Custom lists are a long-awaited feature that allow the grouping of related series & movie records into one cohesive list. While any user can create a custom list, TheTVDB editorial team also has the ability to designate any list as an official list, which you can think of like a franchise.

Usually official lists will be well-known franchises (Marvel Cinematic Universe, Arrowverse), or lists of related content: Breaking Bad (series + movie), Toy Story (multiple movies), The Walking Dead (multiple series). Below, you'll find guidelines and best practices for creating custom lists, as well as the criteria we'll be looking for when converting a custom list to an official list.

Guidelines/Policies

• Any TheTVDB user can create a custom list. All lists are publicly visible and can be browsed and favorited by other users.
• You can create a new custom list from the bottom of any series or movie page. You can add series or movies to your existing lists from the list's page, too.
• When creating a list, you will be prompted to enter the title and overview in your preferred language (see Settings to change preferred language). Official lists will always need to have an English name and overview on them, so it's helpful to add these translations to increase the chances that your custom list will be made official. Custom lists with English-language translations tend to be more popular as well.
• Refrain from vulgarity and slurs in the titles and overviews.
• The most popular custom lists, as determined by voting, will be converted to official lists which may be used in apps that use our API. Lists that are made official (at the sole discretion of our editorial team) cannot be deleted, and TheTVDB mod team (in addition to the original creator) will be granted the ability to modify the entries, title, or overview of the list. Barring abuse, official lists will give credit to the original creator of the list.
• You can also suggest a custom list be made official by creating a support ticket in the Suggestions help topic.
• Any custom list is eligible to become an official list.
• Right now, official lists are sorted by favorites.

Content Rules

Note: Content rules are only relevant for official lists. Any user can create a custom list for whatever they want — we'll only enforce these rules on the official lists.

Titles & Overviews

• As mentioned above, all official lists will have an English title and overview.
• The title must be either the official title of the franchise as it is widely known or referred to as by the creator/studio (ex: Marvel Cinematic Universe), or the main title of the pieces of content within the list, along with the word "Franchise" (ex: Toy Story Franchise, Breaking Bad Franchise).
• If an official list includes rebooted content, the title structure should be something like "Battlestar Galactica Reboot Franchise."
• Overviews can be factual in nature, however feel free to add some personality into your overview. It's more exciting to read if it's not generic!

List Content

• Remakes should not be included in franchises. For example, The Lion King (2019) should not be included in the official Lion King Franchise.
• Official lists can contain a series of titles that are, on their own, a franchise. An example of this is the MCU official list, which includes all three Iron Man films that also exist in the Iron Man Franchise.
• Reboots of franchises may be added, with the title of the list following the conventions stated above. Examples of some franchises that have been rebooted:
  • Death Race Franchise | Death Race Reboot Franchise
  • Kickboxer Franchise | Kickboxer Reboot Franchise

Lists will be exposed in our v4 API as a way to browse related content.