API Cinéma

Allociné API: an alternative for French showtimes

Allociné no longer offers a public API. How to get the showtimes of French cinemas as JSON instead, and keep using Allociné film ids to match your existing data.

3 min read

On this page
  1. What you get
  2. 1.Get a key
  3. 2.From Allociné calls to API Cinéma
  4. 3.Keep your Allociné film ids
  5. 4.A cinema's week
  6. 5.Keep a local copy in sync
  7. Frequently asked questions

For years, Allociné was where French developers went for cinema data: films, cinemas and showtimes behind a single API. That API is no longer open to the public, and the keys still found in old tutorials and GitHub projects are not meant for third-party apps.

API Cinéma is an independent alternative, not affiliated with Allociné: the showtimes of French cinemas as JSON, with an API key you create yourself in a minute. This guide shows how to replace the usual Allociné calls, and how to keep the Allociné film ids your data may already rely on.

What you get

  • About 2,000 cinemas in France, from the Pathé, UGC, CGR, Kinepolis and Mégarama multiplexes to independent and art et essai screens.
  • Every showtime with its local start time, its version (VF, VO, VOST), its format (2D, 3D, IMAX, 4DX, DOLBY), the room when the cinema publishes it, and a booking link.
  • Every film with its title, original title, running time, synopsis, genres and poster, matched to TMDB, and with its Allociné film id (allocineId) whenever it is known.
  • Every cinema with its address, coordinates and CNC id, the national registry number that never changes.

The data is refreshed every one to three days, and every cinema is read again each Wednesday, when new films come out.

Get a key

Create a free account and create a key from the dashboard. The free plan gives 150 requests a week for trials and non-commercial projects; paid plans start at €12 a month.

Terminal
curl "https://api.api-cinema.com/v1/cinemas?city=Lyon" -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_…"

The key goes in the Authorization header, from your server only.

From Allociné calls to API Cinéma

The usual needs map to a handful of routes:

You used to ask Allociné for… With API Cinéma
the cinemas of a town GET /v1/cinemas?country=FR&city=Nantes
the cinemas around a location GET /v1/cinemas?country=FR&near=48.8584,2.3470&radius_km=5
a cinema's programme GET /v1/cinemas/{id or slug}/showtimes
the films showing now GET /v1/movies?country=FR&playing=true
every showtime of a film GET /v1/showtimes?country=FR&allocine_id=…
a film's details GET /v1/movies/{id}

Every list answers with data and a meta block for pagination (limit, offset, total).

Keep your Allociné film ids

If your database stores Allociné film ids, you do not need to remap anything. Pass the id, the number in the film page URL on allocine.fr (fichefilm_gen_cfilm=1000013045), to allocine_id:

Terminal
curl "https://api.api-cinema.com/v1/showtimes?country=FR&allocine_id=1000013045&limit=100" -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_…"

You get the film's showtimes in every cinema, including cinemas that publish it under another title, once the film is matched on TMDB. Each film in the answers carries both ids, allocineId and tmdbId, so you can move to TMDB ids at your own pace:

JSON
{
  "id": "065ec55d-531e-486a-9cff-ce8c2f4de87c",
  "title": "L'Odyssée",
  "originalTitle": "The Odyssey",
  "durationMin": 172,
  "allocineId": "1000013045",
  "tmdbId": 1368337
}

A cinema's week

Search the cinema by name, then ask for its showtimes over a date range:

Terminal
curl "https://api.api-cinema.com/v1/cinemas?country=FR&q=champo" -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_…"
curl "https://api.api-cinema.com/v1/cinemas/le-champo-paris-5e-arrondissement/showtimes?from=2026-10-28&to=2026-11-03" -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_…"

The times (startsAt) are wall-clock times in the cinema's time zone: display them as they are. The France guide covers the other filters (version, time window, around a point).

Keep a local copy in sync

Many Allociné integrations copied the programme into their own database every night. Do the same with updated_since: pass the time of your previous sync and you only receive the showtimes added, changed or removed since then (removedAt is set on removed ones).

Terminal
curl "https://api.api-cinema.com/v1/showtimes?country=FR&updated_since=2026-10-27T03:00:00Z&limit=1000" -H "Authorization: Bearer ac_live_…"

Frequently asked questions

Is API Cinéma linked to Allociné? No. API Cinéma is an independent service; Allociné film ids are accepted as a filter only so that existing data can be matched.

Does it cover the same cinemas? Almost every French cinema that publishes its programme online, chains and independents alike. Search one with GET /v1/cinemas?country=FR&q=<name>.

Are press and audience ratings included? No: the API is about cinemas, films and showtimes. Ratings, reviews and trailers are not part of it.

Can I use it in a commercial app? Yes, on a paid plan. The terms of use ask for the key to stay server-side and forbid reselling the raw data.