# Filmy is a TMDB backed Android movie app with a thin README > Filmy is an open sourced Kotlin Android movie app powered by The Movie Database, requiring your own API keys from TMDB, YouTube and OMDB, and published on Google Play. It suits a developer who wants a Material designed Android movie client to read and build on, and the documentation is thin enough that the code is where the detail lives. **salRoid/Filmy** — :movie_camera: Material designed awesome movie app which is powered by tmdb. - Repository: https://github.com/salRoid/Filmy - Stars: 766 · Forks: 182 - Language: Kotlin - License: Apache-2.0 - Published: 2026-10-21 · Updated: 2026-10-21 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/salroid-filmy ## A Material designed client built on TMDB Filmy is described as an open sourced, beautifully Material designed movie app powered by TMDB. The primary language of the repository is Kotlin, and the topic tags confirm the domain, with movie-database, movie-reviews, movies, filmy and tmdb among them. That is the whole concept in one line. The app is a client for The Movie Database, and the README says plainly that Filmy is powered by The Movie Database API. What the repository offers is the Android application code, not a library. The top level is a standard Gradle Android project, with an app/ module, build.gradle, settings.gradle, gradle.properties, the gradle/ directory, the gradlew and gradlew.bat wrapper scripts, an img/ directory holding the README assets, and a .github/ directory for the workflow and issue templates. There is a LICENCE file and a NOTICE file alongside the README. If you are looking for a reusable Kotlin library for talking to TMDB, this is not it. If you are looking for a complete Android app that shows how one is put together, that is what you get. ## Three API keys, and the build fails without them The prerequisites section is the most useful part of the README. To run the project you generate your own API keys from three sources, TMDB at their API documentation, the YouTube Data API from Google, and OMDB at their apikey page. Three keys for a movie app is a lot of surface, and it tells you something about the feature set: the app reaches past the obvious catalog lookup. YouTube Data API in particular suggests trailer and video content, and OMDB suggests ratings and review data from a second source alongside TMDB's own. The app is also published on Google Play, with the listing linked under the package identifier tech.salroid.filmy, and the badge in the README carries campaign parameters dated March 2015, which dates the original release window. The important practical point is that the keys are yours. Filmy does not ship credentials, so a fresh clone cannot talk to any API until you supply your own, and that is the first thing to sort out before you judge whether the app works. ## The implementation section is still marked TBD Here is the honest limitation of the repository as a learning resource. There is an Implementations section in the README, and its body is a single line reading TBD. The surrounding sentence says the project contains advanced API integrations and modern Android patterns that make it a high-quality app, but the section that would enumerate those integrations and patterns is empty. There is also no documented architecture, no data flow, no listing of the screens, and no guide to how the three API keys are combined. The screenshots in the README show six screens, and the repository carries an app/ module and a build.gradle, so the code is there, but the README does not describe it. For a project published on the Play Store with a long history, that is a thin document. The topics list includes hacktoberfest and hacktoberfest2020, which tells you the project has been used as a contribution exercise, and that pattern usually produces a large body of code with a small body of prose. Expect to read the source rather than the readme. ## A development branch as the default, and no tagged releases The repository details have some practical weight. The default branch is named development rather than master, so a clone gives you the working branch rather than a stable one, which is a common convention for a project that ships to the Play Store from a moving branch. There are no GitHub releases, so there is no version history to diff and no tag to check out if you want the exact build that matches the Play Store listing. The last push was on 2026-10-05, and the repository is not archived. The licence is Apache-2.0, referenced both by the README badge and by the LICENCE file at the root, with a separate NOTICE file, which is the standard pair for an Apache licensed project that wants attribution carried through. For a fork, the practical consequence of the branch choice is that you should check what you are building before you build it. If the working branch is mid-refactor, the difference between it and the shipped application can be larger than you would expect from a movie app. ## What Filmy is a better fit for than a full production client The reasonable use cases and the unreasonable ones are easy to separate. Reasonable: you are learning Android development and want a complete app with real API integration, a real design system and a real build to read. You want to contribute, which the hacktoberfest tags suggest the project is used for. You want a starting point for your own movie client and would rather start from something that already talks to three APIs than from an empty activity. Unreasonable: expecting a maintained library of TMDB helpers, a documented architecture, a test suite you can rely on, or an issue tracker that reflects current work. The README does not claim any of those, and the absence of a filled in implementation section is a signal about how much of the project is code and how much is explanation. If your requirement is a movie catalogue app in production with a predictable upgrade path, reading the code here is a reasonable way to learn but a poor way to depend on. A commercial API wrapper with a maintained contract would serve that case better. ## The Gradle layout is the map of the project Since the prose is thin, the build files are where the structure is legible. The presence of gradlew and gradlew.bat at the root means the build does not require a locally installed Gradle, which removes one common stumbling block, and the gradle/ directory holds the wrapper configuration. The single app/ directory at the top level indicates a single module project rather than a multi module one, so the source, resources and manifest all live under app/. build.gradle at the root holds the top level configuration and app/build.gradle holds the application configuration, with gradle.properties carrying the properties and settings.gradle naming the included modules. The project was originally published with a March 2015 campaign parameter, which is early for the modern Android toolchain, so the Gradle and plugin versions in the build files are likely to be dated even though the last push is recent. That combination, an old codebase with recent activity, tells you what to expect when you open it: an app that has been kept compiling across a long period rather than a project recently rebuilt on current tooling. ## Conclusion Adopt Filmy if you want a working Android movie client to study or fork, and if you are comfortable supplying your own API keys and wiring them into the Gradle build. Do not adopt it as a drop in production app without reading the code, since the README documents the APIs and the prerequisites but leaves the implementation section as TBD. Verify first that the TMDB, YouTube Data and OMDB keys you generate are the ones the code expects, that the app module builds on your Android toolchain, and that the Play Store listing you see is built from the same source you are about to change. ## FAQ ### What does Filmy use as its data source? Filmy is powered by The Movie Database (TMDB) API. The prerequisites also list the YouTube Data API and OMDB, so you need to generate your own keys from all three sources before the app can talk to them. ### How do I build the Filmy Android app? The repository is a Gradle Android project with an app/ module and the gradlew and gradlew.bat wrapper scripts, so the wrapper builds the project without a locally installed Gradle. You supply your own API keys first, since Filmy ships no credentials of its own. ### Is Filmy available as an app on Google Play? Yes. The README links the Play Store listing under the package identifier tech.salroid.filmy, and the badge carries campaign parameters dated March 2015. ### Does the Filmy repository document its architecture? Not yet. The Implementations section of the README is a single line reading TBD, and there is no architecture guide, so the code in the app module is where the design is described. ## Sources - [Issues](https://github.com/salRoid/Filmy/issues) - [License: Apache-2.0](https://github.com/salRoid/Filmy/blob/development/LICENSE) - [README](https://github.com/salRoid/Filmy/blob/development/README.md) - [salRoid/Filmy on GitHub](https://github.com/salRoid/Filmy) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/salroid-filmy