FrameThrower vs MovieStillsDB
Publicity stills are photographs taken on set by a unit photographer. They are not frames from the finished film, so they do not show the lighting, lens or framing that ended up on screen — which is precisely what a cinematography reference needs to show. FrameThrower indexes frames from the films themselves.
What MovieStillsDB is good at
By far the largest archive of official publicity material, and the right place to go for it — lobby cards, unit photography, behind-the-scenes, at high resolution across 40,000+ titles.
“Archive of official publicity material, including high quality movie stills, lobby cards, wallpapers and behind-the-scenes photos for more than 40,000 titles. Over 1.5 million movie and TV photos.”— MovieStillsDB, in their own words. moviestillsdb.com · read 2026-08-12
Which to pick
Pick MovieStillsDB if
you need official promotional imagery, press material or high-resolution publicity photography.
Pick FrameThrower if
you need what the audience actually saw — the frame as shot, lit and graded.
What FrameThrower does
- —5,489 films, indexed per frame. Lighting key and quality, lens character, shot size, camera angle, colour palette in hex, mood, era and time of day — on every frame, not per film.
- —Three ways to ask. Plain language, a reference image, or a colour.
- —Callable by machine. A REST API with 11 endpoints and no rate limits, an MCP server with four tools, and an npm SDK.
- —Moodboards, shot boards and lookbooks. Reference to deliverable without leaving the app or re-importing anything.
- —Free to start. $2 of credits on signup, no card. Then $1 = 500 searches, and credits never expire.
See it before you decide
$2 of credits free on signup, no card. Search 5,489 films by lighting, lens, colour and mood.
Sign up for freeOther comparisons: Frameset · frmz · ShotBook · StillsLab · all