Looking for a FilmGrab alternative?

When you've outgrown browsing galleries

• —Search instead of scroll. FilmGrab means paging through galleries hoping the frame you remember is there. FrameThrower finds it: every frame carries AI-extracted metadata — lighting key and quality, lens character, shot size and framing, color, mood, film stock look, time of day.
• —Still curated, not scraped. Sets are hand-picked and reviewed with working cinematographers and filmmakers — our test users — then indexed by AI. The judgment of a curated library, with the depth of full metadata search.
• —More frames per film. Gallery sites carry ~50–70 stills per title. FrameThrower typically indexes hundreds per film, so the exact beat you need is far more likely to exist.
• —Visual similarity. Drop in any image and find frames matching its light, color and composition — something no gallery site can offer.
• —Moodboards & lookbooks built in. Save frames to canvas moodboards, shot boards and exportable lookbooks without leaving the app.
• —See it free before you commit. A free account includes full search across 5,000+ films. Paid plans add exports and higher limits. No card required.

Reachable by machines, not just by browser

FilmGrab is a gallery you scroll; this is a library you can call. 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.

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

Frequently asked questions

Does FrameThrower have an API?

Yes — a REST API with 11 endpoints and no rate limits, an MCP server with four tools (search_frames, find_by_craft, find_similar, get_frame_details), and an npm SDK (npm install framethrower-ai). A free account gets $2 of credits that work through the API from the first call, no card and no plan required; after that it is usage-based at $1 = 1,000 credits, and a search costs 2, so $1 buys 500 searches. Docs at framethrower.ai/developers.

What is the best FilmGrab alternative for searching stills?

FilmGrab is browse-only — beautiful curated galleries, but no way to search by what is in the frame. FrameThrower indexes every frame by lighting, lens character, shot size, framing, color and mood, so you can type "silhouette against a window, low-key" and get matching frames across 5,000+ films. Search is free with an account.

Is FrameThrower free like FilmGrab?

Seeing it is free: a free account includes plain-language search across the full library. Paid plans add exports and higher usage limits. No card required to start.

Does FrameThrower have the same films as FilmGrab?

The catalogs overlap heavily on the canon — features, documentaries and animation across 5,000+ titles — and FrameThrower typically carries more frames per film, indexed with per-frame craft metadata instead of a gallery page.

Can I make moodboards from the stills?

Yes — frames save straight into canvas moodboards, shot boards and exportable lookbooks inside the app, so the reference and the deliverable live in one place.