Image Guidelines
You can upload images and tag names, movies, series, episodes, languages, and countries.
- Images
- Name Tags
- Title Tags
- Language Tags
- Country Tags
- Copyright
- Title Poster Images
- Track My Contribution
Image Uploads
Below are the guidelines regarding image uploads, although all cases are subject to the discretion of IMDb per our full terms and conditions, which are available at https://www.imdb.com/conditions. IMDb reserves the right to decline or remove an image in our sole discretion. Should you notice any material that contravenes the following guidelines, please use the 'Report Image' feature to let us know about it.The definition of 'prurient' according to the Oxford English Dictionary is: "Having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters."
We allow the following:
- Sexually suggestive, but non-nude (e.g. the cover for Sante D'Orazio Photographs)
- Renowned illustrations containing nudity which are tasteful and relevant to the title and gallery
- Tasteful adult bottoms (e.g. the cover for White Women by Helmut Newton)
- Non-prurient child partial nudity (e.g. Sally Mann)
- Mild infrequent drug use
- Infrequent or mild medical or treatment-focused content
- Infrequent or mild references to alcohol, tobacco, or drug use
- Simulated gambling
- Frequent or intense profanity relevant to the title and gallery
- Frequent or intense realistic violence relevant to the title and gallery
- Frequent or intense horror-themed content relevant to the title and gallery
- Images that promote, incite or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views.
- Partial nudity (e.g. female nipples) regardless of context, excluding renowned illustrations
- Frontal pelvic nudity
- Anuses - tasteful adult bottoms (e.g. buttocks/cheeks are ok)
- Prurient nudity (e.g. fondling, implied masturbation, or implied sexual contact between two or more people)
- Sexually suggestive or prurient images containing children
- Blatant prurient activity
- Pornography, or images related to pornographic titles, whether they contain nudity or not
- Realistic sex toys, sex toys in an erotic context, or implied use
- Excessive gore. Yes, we allow frequent or intense realistic violence relevant to the title and gallery, but we have our limits
- Feces or urine
- Real life death
- Book or Magazine covers
- Soundtrack covers
- Paparazzi photos
- "Selfie" photos
- Fan art
- Customization of any kind
- Leaked images, 'revenge porn', or any images taken under the agreement/reasonable assumption that they would remain private
- Personal contact information
- Any personal information about children under 13
- Product or service advertisements
- Images for which you do not own the copyright or have the necessary rights
- Images displaying third-party ownership or branding, such as watermarks. Watermarks of the title's creators, such as the production company or TV channel, are acceptable
- Poor quality images. Please refer to the in-depth guidelines on this below
- Unnecessary quantities of very similar still images from the same scene
- Spoilers, e.g. an image revealing a major plot twist from later in the film, such as a dead main
character
Image Quality
We are concerned only with the quality of the 'representation' of the image. This means if the original poster was poor quality, but we have a high quality scan or copy of that poor quality poster, the image is totally eligible for display on IMDb. We allow the following:- Acceptable quality scans of old physical media with fold marks, dog-eared corners, creases, fading, light stains or poor printing artefacts such as low DPI (dots per inch). If a copy of the same image is available with the same scan quality, but without these physical artefacts, obviously the version without the artefacts is preferred.
- Acceptable quality copies of poor quality digital source media. For example, if the film was originally mastered in poor digital quality, in a low bitrate or highly compressed, but the copy at hand isn't significantly further degraded.
- Noticeable pixelation or noise
- Bars or framing around the outside of the image (excluding still frames with aspect ratio overlay)
- Stretched aspect ratio
- Observable moiré effect
Name Tags
Tagging Names
If their face isn't clearly visible, they can still be tagged in the following cases:
- Faces obscured by masks/disguises/heavy makeup/prosthetic makeup
- Stunt actors and body doubles can be tagged with their own names.
- Voice actors for animated titles can be tagged if the character is clearly displayed within the image. For animated titles, we will display the actor tags within title image gallery, but not within the name image gallery.
- Back of the headshots or shots with deliberately out-of-focus or heavily obscured faces. Please use your common sense here. If the person isn't recognizable then don't tag them unless they're eligible as described above.
- Archive footage, e.g. stills from talk shows where images or clips of the person are shown to the audience as part of the show. Put simply, don't tag people in images of images.
- Any images that breach our image upload guidelines (above).
For more information on name primary images (headshots), please make sure to see our manage your images guide content.
Our aim is to be the most authoritative database of information about movies, TV, video games and the cast and crew that make them. To achieve this we never delete valid information and this includes tags to names or titles on images. If you have an IMDbPro account you can choose and upload images that will appear in your gallery before any other image attached to your page. We hope this will help alleviate any frustration caused by the policy.
Title Tags
If an image is a poster, still frame, publicity, or event photo for a certain movie,
series or episode, you can tag the image to the relevant IMDb 'title page'.
It's not typical for an image to have more than two titles linked and will likely result in the request being rejected. Exceptions may be applied on a case by case basis for official; multi-packs or collections, posters or promotions.
- Award ceremonies/events
- Where the person/s in the image are not attending primarily for the title. For example, Ryan Gosling has attended Cannes film festival a number of times, but only one year for the movie Drive (2011), e.g. the Cannes event in 2011. Therefore, Drive (2011) should only be tagged in photos from the 2011 Cannes event.
- Images that don't consist mostly of people who worked on the title. For example, a photo of Martin Scorcese and Matt Damon should not be tagged with The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) because Matt Damon wasn't involved.
- Images that don't make sense on a title page. Please use your common sense. For example, please
don't tag Drive (2011) in
images of Ryan Gosling
eating a sandwich somewhere in Cannes.
- Any images that breach our image upload guidelines (above).
- Please do not tag series or season posters with individual episodes
Language Tags
The language(s) present in a poster and/or product image can be applied as a ‘tag’ when
adding a new image to a title page. They can also be added or deleted from an existing image using
the Edit Tags button when viewing the image.
The example below has both English and
Italian text visible in the poster and so, both languages should be ‘tagged’.
Country Tags
You can ‘tag’ a poster and/or product
image with any appropriate countries - meaning one poster can be suitable for multiple countries. They can be applied as a ‘tag’ when adding a new image to a title page, and can also be added or deleted from an existing image using
the Edit Tags button.
Many studios create different versions of movie
posters to be shown in a specific country or region. The following poster for Joker (2019) was created specifically for the
release of the movie in Japan and should be only tagged with 'Japan' as the country.
Furthermore, many posters may be appropriate for more than one country - for example, the
following poster for Yesterday (2019) has more than one country
'tagged'.
Single poster for multiple countries?
It's possible, though uncommon - that only one poster is made to promote a title in multiple countries. In these instances a country tag might be appropriate, even if the language visible in the image doesn't match up - editorial discretion will be used to determine the validity in such cases.
Copyright
When you add an image, enter only the copyright-owner into the Copyright field. There is no need to include the copyright symbol ("©").
Title Poster Images
For more information on how to add/update a titles 'primary' poster - please see our "How do I update my poster?" article.
Tracking your contribution
You can now track the status of your Images submission and if it has not been approved, we'll tell you the reason why.
More information on how to do this can be found on our help article.