API Cinéma

Accessible showtimes: audio description, SME subtitles, wheelchair access

Find audio-described and subtitled screenings and wheelchair accessible cinemas in France through the API, and display them honestly: unknown is not "no", with the Acceslibre credit.

2 min read

On this page
  1. What you get
  2. 1.Audio-described showtimes in a city
  3. 2.Wheelchair accessible cinemas
  4. 3.Display it honestly
  5. Limits

Finding an audio-described screening nearby, knowing whether a cinema is wheelchair accessible or lends headsets: the information exists, but it is scattered across cinema websites, apps and accessibility listings. API Cinéma brings it into the same responses as the showtimes, for non-profits, local authorities, tourist offices and cinema websites.

What you get

  • On each showtime, accessibility: the codes the cinema publishes for that screening.
    • audio_description: audio-described, for blind and partially sighted viewers;
    • hard_of_hearing_subtitles: subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SME in France);
    • sign_language: sign language interpreting;
    • hearing_loop: induction loop;
    • relaxed: relaxed screening.
  • With audio description, audioDescriptionVia says how to hear it: room (headsets lent by the cinema), greta (Greta app on the viewer's phone, works in any room) or twavox (Twavox app, equipped rooms).
  • On each movie, audioDescription: true once an audio-described version is published by cinemas.
  • On each cinema, an accessibility block: wheelchair access (wheelchair: yes, partial or no) and its details (step-free entrance, ramp, lift, adapted toilets, parking, trained staff), hearing equipment (hearingEquipment) and audio description (audioDescription: permanent, occasional, app or none).

Accessibility is in beta: coverage is partial and the fields may still change. These fields and filters come with the Pro plan and above (€49 a month). With a Free or Starter key the fields are absent and the filters answer 403 plan_required.

Audio-described showtimes in a city

Create an account, switch to the Pro plan and create a key from the dashboard, then:

Terminal
curl "https://api.api-cinema.com/v1/showtimes?city=Lyon&accessibility=audio_description&include=movie,cinema" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_…"

accessibility takes several comma-separated codes; a showtime must carry all of them. The same filter works on a cinema's programme (/v1/cinemas/{id}/showtimes) and on a movie's showtimes (/v1/movies/{id}/showtimes).

Wheelchair accessible cinemas

Terminal
curl "https://api.api-cinema.com/v1/cinemas?city=Nantes&wheelchair=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_…"

audio_description=true keeps the cinemas offering audio description (permanent or occasional equipment, or an app). The details are in accessibility.wheelchairDetail: show for instance "step-free entrance, adapted toilets" rather than a bare pictogram.

Display it honestly

  • null means unknown, never "no". A showtime without information is not necessarily inaccessible: the cinema did not publish it. Show "information not available" rather than nothing.
  • [] means "the cinema says so, and nothing applies" to that showtime.
  • Nothing is inferred: a showtime is marked audio-described only when the cinema announces it.
  • Credit the source of cinema accessibility. It comes mostly from the Acceslibre open data (Etalab 2.0 licence): write Données Acceslibre with a link to accessibility.sourceUrl, the venue's page, where anyone can also correct the information.

Limits

Accessibility information is declarative: it is as good as what cinemas and Acceslibre contributors publish. About half of French cinemas have an accessibility listing today, and not every cinema announces its audio-described screenings one by one. Coverage grows as the sources do.