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The best movie stills & film frame sites in 2026

Every site below is genuinely useful — they just solve different problems. Curated galleries reward browsing, bulk archives guarantee coverage, and searchable databases find the frame you're picturing. Here's the honest map, including where we fit.

We build FrameThrower, so we've listed it first and told you so. Everything else is described as fairly as we know how.

Movie stills and film frame sites, and what each is best for
SiteBest for
FrameThrower(ours)Searching by craft attribute — lighting, lens, shot size, colour — and for calling a stills library from software (REST API, MCP server, npm SDK)
FilmGrabFree, lovingly curated galleries
ShotDeckPro reference behind a membership
Flim.aiBroad AI search across movies, ads and music videos
Frame SetPolished curation with filters
shot.cafeTag-based browsing of iconic films
MovieStillsDBSheer catalog size and cast coverage
Movie-ScreencapsComplete frame-by-frame coverage
FanCapsAnimation and TV screencaps
ScreenmusingsHigh-quality curated galleries of modern classics
Film stills libraries compared on published figures, read 2026-08-23
ToolImagesTitlesPer titleSelectionPublic APITVAdsMusic videoMoving footage
FrameThrowerours409,5225,48975Mixed — 57% from a hand-picked sourceREST · MCP · SDKNoNoNoNo — stills only
Flim.ai1,500,0005,800259Not publishedNot published2,000 series15,0005,500400,000 clips
MovieStillsDB1,360,00048,00028Publicity stills — neitherNot publishedYesNot publishedNot publishedNot published
FilmGrab234,8234,00059Hand-picked (stated)Not publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot published
shot.cafe24,321187130Not publishedNot publishedNot published23 commercialsNot publishedNot published
ShotDeckNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot published
FramesetNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot publishedNot published

Every figure is one the site publishes itself, read 2026-08-23. “Not published” means we could not find the number — it does not mean zero.

MovieStillsDB: publicity stills, wallpapers and lobby cards — not frames pulled from the film

FilmGrab: images observed in our own ingest; they publish ~50–70 hand-picked frames per film, and 58.7 observed sits inside that range

ShotDeck: publishes no figures we could read — the site blocks automated access

Frameset: publishes no counts

Per title is images ÷ titles. It is the one derived figure here, and it separates hand-selection from bulk extraction without anyone having to state a method: FilmGrab publishes ~50–70 per film as hand-picked.

  1. 1. FrameThrowerthat's us

    Best for searching by craft attribute — lighting, lens, shot size, colour — and for calling a stills library from software (REST API, MCP server, npm SDK) · framethrower.ai

    Full disclosure: this is us. FrameThrower is a movie frame search engine — filmmaker-curated stills from 5,000+ films, every frame AI-indexed by lighting key and quality, lens character, shot size, framing, color, mood and film stock look. Search in plain language or from a reference image, then build moodboards and lookbooks in the same app. Free to see with an account.

    Images
    409,522
    Titles
    5,489
    Per title
    75
    TV
    No
    Ads
    No
    Music video
    No
    Moving footage
    No — stills only
    Selection
    Mixed — 57% from a hand-picked source
    Public API
    REST · MCP · SDK

  2. 2. FilmGrab

    Best for free, lovingly curated galleries · film-grab.com

    The long-running labor of love of the stills world: hand-picked galleries of roughly 50–70 frames per film, free, ad-light and tasteful. Browse-only — there is no content search — but as a daily-driver inspiration site it has earned its following.

    Images
    234,823
    Titles
    4,000
    Per title
    59
    TV
    Not published
    Ads
    Not published
    Music video
    Not published
    Moving footage
    Not published
    Selection
    Hand-picked (stated)
    Public API
    Not published

  3. 3. ShotDeck

    Best for pro reference behind a membership · shotdeck.com

    Founded by cinematographer Lawrence Sher, ShotDeck is a large tagged stills library used across the industry. Filter-based search on lens, lighting and more, behind a paid membership with no free browsing — the trade-off is polish and pedigree for price and gating.

    Images
    Not published
    Titles
    Not published
    Per title
    Not published
    TV
    Not published
    Ads
    Not published
    Music video
    Not published
    Moving footage
    Not published
    Selection
    Not published
    Public API
    Not published

  4. 4. Flim.ai

    Best for broad AI search across movies, ads and music videos · flim.ai

    AI-powered search over a wide mixed archive — film, commercials, music videos, photography. Great for general creative inspiration when you don’t care where the image comes from; less deep on per-frame cinematography metadata.

    Images
    1,500,000
    Titles
    5,800
    Per title
    259
    TV
    2,000 series
    Ads
    15,000
    Music video
    5,500
    Moving footage
    400,000 clips
    Selection
    Not published
    Public API
    Not published

  5. 5. Frame Set

    Best for polished curation with filters · frameset.app

    A design-forward, community-supported library with quality-over-quantity curation and clean filtering. Strong for commercials and music-video reference alongside features; smaller catalog than the big archives.

  6. 6. shot.cafe

    Best for tag-based browsing of iconic films · shot.cafe

    A free, tag-driven stills site with a solid selection of canon titles and a pleasant browsing experience. Tags are broader than true craft metadata, but for quick visual reference on well-known films it does the job.

    Images
    24,321
    Titles
    187
    Per title
    130
    TV
    Not published
    Ads
    23 commercials
    Music video
    Not published
    Moving footage
    Not published
    Selection
    Not published
    Public API
    Not published

  7. 7. MovieStillsDB

    Best for sheer catalog size and cast coverage · moviestillsdb.com

    One of the largest community databases of stills and publicity photos, organized by title and heavy on actor coverage. Quality varies and the craft metadata is thin, but if a title exists, there is probably something here.

    Images
    1,360,000
    Titles
    48,000
    Per title
    28
    TV
    Yes
    Ads
    Not published
    Music video
    Not published
    Moving footage
    Not published
    Selection
    Publicity stills — neither
    Public API
    Not published

  8. 8. Movie-Screencaps

    Best for complete frame-by-frame coverage · movie-screencaps.com

    Bulk screencap archives — thousands of sequential caps per film. Zero curation by design: you get everything, which is exactly right when you need a specific moment from a specific scene and wrong when you want a highlight reel.

  9. 9. FanCaps

    Best for animation and TV screencaps · fancaps.net

    The go-to bulk archive for animation and television — Disney to anime to network shows — with community roots and deep series coverage. Like Movie-Screencaps, it is an archive, not a curated gallery.

  10. 10. Screenmusings

    Best for high-quality curated galleries of modern classics · screenmusings.org

    Smaller and quieter than the rest: carefully chosen, well-presented stills from a modest catalog of films with a clear eye for composition. Worth a bookmark for the titles it covers.

Reachable by machines, not just by browser

One thing nothing else on this list does: FrameThrower is the reference app for the future creative: the library is callable from a REST API, an MCP server and an npm SDK, so an agent can pull references into a moodboard, a lookbook, a shot board or a production pipeline without a human in the loop.

REST API — 11 endpoints, no rate limits

  • POST /search — plain-language search
  • POST /similar — more frames like this one
  • POST /browse — filter by craft attributes
  • GET /films — the catalogue
  • GET /frames — one frame, full metadata
  • GET /suggest — typeahead — free

MCP server — 4 tools

  • search_frames
  • find_by_craft
  • find_similar
  • get_frame_details

Connect Claude or any MCP client to /api/mcp and search the library in conversation.

npm install framethrower-ai

curl -X POST https://framethrower.ai/api/v1/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ft_YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "neon-lit rainy street at night", "limit": 5}'

Free tier included. $2 of credits on signup, no card, and they work through the API from the first call — no plan to buy first. After that it is usage-based: $1 = 1,000 credits, a search costs 2, so $1 buys 500 searches. Credits never expire.

Built by filmmakers and ads creatives, for film professionals. People who have shot, cut and pitched for a living — which is why the index is organised around lighting, lens and framing rather than keywords.

API documentation · machine-readable spec · npm package

Want search instead of scrolling?

FrameThrower indexes every frame of 5,000+ films by lighting, lens, framing, color and mood — searchable in plain language, free to see before you commit.

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