Application

Authenticate your application to access the API.

Application-level authentication is the default way to authenticate with the API. Version 4 uses your v4 access token as a Bearer token. You can request an API key by logging into your TMDB account and clicking here.

Bearer Token

In your account page, under the API settings section, you will find a token called API Read Access Token. This token should be sent as an Authorization header. Here is a simple cURL example:

curl --request GET \
     --url https://api.themoviedb.org/4/list/1 \
     --header 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}'

Using the Bearer token allows for a single authentication process across both v3 and v4 API versions. Both versions provide the same level of access, so you can choose either one.

For GET requests on v4, you can still use your v3 api_key query parameter if you prefer.