Nytimes Movie Reviews API
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For Agents
Search NYT movie reviews by keyword, filter Critics' Picks, and look up NYT film critic profiles.
Use for: Search NYT movie reviews for a film title, Find NYT Critics' Picks released this year, Retrieve the full list of NYT film critics, Get the bio for a specific NYT film critic by name
Not supported: Does not provide full review text, box office data, or streaming availability — use for NYT movie review metadata, Critics' Picks, and critic roster only.
The New York Times Movie Reviews API exposes the NYT film criticism archive through three GET endpoints. Agents can search reviews by keyword, filter by Critics' Pick status, opening date, or publication date, and look up the roster of NYT film critics with their bio and profile image. Each review record includes the film title, MPAA rating, byline, headline, summary short, link to the full review, and an opening-date flag, supporting film discovery, recommendation, and editorial integrations.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Movie Reviews API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Movie Reviews API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Movie Reviews API.
Search NYT movie reviews by free-text keyword across title and headline
Filter to NYT Critics' Pick reviews using the critics-pick query parameter
Restrict reviews by opening date or publication date range
Retrieve the roster of NYT film critics with bio and image
Look up a single NYT film critic by reviewer name
Page through long review result sets via the offset parameter
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Movie Reviews API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Movie Recommendation Feed
Build a recommendation feed that surfaces NYT Critics' Picks released within a chosen window. The /reviews/search.json endpoint accepts a critics-pick=Y filter alongside opening-date or publication-date ranges, returning ranked review records with summary short, MPAA rating, and a link to the full NYT review.
Call /reviews/search.json?critics-pick=Y&opening-date=2024-01-01;2024-12-31 and return film titles with MPAA rating, summary short, and review URL.
Film Detail Enrichment
Enrich a film detail page with its NYT review when one exists. The search endpoint accepts a query parameter against title, returning the most relevant NYT review with byline, headline, summary short, and full URL. Useful for streaming guides, cinema sites, and entertainment news pages.
Call /reviews/search.json?query=Oppenheimer and return the byline, headline, summary short, and review URL of the matching review.
Critic Profile Browser
Build a critics directory listing every active NYT film critic with bio, headshot image, and link to that critic's reviews. The /critics/{resource-type}.json endpoint with resource-type=full returns the roster, while resource-type set to a critic name returns a single profile.
Call /critics/full.json and return each critic's name, bio paragraph, and seo_name for profile-page slugs.
Agent-Driven Movie Lookup via Jentic
An AI movie recommendation agent uses Jentic to find NYT reviews at runtime when a user asks about a film's critical reception. Jentic returns the matching /reviews/search.json operation, the agent loads the schema and executes the call without manually wiring auth or query parameters.
Search Jentic for 'search NYT movie reviews', load the /reviews/search.json operation, and execute it with query='Killers of the Flower Moon'.
Key Endpoints
3 endpoints — the new york times movie reviews api exposes the nyt film criticism archive through three get endpoints.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/reviews/search.json
Search NYT movie reviews by keyword, date, or Critics' Pick
GET
/reviews/{resource-type}.json
Get reviews scoped to a resource type or critic
GET
/critics/{resource-type}.json
Look up NYT film critics individually or as a roster
GET
/reviews/search.json
Search NYT movie reviews by keyword, date, or Critics' Pick
GET
/reviews/{resource-type}.json
Get reviews scoped to a resource type or critic
GET
/critics/{resource-type}.json
Look up NYT film critics individually or as a roster
Why Jentic?
Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.
Credential isolation
The NYT api-key is stored encrypted in the Jentic vault and injected into the api-key query parameter at execution time. A single credential authenticates every NYT API in the workspace, so rotating once updates Movie Reviews, Books, Top Stories, and the others together.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic for 'search NYT movie reviews' or 'find NYT Critics Picks' and Jentic returns the matching operation with its parameter schema, so the agent calls /reviews/search.json without reading the date-range syntax in NYT docs.
Time to first call
Direct integration: a few hours to wire the api-key, learn the YYYY-MM-DD;YYYY-MM-DD date-range syntax, and parse the review payload. Through Jentic: under 15 minutes.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Movie Reviews API through Jentic.
What authentication does the NYT Movie Reviews API use?
Authentication is an API key sent as the api-key query parameter on every endpoint. Provision a key at developer.nytimes.com. Through Jentic the credential is held in the vault and injected at execution time, so the agent never sees the raw key.
How do I find only NYT Critics' Picks?
Call GET /reviews/search.json with critics-pick=Y. Combine it with opening-date or publication-date ranges in the format YYYY-MM-DD;YYYY-MM-DD to scope to recent releases. The response returns review records with summary short, byline, headline, and the full review URL.
What are the rate limits for the NYT Movie Reviews API?
NYT enforces 500 requests per day and 5 requests per minute per API key, shared across all NYT developer APIs. Cache critic rosters since they change rarely and cache search results for the publication week to stay well within the limit.
How do I look up reviews by a specific NYT critic through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'get NYT movie reviews by critic', load the /reviews/{resource-type}.json operation, and execute it with resource-type set to the critic's seo_name returned by /critics/full.json. The response returns that critic's reviews.
Is the NYT Movie Reviews API free to use?
Yes. NYT offers the Movie Reviews service at no cost on the developer portal for non-commercial use within published rate limits. Commercial or high-volume use requires direct contact with the NYT licensing team.
Can I retrieve full review text through this API?
No. The API returns review metadata, byline, headline, and a summary short, but not the full critic text. To display the full review, use the link field to direct readers to nytimes.com where the article is hosted.
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