In short
A movie app is the perfect practice ground: a real API with images, search, filters and detail pages. It's also a project that looks good in your portfolio screenshots.
A movie browsing app with search, filtering and detail pages, backed by a real movie API — solid end-to-end API integration practice.

Think of it like this
The single-screen theatre noticeboard
Outside the old theatre, a board lists what's showing, the timings and posters. You read it, pick a film and step inside for details. Your app is that board, but with every movie ever made and a search box.
Watch it happen
Search to poster grid
GET /search/movie
1/5After the debounce, the app searches with query=dangal and your API key.
The big ideas
What you need to know
Debounced search
Search titles as the user types, without firing a request on every key.
Filter and sort
Filter by genre and year, sort by rating or release date, all through query params.
Detail pages
Clicking a movie opens /movie/:id with the cast, runtime and trailer.
API keys
TMDB and OMDb need a key. Keep it in a .env file and out of your Git repo.
How it works
Build plan
- 1
Get an API key
Sign up on TMDB or OMDb and store the key in .env.
- 2
Trending page
Show a grid of posters with skeletons while loading.
- 3
Search
Add a debounced search box with 'No results' handling.
- 4
Details and filters
Add a movie detail route, then genre filters and pagination.
See it in code
Walk through the code
1const KEY = import.meta.env.VITE_TMDB_KEY;2const IMG = "https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w342";3 4export async function searchMovies(q: string, page = 1) {5 const params = new URLSearchParams({ api_key: KEY, query: q, page: String(page) });6 const res = await fetch(`https://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?${params}`);7 if (!res.ok) throw new Error("Search failed");8 return res.json(); // { page, results, total_pages }9}10 11const posterUrl = (path: string | null) => (path ? IMG + path : "/no-poster.png");1/4The key comes from .env, and IMG is the base for poster URLs.
TMDB returns only a poster path, so you build the full image URL yourself. Some movies have no poster, so keep a fallback ready.
Save yourself the pain
Common mistakes
Oops
Committing your API key to a public GitHub repo.
Do this instead
Put it in .env, add .env to .gitignore, and share a .env.example with an empty value.
Oops
Assuming every movie has a poster, rating and overview.
Do this instead
Many fields can be null. Show a placeholder image and 'No description yet'.
Your mission
Milestone 1: search and posters
Quick check
Your Vite app reads the TMDB key from import.meta.env. Can users still see the key?
Go deeper
- 1Implement search, genre filtering and a detail page in one cohesive app.
- 2Cache API responses (React Query or manual) to avoid redundant calls.
- 3Handle rate limiting or API errors from the third-party service gracefully.
More projects at this stop
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