Languages

Image Types

poster_path: The poster_path will query the language you specify in your query first and default back to the highest rated image of the media's "original language" if it's present. If that image doesn't exist, it simply falls back to the highest rated. It's important to note that even though our language query parameter supports regional lookups, these regional variants are not supported for images at this time. This will be getting added at a later date.

backdrop_path: Since 99% of backdrops don't contain a language, the default lookup for a backdrop is to simply query for the highest rated backdrop with no language. If it doesn't exist, then we return the overall highest rated.

still_path: Like backdrops, TV episode images don't inherently have languages. We query for the highest rated.

Default Language

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Note

Remember, when you query one of the /images methods, your language param will filter images. Since you'll usually want to query additional languages, you'll want to use the include_image_language query parameter. Think of this as a means to provide a fallback.

Take a look below where we give an example of requesting the images tagged with English and also those not tagged with any language.

curl --request GET \
     --url 'https://api.themoviedb.org/3/movie/550/images?language=en-US&include_image_language=en,null' \
     --header 'Authorization: Bearer <<access_token>>' \
     --header 'accept: application/json'

Notice the include_image_language parameter. This query (en,null) is looking for all images that match English and those that haven't been set yet (null).

Better yet, you can do query this image method in a single request by using append_to_response:

curl --request GET \
     --url 'https://api.themoviedb.org/3/movie/550?append_to_response=images&language=en-US&include_image_language=en,null' \
     --header 'Authorization: Bearer <<access_token>>' \
     --header 'accept: application/json'