SQL exercises on movie Database: Find the actors with all information who played a role in the movie 'Annie Hall'
1. From the following tables, write a SQL query to find the actors who played a role in the movie 'Annie Hall'. Return all the fields of actor table.
Sample table: actor
act_id | act_fname | act_lname | act_gender
--------+----------------------+----------------------+------------
101 | James | Stewart | M
102 | Deborah | Kerr | F
103 | Peter | OToole | M
104 | Robert | De Niro | M
105 | F. Murray | Abraham | M
106 | Harrison | Ford | M
107 | Nicole | Kidman | F
108 | Stephen | Baldwin | M
109 | Jack | Nicholson | M
110 | Mark | Wahlberg | M
111 | Woody | Allen | M
112 | Claire | Danes | F
113 | Tim | Robbins | M
114 | Kevin | Spacey | M
115 | Kate | Winslet | F
116 | Robin | Williams | M
117 | Jon | Voight | M
118 | Ewan | McGregor | M
119 | Christian | Bale | M
120 | Maggie | Gyllenhaal | F
121 | Dev | Patel | M
122 | Sigourney | Weaver | F
123 | David | Aston | M
124 | Ali | Astin | F
Sample table: movie_cast
act_id | mov_id | role
--------+--------+--------------------------------
101 | 901 | John Scottie Ferguson
102 | 902 | Miss Giddens
103 | 903 | T.E. Lawrence
104 | 904 | Michael
105 | 905 | Antonio Salieri
106 | 906 | Rick Deckard
107 | 907 | Alice Harford
108 | 908 | McManus
110 | 910 | Eddie Adams
111 | 911 | Alvy Singer
112 | 912 | San
113 | 913 | Andy Dufresne
114 | 914 | Lester Burnham
115 | 915 | Rose DeWitt Bukater
116 | 916 | Sean Maguire
117 | 917 | Ed
118 | 918 | Renton
120 | 920 | Elizabeth Darko
121 | 921 | Older Jamal
122 | 922 | Ripley
114 | 923 | Bobby Darin
109 | 909 | J.J. Gittes
119 | 919 | Alfred Borden
Sample table: movie
mov_id | mov_title | mov_year | mov_time | mov_lang | mov_dt_rel | mov_rel_country
--------+----------------------------------------------------+----------+----------+-----------------+------------+-----------------
901 | Vertigo | 1958 | 128 | English | 1958-08-24 | UK
902 | The Innocents | 1961 | 100 | English | 1962-02-19 | SW
903 | Lawrence of Arabia | 1962 | 216 | English | 1962-12-11 | UK
904 | The Deer Hunter | 1978 | 183 | English | 1979-03-08 | UK
905 | Amadeus | 1984 | 160 | English | 1985-01-07 | UK
906 | Blade Runner | 1982 | 117 | English | 1982-09-09 | UK
907 | Eyes Wide Shut | 1999 | 159 | English | | UK
908 | The Usual Suspects | 1995 | 106 | English | 1995-08-25 | UK
909 | Chinatown | 1974 | 130 | English | 1974-08-09 | UK
910 | Boogie Nights | 1997 | 155 | English | 1998-02-16 | UK
911 | Annie Hall | 1977 | 93 | English | 1977-04-20 | USA
912 | Princess Mononoke | 1997 | 134 | Japanese | 2001-10-19 | UK
913 | The Shawshank Redemption | 1994 | 142 | English | 1995-02-17 | UK
914 | American Beauty | 1999 | 122 | English | | UK
915 | Titanic | 1997 | 194 | English | 1998-01-23 | UK
916 | Good Will Hunting | 1997 | 126 | English | 1998-06-03 | UK
917 | Deliverance | 1972 | 109 | English | 1982-10-05 | UK
918 | Trainspotting | 1996 | 94 | English | 1996-02-23 | UK
919 | The Prestige | 2006 | 130 | English | 2006-11-10 | UK
920 | Donnie Darko | 2001 | 113 | English | | UK
921 | Slumdog Millionaire | 2008 | 120 | English | 2009-01-09 | UK
922 | Aliens | 1986 | 137 | English | 1986-08-29 | UK
923 | Beyond the Sea | 2004 | 118 | English | 2004-11-26 | UK
924 | Avatar | 2009 | 162 | English | 2009-12-17 | UK
926 | Seven Samurai | 1954 | 207 | Japanese | 1954-04-26 | JP
927 | Spirited Away | 2001 | 125 | Japanese | 2003-09-12 | UK
928 | Back to the Future | 1985 | 116 | English | 1985-12-04 | UK
925 | Braveheart | 1995 | 178 | English | 1995-09-08 | UK
Sample Solution:
-- Selecting all columns from the 'actor' table
-- Filtering results where 'act_id' is in the subquery result
SELECT *
FROM actor
WHERE act_id IN(
-- Selecting 'act_id' from 'movie_cast' where 'mov_id' is in the subquery result
SELECT act_id
FROM movie_cast
WHERE mov_id IN (
-- Selecting 'mov_id' from 'movie' where 'mov_title' is 'Annie Hall'
SELECT mov_id
FROM movie
WHERE mov_title='Annie Hall'
)
);
Sample Output:
act_id | act_fname | act_lname | act_gender
--------+----------------------+----------------------+------------
111 | Woody | Allen | M
(1 row)
Code Explanation:
The query in SQL that retrieves all information on actors who appeared in the movie 'Annie Hall'. The query uses a subquery to find the mov_id of the movie 'Annie Hall', and then searches the movie_cast table to find all actors who appeared in that movie by matching the mov_id to the inner subquery.
The outer query returns all information on the actors found in the previous step, by matching their act_id values to those in the actor table.
Alternative Solutions:
Alternative 1:
SELECT a.*
FROM actor a
WHERE EXISTS (
SELECT 1
FROM movie_cast mc
JOIN movie m ON mc.mov_id = m.mov_id
WHERE mc.act_id = a.act_id
AND m.mov_title = 'Annie Hall'
);
Explanation:
This query uses an EXISTS subquery to check if there exists a record in 'movie_cast' and 'movie' tables for the movie "Annie Hall" and the corresponding actor.
Alternative 2:
SELECT a.*
FROM actor a
JOIN movie_cast mc ON a.act_id = mc.act_id
JOIN movie m ON mc.mov_id = m.mov_id
WHERE m.mov_title = 'Annie Hall';
Explanation:
This query performs inner joins between the 'actor', 'movie_cast', and 'movie' tables based on their respective IDs. It filters the result to include only actors from the movie "Annie Hall".
Alternative 3:
SELECT a.*
FROM actor a
JOIN movie_cast mc ON a.act_id = mc.act_id
WHERE mc.mov_id IN (
SELECT mov_id
FROM movie
WHERE mov_title = 'Annie Hall'
);
Explanation:
This query uses a subquery to get the mov_id for the movie "Annie Hall" and then joins it with the 'movie_cast' table to get the corresponding actors.
Alternative 4:
SELECT a.*
FROM actor a, movie_cast mc, movie m
WHERE a.act_id = mc.act_id
AND mc.mov_id = m.mov_id
AND m.mov_title = 'Annie Hall';
Explanation:
This query performs a Cartesian join and applies the necessary conditions in the WHERE clause to get the result.
Relational Algebra Expression:

Relational Algebra Tree:

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