The Open Film Database (OFDb) is a free and open database for movies and TV shows. “Free” refers to the cost of using the site, while “open” describes the license of the data. It’s a community-driven, non-profit project, where everyone can help to improve the database by adding new material, or modify existing entries.

The license under which the data is published, is the very reason why this project was started, and is the biggest difference to other movie databases and -sites. While the IMDb, TMDb, and TheTVDB.com offer a free (i.e. free of cost) service, their data is published under a proprietary license. You, as a user, may not copy the data and/or work with it in any way. This is where the OFDb and its license is different.

The OFDb chose to publish its data under an open license: the Open Database License (ODbL). This allows anyone to share and modify the data, and even create new work from it—as long as you keep your project’s data open as well, and attribute its source. Eventually, this gives all power to the user and the community, and not to some company, foundation or individual(s).

28.05.2023: Moved from decoupled to fully “drupalified” website

14.01.2021: Website online

11.10.2020: Initial commit