will try using Google search for the imdb.com domain, i.e. something like this: imdb.com Machete Maidens Unleashed. It will then grab the first result and will attempt to parse it. Sometimes Google search algorithm is better than IMDb’s. No great surprise here.

The script is below and you can get an up-to-date copy from my GitHub repo here.

#!/bin/bash
export WWW_HOME="www.google.com/"
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
    echo 'Usage: imdb "Movie Title (Year)"'
    exit 1
else
    y=$(echo "${@}" | sed -E 's/[()]//g' | awk '{print $NF}' | grep -oE "[0-9]{4}")
    t=$(echo "${@}" | sed -E 's/[()]//g' | sed -E 's/ [0-9]{4}$//g' | sed -r 's/  */\+/g;s/\&/%26/g;s/\++$//g' | sed 's/ /\%20/g')
fi

configure() {
    tmpfile="/tmp/imdb-mf_${RANDOM}.tmp"
    #LYNX="lynx -connect_timeout=10 --source"
    #LYNX="curl -m10 -k -s0"
    LYNX="wget --max-redirect=30 --no-check-certificate --timeout=1 --tries=5 --retry-connrefused -U \"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)\" -qO-"
    base_url_imdb="https://www.imdb.com/search/title"
    base_url_google="https://www.google.com/search"
}

cleanup() {
    if [ -f "${tmpfile}" ]
    then
        /bin/rm -f "${tmpfile}"
    fi
}

get_imdb() {
    if [ ! -z "${y}" ]
    then
        l=$(${LYNX} "https://www.imdb.com/search/title?release_date=${y},${y}&title=${t}&title_type=feature" | grep -m1 -oP "(?<=id=\")[a-z]{2}[0-9]{4,}(?=\|imdb)")
        if [ -z "${l}" ]
        then
            l=$(${LYNX} "https://www.imdb.com/search/title?release_date=${y},${y}&title=${t}&title_type=tv" | grep -m1 -oP "(?<=id=\")[a-z]{2}[0-9]{4,}(?=\|imdb)")
        fi
        ${LYNX} "https://www.imdb.com/title/${l}/" > ${tmpfile} 2> /dev/null
    else
        ${LYNX} "https://www.google.com/search?q=site:imdb.com+%22${t}%22&btnI" > ${tmpfile} 2> /dev/null
    fi
}

parse_imdb() {
    year="$(grep -m 1 "\/year\/" "${tmpfile}" | grep -Eo "[0-9]{4}")"
    title="$(grep -m 1 "og:title" "${tmpfile}" | grep -Eo '\".*\"' | sed -e 's/"//g' | sed 's/ - IMDb//g' | sed -r 's/ \([0-9]{4}\)//g' | sed 's@/@ @g')"
    temp="$(grep "og:description" "${tmpfile}" | sed -e 's/content="/@/g' -e 's/" \/>/@/g' -e 's/\&quot;/\"/g' | awk -F'@' '{print $(NF-1)}')"
    director="$(echo ${temp} | grep -oP "(?<=Directed by ).*?(?=\. With)")"
    cast="$(echo ${temp} | grep -oP "(?<=\. With ).* ?(?=\. [A-Z0-9])" | sed -r 's/([A-Z]{1})\./@/g' | awk -F'.' '{print $1}' | sed -r 's/@/\./g')"
    plot="$(echo ${temp} | sed -r "s/${cast}\. /@/g" | awk -F'@' '{print $NF}')"
    rating="$(grep -m 1 -oP "[0-9]\.?[0-9]?\<span class=\"ofTen\"\>/10" "${tmpfile}" | sed -r 's/<.*>//g')"
}

get_imdb2() {
    if [ -z "${year}" ]
    then
        m=$(echo "${l}" | sed 's/ [Aa]nd / \& /g')
        ${LYNX} "https://www.imdb.com/title/${m}/" > ${tmpfile} 2> /dev/null
        parse_imdb
    fi
}

get_imdb3() {
    if [ -z "${year}" ]
    then
        #${LYNX} "https://www.google.com/search?q=site:imdb.com+%22${t}%22&btnI" > ${tmpfile} 2> /dev/null
        ${LYNX} "$(${LYNX} "https://www.google.com/search?q=site:imdb.com+${t} (${y})&btnI" 2>/dev/null | grep -oE "(https?|ftps?)://[^\<\>\"\' ]+" | grep imdb | tail -1)" > ${tmpfile} 2> /dev/null
        parse_imdb
    fi
}

print_imdb() {
    if [ -z "${year}" ]
    then
        echo "Scraped the bottom of the pickle barrel but came up dry. Check the title and provide release year."
    else
        echo -e "Title:\t${title}"
        echo -e "Year:\t${year}"
        echo -e "Rating:\t${rating}"
        echo -e "Dir:\t${director}"
        echo -e "Cast:\t${cast}"
        echo -e "Plot:\t${plot}"
    fi
}

# RUNTIME
# ---------------------------

configure
cleanup
#get_imdb
#parse_imdb
#get_imdb2
get_imdb3
print_imdb
cleanup