clivan / imdb-obsidian

A simple plugin for syncing movies from IMDb to Obsidian

IMDb

Bring your IMDb data to Obsidian.

Setup Instructions

Prepare IMDb list to sync

This plugin relies on the list to be public so it can download and parse the data.

At the time of writing, this can be configured under "Edit" > "Settings" at a given list page

Then, copy the list url. This url is in the format of https://www.imdb.com/list/ls502212336

• For Watchlist, hover over the Export this list button at the bottom of the page, right click and select Copy Link. See forum
• For My Ratings, click the menu, hover over Export, right click and select Copy Link
• For other lists, check the url in browser

(Optional) Create an OMDb key

OMDb is queried to fetch additional information such as Posters, Writers, Plot descriptions when creating the notes.

You can create an API key at https://www.omdbapi.com/

If you find the information in IMDb's CSV export to be sufficient, then this step is optional. However, I highly recommend it as I find the information on OMDb to be more complete and user-friendly

Creating a Template

This plugin requires you to specify a template, so you're given the maximum flexibility in structuring your notes. You can either use the Template plugin that Obsidian provides or Templater for more advance options. Examples for both are provided below

IMDb obsidian uses the mustache template language to define how the imported data is saved to Obsidian. You can find some helpful usage docs here

Example Templates

• Basic Template
• Advance Template using Templater

Variables available in the template

• id: The imdb id, Example: tt0468569
• description: The description of the movie/show/game (i.e. plot)
• title: The show title
• imdbUrl: url on imdb
• type: The type of item, as provided in IMDb csv (i.e. movie, videoGame, tvSeries, tvMiniSeries)
• imdbRating: Rating on IMDb
• runtimeMin: Runtime in minutes
• year: Year the show is released
• releaseDate: Date the show is released
• genres: The genres
• votes: Number of votes on IMDb
• directors: Directors
• writers: Writers
• cast: Cast
• yourRating: Your rating on IMDb
• poster: Poster link

Running the Plugin

You can run the IMDb sync by executing the "IMDb Sync" command or by pressing the star ribbon in your menu bar.

Overwriting Notes

By default, once the plugin has synced an item from your list and created a note, that note will never be updated or changed, even if the data related to that item changes within your feed. For example if you sync a item, then give it a rating and sync again, that rating will not be synced to the note.

To have IMDb Obsidian overwrite old notes, toggle the overwrite plugin setting on. This will cause IMDb Obsidian to always replace existing notes for items with new ones. Be careful though - if you've made your own updates to the notes files, they'll be lost on the next sync.

Output

In the end it's completely up to you how you style your notes for your movie/show/games. I use dataview to setup mine as follows:

Dataview script:

table without id
	("![](" + poster + ")") as Poster, 
	file.link as Title, 
	year as Year, 
	director as Director, 
	"⭐ " + scoreImdb as "⭐ IMDB", 
	rating, 
	genre from "Entertainment"
where type = [[Series]] and contains(genre, [[Animation]])

Please check out the amazing work of these two here and here.

Credits

• This plugin is a fork of the Booksidian plugin, which I change things around for the IMDb usecase. Thanks both to Micha and Zachary who are the original author of plugin.
• Quickadd's movie.js for querying OMDb