Collectors · Knowledge & reference

Rotten Tomatoes API in Python

Rotten Tomatoes browse grids — Tomatometer, audience score, release date, poster and URL per movie. One POST from Python with the input, rows back as JSON with 18 fields, $0.001 per delivered movie. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts { — A Python requests call to the rottentomatoes_movies collector returns one dict per movie, at $0.001 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/rottentomatoes_movies/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "list": "at_home",
        "sort": "popular",
        "max_results": 30,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("id"), row.get("title"), row.get("tomatometer"), row.get("tomatometer_sentiment"))

Python: one Rotten Tomatoes movies run (Film in streaming ora), printing id, title, tomatometer, tomatometer_sentiment

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the Rotten Tomatoes movies collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`list`	string: `at_home`, `in_theaters`, `coming_soon`	no (default at_home)	Which Rotten Tomatoes movie grid to browse.
`sort`	string: `popular`, `newest`, `a_z`, `critic_highest`, `critic_lowest`, `audience_highest`, `audience_lowest`	no (default popular)	Rotten Tomatoes' own ordering. An unknown value is rejected rather than silently ignored.
`genre`	string: `action`, `adventure`, `animation`, `anime`, `biography`, `comedy`, `crime`, `documentary`, `drama`, `entertainment`, `faith_and_spirituality`, `fantasy`, `game_show`, `lgbtq`, `health_and_wellness`, `history`, `holiday`, `horror`, `house_and_garden`, `kids_and_family`, `music`, `musical`, `mystery_and_thriller`, `nature`, `news`, `reality`, `romance`, `sci_fi`, `short`, `soap`, `special_interest`, `sports`, `stand_up`, `talk_show`, `travel`, `variety`, `war`, `western`	no	Narrow to one genre. Omit for every genre.
`rating`	string: `g`, `pg`, `pg_13`, `r`, `nc_17`	no	Narrow to one MPAA rating.
`streaming_on`	string: `netflix`, `prime-video`, `disney-plus`, `max`, `hulu`, `apple-tv-plus`, `peacock`, `paramount-plus`, `amc-plus`, `acorn-tv`, `fandango`	no	Narrow to titles on one service — most useful with the at_home list.
`country`	string	no	Proxy exit geo (default us). Rotten Tomatoes serves its US catalogue.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 30)	How many movies to deliver at most (1–240). You pay only for delivered movies.

Response fields

18 fields per movie.

Fields of each row (movie)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position in Rotten Tomatoes' order for this response.
`id`	string, nullable	Rotten Tomatoes media id (emsId) — stable across grids, and the de-duplication key.
`title`	string, nullable	Movie title.
`tomatometer`	integer, nullable	Tomatometer score 0–100; null when the movie has no critic score yet (0 is a real score).
`tomatometer_sentiment`	string, nullable	"positive" (fresh) or "negative" (rotten); null when unrated.
`certified_fresh`	boolean	True when Rotten Tomatoes marks the critic score Certified Fresh.
`audience_score`	integer, nullable	Audience score 0–100; null when the movie has no audience score yet.
`audience_sentiment`	string, nullable	"positive" or "negative" on the audience side; null when unrated.
`verified_hot`	boolean	True when Rotten Tomatoes marks the audience score Verified Hot.
`release_date_text`	string, nullable	The date line exactly as the tile shows it, e.g. "Streaming Aug 28, 2026" or "Opens Sep 04, 2026".
`release_date_label`	string, nullable	What kind of date it is: Streaming, Opens, Opened, Re-releasing or Re-released.
`release_date`	string, nullable	That date as ISO YYYY-MM-DD; null when the tile states no parseable date.
`release_year`	integer, nullable	Year of release_date — the availability year, NOT the film's production year.
`poster`	string, nullable	Poster image as served on the tile (164x246); null when Rotten Tomatoes has no artwork.
`poster_full`	string, nullable	Full-size original poster embedded inside the tile URL; null when the URL is not in that nested form.
`has_trailer`	boolean	True when Rotten Tomatoes holds a trailer for the movie.
`media_type`	string, nullable	Rotten Tomatoes' own type for the row — "Movie" on every grid here.
`url`	string, nullable	Movie page URL on rottentomatoes.com.

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/rottentomatoes_movies/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"list":"at_home","sort":"popular","max_results":30}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.001 per delivered movie.

What Rotten Tomatoes movies rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.001
1,000	$1.00
10,000	$10.00

Up to 240 movies per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 2,000 movies. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free Rotten Tomatoes movies API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 2,000 movies of this collector at $0.001 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 240 movies per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.001 per delivered movie, no subscription.

Get an API key Rotten Tomatoes API