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API > Search > year?
posted by axaSTAFFMOD on August 29, 2017 at 9:52 AM
Strictly speaking in an API Search query, what is the difference between the "year" and "primary_release_year" parameters... What are their definitions? So when would one be used over the other, if not both? I suppose to answer this question we would need to know which was being queried, but not id be in control of that which furthers my question how to use these. I did see the General note in "Editing Movies"
_"Release Dates
The primary release date, if set, is used as the year you will see throughout the site when looking at a movie (page titles, movie summary in lists, etc...) If a primary release data isn't set, we look for the U.S. date next. In the even that a U.S. date hasn't been added, we simply default to the first release entry by date.
If you see a '1900' referenced on a movie, that means that no release date has been added. Head in and add one."__
But that doesn't exactly answer my question.
Perhaps if i actually knew more about movies it would, but i suppose i don't...
Thanks
Reply by Travis Bell
on August 29, 2017 at 10:59 AM
Hi @axa,
By using the
yearfilter, you are using all of the releases dates that have been added to a movie to search for information about. This means you're including theatrical release dates as well as digital and physical releases. By using theprimary_release_year, you are only only using the single release date that we have added as the primary release.Reply by jake_melikov
on July 3, 2021 at 3:54 PM
@travisbell Would it be possible to document this in the API?
yearandprimary_release_yearfields are missing a description on https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/search/search-moviesReply by 3lvir4
on February 1, 2024 at 5:26 PM
I agree, it would be handy to document this, I had to search for it and stumble across this conversation.