return IMDb movie id for search string using the undocumented IMDb API

imdb_id_from_title.py

import requests
import urllib

def imdb_id_from_title(title):
    """ return IMDb movie id for search string
        
        Args::
            title (str): the movie title search string

        Returns: 
            str. IMDB id, e.g., 'tt0095016' 
            None. If no match was found

    """
    pattern = 'http://www.imdb.com/xml/find?json=1&nr=1&tt=on&q={movie_title}'
    url = pattern.format(movie_title=urllib.quote(title))
    r = requests.get(url)
    res = r.json()
    # sections in descending order or preference
    for section in ['popular','exact','substring']:
        key = 'title_' + section 
        if key in res:
            return res[key][0]['id']
            
if __name__=="__main__":
    title = "Die Hard"
    print("{0} has id {1}".format(title, imdb_id_from_title(title)))