Building a Movie Recommendation API with Spring Boot

Question

A month ago, I built a backend API for a movie and TV show recommendation platform using Java and Spring Boot.

The goal of the project was to practice designing a REST API, implementing authentication, and integrating an external API.

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Features

The API includes several features:

• Search movies and TV shows using the TMDB API
• User authentication with JWT
• Save favorite movies and shows
• Rate content
• Get trending content
• RESTful API design
• API documentation using Swagger / OpenAPI

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Tech Stack

Backend

• Java 21
• Spring Boot
• Spring Security
• JWT Authentication
• Spring Data JPA

Database

• PostgreSQL

External API

• TMDB API (The Movie Database)

Documentation

• Swagger / OpenAPI

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Example API Request

Example request to get trending content:

GET /content/trending

Example response:

{
  "page": 1,
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "War Machine",
      "release_date": "2026-02-12",
      "vote_average": 7.1
    }
  ]
}

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Project Architecture

The application follows a layered architecture:

Controller → Service → Repository → Database

This structure helps keep the code organized and maintainable.

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API Documentation

The API is documented using Swagger / OpenAPI, which makes it easy to explore and test the endpoints.

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What I learned

While building this project I practiced several backend concepts:

• Designing REST APIs
• Implementing authentication with Spring Security
• Using JWT for authorization
• Integrating external APIs
• Structuring a backend project using layered architecture

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GitHub Repository

You can find the full project here:

https://github.com/alejandrotg-code/tv-and-movie-db

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Feedback and suggestions are always welcome!