diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 91082c5..2381b0f 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -107,6 +107,40 @@ Ingesting a series also queues its posters/backdrops/profile images for
 local download automatically (only the provider's *primary* image per
 entity, not every alternate) — see the next section.
 
+### Bulk-importing TMDb's entire catalog
+
+`app/scripts/bulk_import.py` enqueues an ingestion job for every id in
+TMDb's [daily ID export files](https://developer.themoviedb.org/docs/daily-id-exports)
+(published once a day specifically for full-catalog sync, unlike
+`/discover`, which caps at 10,000 results per query) — the same
+one-id-at-a-time pipeline the admin endpoints above use, just enqueued for
+every id TMDb has rather than one at a time by hand:
+
+```bash
+docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml exec worker \
+  python -m app.scripts.bulk_import movie series person collection
+```
+
+As of 2026-09, TMDb's real catalog is roughly 1.24M movies, 231K TV
+series, 4.9M people, and 9.8K collections — **~6.4M entities total**. At
+this project's default worker concurrency (`WORKER_CONCURRENCY=4` × 2
+worker replicas), expect this to run for **on the order of weeks**, not
+hours — it does not rate-limit itself against TMDb; TMDb's request rate is
+governed entirely by how many workers are consuming the queue
+concurrently (raise `WORKER_CONCURRENCY` / scale up workers to go faster,
+mindful of TMDb's own rate limits — `app/providers/tmdb.py` backs off on a
+429 using TMDb's own `Retry-After` hint, but sustained high concurrency
+will still see more of them). Run it detached
+(`docker compose ... exec -d worker ...`, or under `nohup`/`tmux`/`screen`)
+so it survives a disconnect, and use `--dry-run` first to see counts
+without enqueueing anything. Re-running (e.g. after an interruption) is
+safe — every id is idempotency-keyed, so already-created jobs are reused,
+never duplicated.
+
+Expect substantial disk usage from artwork self-hosting cascading on
+every successful ingestion (see the next section) at this scale — budget
+accordingly before running it against the full catalog.
+
 ## Artwork
 
 Images are referenced by their provider CDN URL (TMDb) from the moment
diff --git a/app/providers/base.py b/app/providers/base.py
index b1c9cf5..e226355 100644
--- a/app/providers/base.py
+++ b/app/providers/base.py
@@ -27,6 +27,17 @@ class ProviderNotFoundError(ProviderError):
     """Raised when the provider has no record for the given external ID."""
 
 
+class ProviderRateLimitedError(ProviderError):
+    """Raised when the provider responds 429. Carries how long the provider
+    itself asked callers to wait (`Retry-After`, seconds) so a caller can
+    back off by the right amount rather than guessing — see
+    `app/providers/tmdb.py:TMDbProvider._get` for where this is retried."""
+
+    def __init__(self, message: str, *, retry_after: float) -> None:
+        super().__init__(message)
+        self.retry_after = retry_after
+
+
 class MetadataProvider(ABC):
     slug: str
     name: str
diff --git a/app/providers/tmdb.py b/app/providers/tmdb.py
index f8caf42..7d86ef6 100644
--- a/app/providers/tmdb.py
+++ b/app/providers/tmdb.py
@@ -10,7 +10,13 @@ from __future__ import annotations
 from typing import Any
 
 import httpx
-from tenacity import retry, retry_if_exception_type, stop_after_attempt, wait_exponential
+from tenacity import (
+    RetryCallState,
+    retry,
+    retry_if_exception_type,
+    stop_after_attempt,
+    wait_exponential,
+)
 
 from app.core.config import get_settings
 from app.providers.base import (
@@ -18,12 +24,26 @@ from app.providers.base import (
     ProviderError,
     ProviderNotConfiguredError,
     ProviderNotFoundError,
+    ProviderRateLimitedError,
 )
 
 _MOVIE_APPEND = "credits,images,videos,keywords,alternative_titles,external_ids,release_dates,recommendations"
 _SERIES_APPEND = "credits,images,videos,keywords,alternative_titles,external_ids,content_ratings"
 _PERSON_APPEND = "external_ids,images,combined_credits"
 
+_DEFAULT_EXPONENTIAL_WAIT = wait_exponential(multiplier=0.5, max=5)
+
+
+def _tmdb_wait(retry_state: RetryCallState) -> float:
+    """A 429's own `Retry-After` (carried on ProviderRateLimitedError) takes
+    priority over guessing via exponential backoff -- TMDb told us exactly
+    how long to wait, so use that instead of a generic schedule."""
+
+    exc = retry_state.outcome.exception() if retry_state.outcome else None
+    if isinstance(exc, ProviderRateLimitedError):
+        return exc.retry_after
+    return _DEFAULT_EXPONENTIAL_WAIT(retry_state)
+
 
 class TMDbProvider(MetadataProvider):
     slug = "tmdb"
@@ -45,9 +65,9 @@ class TMDbProvider(MetadataProvider):
 
     @retry(
         reraise=True,
-        stop=stop_after_attempt(3),
-        wait=wait_exponential(multiplier=0.5, max=5),
-        retry=retry_if_exception_type(httpx.TransportError),
+        stop=stop_after_attempt(5),
+        wait=_tmdb_wait,
+        retry=retry_if_exception_type((httpx.TransportError, ProviderRateLimitedError)),
     )
     async def _get(self, path: str, params: dict[str, Any] | None = None) -> dict[str, Any]:
         self._require_api_key()
@@ -61,6 +81,17 @@ class TMDbProvider(MetadataProvider):
             raise ProviderNotFoundError(f"TMDb has no record at {path}")
         if response.status_code == 401:
             raise ProviderNotConfiguredError("TMDb rejected the configured TMDB_API_KEY.")
+        if response.status_code == 429:
+            try:
+                # Retry-After is defined (RFC 9110) as either a delay in
+                # seconds or an HTTP-date; TMDb sends seconds, but fall back
+                # rather than crash if that ever changes.
+                retry_after = float(response.headers.get("Retry-After", "1"))
+            except ValueError:
+                retry_after = 1.0
+            raise ProviderRateLimitedError(
+                f"TMDb rate-limited {path}", retry_after=retry_after
+            )
         if response.status_code >= 400:
             raise ProviderError(f"TMDb error {response.status_code} at {path}: {response.text[:300]}")
         return response.json()
diff --git a/app/scripts/__init__.py b/app/scripts/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3768334
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/scripts/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+"""One-off operational scripts, run directly (`python -m app.scripts.<name>`)
+rather than through the API or arq worker task list."""
diff --git a/app/scripts/bulk_import.py b/app/scripts/bulk_import.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3c457bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/scripts/bulk_import.py
@@ -0,0 +1,151 @@
+"""One-off ops script: enqueue an ingestion job for every id in TMDb's
+daily export, for one or more entity types -- a full-catalog bulk sync.
+
+    python -m app.scripts.bulk_import movie series person collection
+    python -m app.scripts.bulk_import movie --dry-run
+    python -m app.scripts.bulk_import series --no-seasons
+
+Every id goes through the exact same IngestionJob + arq task pipeline the
+admin API uses for a single id (get_or_create_ingestion_job is
+idempotency-keyed on provider+entity_type+external_id), so interrupting
+and re-running this script is safe -- already-created jobs are reused,
+never duplicated, and re-enqueuing an already-succeeded job just re-syncs
+that entity.
+
+This does not itself rate-limit against TMDb -- the actual API calls
+happen later, inside the worker tasks this enqueues, so TMDb's request
+rate is governed by WORKER_CONCURRENCY (how many workers process the
+queue concurrently), not by how fast this script can enqueue. Enqueueing
+does hit Postgres once per id (via get_or_create_ingestion_job), so this
+runs a bounded number of ids concurrently to avoid one id's DB round-trip
+serializing the next -- see _CONCURRENCY below.
+
+Expect this to run for hours across a full catalog (TMDb has roughly 1M+
+movies, 200K+ TV series, 3M+ people, 150K+ collections) -- run it inside
+the worker container detached (e.g. `docker compose -f
+docker-compose.prod.yml exec -d worker python -m app.scripts.bulk_import
+...`) or under nohup/tmux/screen so it survives a disconnect, and expect
+substantial TMDb API traffic, database growth, and (since artwork
+self-hosting cascades on every successful ingestion, per
+docs/database.md's artwork storage section) disk usage for downloaded
+images while it runs.
+"""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import argparse
+import asyncio
+
+import httpx
+from arq import ArqRedis
+
+from app.core.database import dispose_engine
+from app.core.logging import configure_logging, get_logger
+from app.core.queue import close_arq_pool, get_arq_pool
+from app.services.bulk_import import fetch_daily_export_ids
+from app.services.ingestion.runner import get_or_create_ingestion_job
+
+logger = get_logger(__name__)
+
+_TASK_NAME: dict[str, str] = {
+    "movie": "ingest_movie_task",
+    "series": "ingest_series_task",
+    "person": "ingest_person_task",
+    "collection": "ingest_collection_task",
+}
+_JOB_TYPE: dict[str, str] = {
+    "movie": "movie_sync",
+    "series": "series_sync",
+    "person": "person_sync",
+    "collection": "collection_sync",
+}
+
+# How many ids to create IngestionJob rows / enqueue for concurrently.
+# Bounded so this doesn't try to open millions of DB round-trips at once,
+# but high enough that per-id latency isn't fully serialized.
+_CONCURRENCY = 50
+
+
+async def _enqueue_one(
+    queue: ArqRedis, entity_type: str, external_id: str, *, include_seasons: bool
+) -> None:
+    job_id = await get_or_create_ingestion_job(_JOB_TYPE[entity_type], entity_type, external_id)
+    task_name = _TASK_NAME[entity_type]
+    if entity_type == "series":
+        await queue.enqueue_job(task_name, str(job_id), external_id, include_seasons)
+    else:
+        await queue.enqueue_job(task_name, str(job_id), external_id)
+
+
+async def _bulk_enqueue(entity_type: str, *, dry_run: bool, include_seasons: bool) -> None:
+    async with httpx.AsyncClient(timeout=120.0) as client:
+        ids = await fetch_daily_export_ids(entity_type, client=client)
+    logger.info("bulk_import_fetched_ids", entity_type=entity_type, count=len(ids))
+
+    if dry_run:
+        logger.info("bulk_import_dry_run", entity_type=entity_type, would_enqueue=len(ids))
+        return
+
+    queue = await get_arq_pool()
+    semaphore = asyncio.Semaphore(_CONCURRENCY)
+    enqueued = 0
+    lock = asyncio.Lock()
+
+    async def _worker(external_id: str) -> None:
+        nonlocal enqueued
+        async with semaphore:
+            await _enqueue_one(queue, entity_type, external_id, include_seasons=include_seasons)
+        async with lock:
+            enqueued += 1
+            if enqueued % 5000 == 0:
+                logger.info(
+                    "bulk_import_progress",
+                    entity_type=entity_type,
+                    enqueued=enqueued,
+                    total=len(ids),
+                )
+
+    await asyncio.gather(*(_worker(external_id) for external_id in ids))
+    logger.info("bulk_import_complete", entity_type=entity_type, enqueued=enqueued)
+
+
+async def _main(entity_types: list[str], *, dry_run: bool, include_seasons: bool) -> None:
+    configure_logging()
+    try:
+        for entity_type in entity_types:
+            await _bulk_enqueue(entity_type, dry_run=dry_run, include_seasons=include_seasons)
+    finally:
+        await close_arq_pool()
+        await dispose_engine()
+
+
+def main() -> None:
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        description="Bulk-enqueue ingestion jobs from TMDb's daily ID export files."
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "entity_types",
+        nargs="+",
+        choices=list(_TASK_NAME),
+        help="One or more entity types to bulk-import.",
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--dry-run",
+        action="store_true",
+        help="Fetch and count ids without enqueueing anything.",
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--no-seasons",
+        action="store_true",
+        help="For 'series': don't cascade into per-season/episode ingestion "
+        "(cuts total TMDb calls roughly in half for TV, at the cost of "
+        "season/episode data). Cascading is the default for a full pull.",
+    )
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+    asyncio.run(
+        _main(args.entity_types, dry_run=args.dry_run, include_seasons=not args.no_seasons)
+    )
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()
diff --git a/app/services/bulk_import.py b/app/services/bulk_import.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de97a0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/services/bulk_import.py
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+"""TMDb daily ID export fetching, for full-catalog bulk sync.
+
+TMDb publishes a full list of every movie/TV/person/collection id that
+exists in their database once a day, specifically to support this exact
+use case -- syncing an entire local mirror is what these files are for,
+as opposed to paginating `/discover`, which caps at 10,000 results per
+query regardless of how many actually match.
+
+Format: https://developer.themoviedb.org/docs/daily-id-exports -- a
+gzipped file, one JSON object per line, e.g. for movies:
+`{"adult":false,"id":3924,"original_title":"Blondie","popularity":1.61,"video":false}`.
+Only `id` is used here; ingestion re-fetches full details per entity
+through the normal provider pipeline (app/services/ingestion/), so
+nothing else in the export line matters.
+"""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import gzip
+import io
+import json
+from datetime import date, timedelta
+
+import httpx
+
+from app.core.logging import get_logger
+
+logger = get_logger(__name__)
+
+_EXPORT_URL = "http://files.tmdb.org/p/exports/{kind}_ids_{date}.json.gz"
+
+# Aurora's entity_type -> the TMDb export file's own name for that kind.
+_EXPORT_KIND: dict[str, str] = {
+    "movie": "movie",
+    "series": "tv_series",
+    "person": "person",
+    "collection": "collection",
+}
+
+
+class DailyExportUnavailableError(Exception):
+    pass
+
+
+async def fetch_daily_export_ids(entity_type: str, *, client: httpx.AsyncClient) -> list[str]:
+    """Fetch and parse today's (or, failing that, yesterday's) TMDb daily
+    export for `entity_type`, returning every id as a string. TMDb
+    publishes a new file once a day at a fixed time (early UTC morning);
+    "today's" file may not exist yet depending on when this runs, so this
+    tries today first and falls back to yesterday rather than failing."""
+
+    kind = _EXPORT_KIND[entity_type]
+    last_status: int | None = None
+    for day_offset in (0, 1):
+        export_date = date.today() - timedelta(days=day_offset)
+        url = _EXPORT_URL.format(kind=kind, date=export_date.strftime("%m_%d_%Y"))
+        response = await client.get(url, follow_redirects=True)
+        if response.status_code == 200:
+            ids = _parse_export(response.content)
+            logger.info(
+                "tmdb_daily_export_fetched", entity_type=entity_type, url=url, count=len(ids)
+            )
+            return ids
+        last_status = response.status_code
+        logger.info("tmdb_daily_export_not_found", url=url, status=response.status_code)
+
+    raise DailyExportUnavailableError(
+        f"no TMDb daily export found for {entity_type} (tried today and yesterday, "
+        f"last status {last_status})"
+    )
+
+
+def _parse_export(raw_gzip: bytes) -> list[str]:
+    ids: list[str] = []
+    with gzip.GzipFile(fileobj=io.BytesIO(raw_gzip)) as f:
+        for line in f:
+            line = line.strip()
+            if not line:
+                continue
+            ids.append(str(json.loads(line)["id"]))
+    return ids
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_bulk_import.py b/tests/unit/test_bulk_import.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fbf3a1d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/unit/test_bulk_import.py
@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+"""Unit tests for app/services/bulk_import.py: parsing TMDb's daily ID
+export format and the today-then-yesterday fallback, using
+httpx.MockTransport so these run without real network access."""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import gzip
+import json
+
+import httpx
+import pytest
+
+from app.services.bulk_import import DailyExportUnavailableError, fetch_daily_export_ids
+
+
+def _gzip_ndjson(rows: list[dict]) -> bytes:
+    body = "\n".join(json.dumps(row) for row in rows).encode("utf-8")
+    return gzip.compress(body)
+
+
+def _client_for(handler) -> httpx.AsyncClient:
+    return httpx.AsyncClient(transport=httpx.MockTransport(handler))
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_fetch_daily_export_ids_parses_today_file():
+    payload = _gzip_ndjson(
+        [
+            {"adult": False, "id": 603, "original_title": "The Matrix", "popularity": 45.5},
+            {"adult": False, "id": 604, "original_title": "The Matrix Reloaded", "popularity": 18.1},
+        ]
+    )
+
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        return httpx.Response(200, content=payload)
+
+    async with _client_for(handler) as client:
+        ids = await fetch_daily_export_ids("movie", client=client)
+
+    assert ids == ["603", "604"]
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_fetch_daily_export_ids_falls_back_to_yesterday_when_todays_missing():
+    payload = _gzip_ndjson([{"id": 1396, "name": "Breaking Bad"}])
+    calls: list[str] = []
+
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        calls.append(str(request.url))
+        if len(calls) == 1:
+            return httpx.Response(404)
+        return httpx.Response(200, content=payload)
+
+    async with _client_for(handler) as client:
+        ids = await fetch_daily_export_ids("series", client=client)
+
+    assert ids == ["1396"]
+    assert len(calls) == 2
+    assert "tv_series_ids" in calls[0]
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_fetch_daily_export_ids_raises_when_neither_day_available():
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        return httpx.Response(404)
+
+    async with _client_for(handler) as client:
+        with pytest.raises(DailyExportUnavailableError):
+            await fetch_daily_export_ids("person", client=client)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_fetch_daily_export_ids_skips_blank_lines():
+    body = b"\n".join(
+        [json.dumps({"id": 1}).encode(), b"", json.dumps({"id": 2}).encode(), b""]
+    )
+    payload = gzip.compress(body)
+
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        return httpx.Response(200, content=payload)
+
+    async with _client_for(handler) as client:
+        ids = await fetch_daily_export_ids("collection", client=client)
+
+    assert ids == ["1", "2"]
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_tmdb_provider.py b/tests/unit/test_tmdb_provider.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae6eb06
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/unit/test_tmdb_provider.py
@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+"""Unit tests for TMDbProvider's 429 (rate-limited) handling -- added
+before running a full-catalog bulk import (app/scripts/bulk_import.py),
+where sustained high request volume makes 429s an expected, recoverable
+condition rather than a rare edge case. Uses httpx.MockTransport, and
+Retry-After: 0 in the mocked responses so retries don't actually slow
+these tests down."""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+from unittest.mock import Mock
+
+import httpx
+import pytest
+
+from app.providers.base import ProviderRateLimitedError
+from app.providers.tmdb import TMDbProvider, _tmdb_wait
+
+
+def _client_for(handler) -> httpx.AsyncClient:
+    return httpx.AsyncClient(transport=httpx.MockTransport(handler), base_url="https://api.themoviedb.org/3")
+
+
+def _provider(handler) -> TMDbProvider:
+    return TMDbProvider(api_key="test-key", client=_client_for(handler))
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_get_retries_after_a_single_429_and_succeeds():
+    calls: list[int] = []
+
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        calls.append(1)
+        if len(calls) == 1:
+            return httpx.Response(429, headers={"Retry-After": "0"})
+        return httpx.Response(200, json={"id": 603, "title": "The Matrix"})
+
+    provider = _provider(handler)
+    data = await provider.get_movie("603")
+
+    assert data == {"id": 603, "title": "The Matrix"}
+    assert len(calls) == 2
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_get_reraises_provider_rate_limited_error_after_exhausting_retries():
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        return httpx.Response(429, headers={"Retry-After": "0"})
+
+    provider = _provider(handler)
+
+    with pytest.raises(ProviderRateLimitedError):
+        await provider.get_movie("603")
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_get_defaults_retry_after_when_header_is_not_a_number():
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        return httpx.Response(429, headers={"Retry-After": "Wed, 21 Oct 2026 07:28:00 GMT"})
+
+    provider = _provider(handler)
+
+    with pytest.raises(ProviderRateLimitedError) as exc_info:
+        await provider.get_movie("603")
+
+    assert exc_info.value.retry_after == 1.0
+
+
+def _fake_retry_state(exception: Exception | None) -> Mock:
+    state = Mock()
+    if exception is None:
+        state.outcome = None
+    else:
+        state.outcome.exception.return_value = exception
+    return state
+
+
+def test_tmdb_wait_uses_retry_after_for_rate_limit_errors():
+    state = _fake_retry_state(ProviderRateLimitedError("rate limited", retry_after=12.5))
+    assert _tmdb_wait(state) == 12.5
+
+
+def test_tmdb_wait_falls_back_to_exponential_backoff_for_other_errors():
+    state = _fake_retry_state(httpx.TransportError("boom"))
+    state.attempt_number = 1
+    waited = _tmdb_wait(state)
+    assert isinstance(waited, float)
+    assert waited >= 0