IMDb

Have you ever visited the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) website? It’s my go-to place when I’m watching a show and I know that I’ve seen the actor somewhere before and it’s bugging me that I can’t figure it out. I’ve got so many other, more important things to worry about but there are times when these trivial things get stuck in my brain and the only way I can move past them is to find the answer. 

About two months ago IMDb released a free iPhone app. You can search the app just like you would the website. Enter in an actor’s name or the name of a movie and find out all sorts of interesting tidbits. Movie casts will be listed, plot summaries and synopsis available. Under an actor’s listing you can see the other movies and TV shows that they’ve appeared in as well as some personal information.

There’s more the the IMDb app than just looking up trivial entertainment information. The main screen is broken up into three sections, movies, TV and people. Here’s a quick rundown of what each offers.

Movies – The app will use your location to provide local movie showtimes. From there you can click on a movie title and see all the information that I just mentioned above.  There’s also a list of movies that are “coming soon”. In case you’re interested in the US Box Office Results or the most searched titles on IMDb that information is provided here as well.`And if that’s not enough you can see a list of the top 250 movies as voted on by IMDb users. Browsing that list will give you plenty of ideas for video rentals.

TV - “US TV Tonight” provides you with the evening’s TV listings. Tap on a listing and you’ll see more information about it, including the plot summary, cast and crew and even quotes from the episode.  “US TV Recaps” gives you a list of recaps from recent shows. I’m not sure how these shows are selected because not every network or program is available.

People – The “STARmeter” is a list of the most searched stars on IMDb. Tapping on their names takes you to their information page and you can see plenty of information about them. With “Born Today” you can find out which stars are celebrating a birthday that day.

The IMDb app does a great job taking the massive amount of information that’s available on their website and translating it into an iPhone friendly format. You could easily lose track of time when you get in and start exploring all the movies. For me it’s nice to be able to figure out who’s who in my BBC dramas without hauling out the laptop.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Seller: IMDb