Events

• January 10 - Fritz Lang
  Fritz Lang
  Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
  
  's science-fiction fantasy Metropolis
  Metropolis (film)
  Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
  
   premieres in Germany.
• April 7 - Abel Gance
  Abel Gance
  Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
  
  's Napoleon often considered his best known and greatest masterpiece, premiers (in a shortened version) at the Paris Opéra and would demonstrate techniques and equipment that would not be used for years to come, such as hand-held cameras, and what is often considered the first widescreen projection format Polyvision
  Polyvision
  Polyvision was the name given to a specialized widescreen film format devised exclusively for the filming and projection of Abel Gance's 1927 film Napoleon. It involved the simultaneous projection of three reels of silent film arrayed in a horizontal row, making for a total aspect ratio of 4:1...
  
  . It would be more than three decades before films with a widescreen format would again be attempted.
• April 12 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx
  Zeppo Marx
  Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Marx was an American film star, musician, engineer, theatrical agent and businessman. He was the youngest of the five Marx Brothers. He appeared in the first five Marx Brothers feature films, from 1929 to 1933, but then left the act to start his second career as an...
  
   marries Marion Benda.
• May 11 - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
  
   was founded in Los Angeles, California
  Los Angeles, California
  Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
  
   by Douglas Fairbanks
  Douglas Fairbanks
  Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
  
  . The 1st Academy Awards
  1st Academy Awards
  The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 1927 and 1928 and took place on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, in Los Angeles, California. AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks hosted the...
  
   (Oscars) went on to films, which are released in 1927 or 1928.
• August 12 - Paramount's dramatic film Wings
  Wings (film)
  Wings is a silent film about World War I fighter pilots, produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman and released by Paramount Pictures. Wings was the first film, and the only silent film, to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Wings stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and...
  
  , which would go on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture
  Academy Award for Best Picture
  The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
  
  , opens at the Criterion Theater in New York City, with an unheard-of roadshow admission price of $2.00 per ticket.
• September 7 - Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
  Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
  Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is an anthropomorphic rabbit and animated cartoon character created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney for films distributed by Universal Pictures in the 1920s and 1930s...
  
   debuts in Trolley Troubles
  Trolley Troubles
  Trolley Troubles is a 1927 animated short subject film, produced and directed by Walt Disney. The cartoon is noted for being the first appearance of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character that Disney and Ub Iwerks created for Universal Pictures and Charles B. Mintz...
  
  .
• September 23 - FOX Films
  20th Century Fox
  Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
  
   acquires the rights to the Tri-Ergon
  Tri-Ergon
  The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film system was patented from 1919 on by German inventors Josef Engl , Hans Vogt , and Joseph Massolle . The name Tri-Ergon was derived from Greek and means "the work of three." In 1926, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation purchased the U. S...
  
   sound-on-film
  Sound film
  A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
  
   technology, which had been developed in 1919 by three German inventors, Josef Engl, Hans Vogt
  Hans Vogt
  Hans Vogt was a Norwegian linguist specialized in the Caucasian languages, especially Georgian. He also did significant early work on the Kalispel language....
  
  , and Joseph Massole.
• October 6 - The Jazz Singer
  The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
  The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
  
  , (starring Al Jolson
  Al Jolson
  Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
  
  ), premieres at the Warner Theater in New York City. Although not the first 'talkie'
  Sound film
  A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
  
  , The Jazz Singer becomes the first box-office hit and popularizes sound motion pictures. It was the highest-grossing movie of all-time.
• Italian Alberto Rabagliati
  Alberto Rabagliati
  Alberto Rabagliati was an Italian singer.- Early career:Rabagliati was born in Milan.In 1927 he moved to Hollywood as the winner of a Rudolph Valentino look-alike contest...
  
   wins a Rudolph Valentino
  Rudolph Valentino
  Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
  
   look-alike contest and moves to Hollywood to start his acting career.

Top grossing films

Academy Awards

• Best Production
  Academy Award for Best Picture
  The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
  
  : Wings
• Best Artistic Quality
  Academy Award for Best Picture
  The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
  
  : Sunrise
• Best Actor
  Academy Award for Best Actor
  Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
  
  : Emil Jannings
  Emil Jannings
  Emil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
  
  for The Way of All Flesh and the 1928 movie The Last Command
• Best Actress
  Academy Award for Best Actress
  Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
  
  : Janet Gaynor
  Janet Gaynor
  Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...
  
  for Seventh Heaven and Sunrise, as well as the 1928 movie Street Angel
• Best Director: Frank Borzage
  Frank Borzage
  Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor.-Biography:Frank Borzage's father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone, in 1859. As a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland; he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg , where she worked in a silk factory...
  
  for Seventh Heaven

Films released in 1927

• Annie Laurie, starring Lillian Gish
  Lillian Gish
  Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
  
  
• Bed and Sofa
  Bed and Sofa
  Bed and Sofa is the English name of a 1927 Soviet silent film originally released as Tretya meshchanskaya. It is also sometimes referred to as The Third Meschanskaya. The film was directed by Abram Room and written by Room and Viktor Shklovsky...
  
   (Tretya meshchanskaya) - (U.S.S.R.
  Soviet films of 1927
  A list of films produced in the Soviet Union in 1927 .-1927:-External links:* at the Internet Movie Database...
  
  )
• The Beloved Rogue
  The Beloved Rogue
  The Beloved Rogue is a 1927 American silent film, loosely based on the life of the 15th century French poet, François Villon. The film was directed by Alan Crosland for United Artists....
  
   starring John Barrymore
  John Barrymore
  John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
  
  , Marceline Day
  Marceline Day
  Marceline Day was an American motion picture actress whose career began as a child in the 1910s and ended in the 1930s....
  
  
• Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
  Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
  Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis is a 1927 German film directed by Walter Ruttmann, co-written by Carl Mayer and Karl Freund....
  
   (documentary) - (Germany)
• The Cat and the Canary
  The Cat and the Canary (1927 film)
  The Cat and the Canary is an American silent horror film adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black comedy play of the same name. Directed by German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as Charles "Charlie" Wilder, and Creighton Hale as...
  
  
• Chicago
  Chicago (1927 film)
  Chicago is a 1927 comedy-drama silent film produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Frank Urson.-Plot:Drawn from the play of the same name by Maurine Dallas Watkins which was in turn based on the true story of Beulah Annan, fictionalized as Roxie Hart , and her spectacular murder of her boyfriend...
  
  
• Children of Divorce
  Children of Divorce
  Children of Divorce is a silent film, directed by Frank Lloyd from an adaptation of Owen Johnson's novel, written by Adela Rogers St. Johns, Hope Loring and Louis D. Lighton.-Plot:...
  
  , starring Clara Bow
  Clara Bow
  Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
  
  , Gary Cooper
  Gary Cooper
  Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
  
   and Esther Ralston
  Esther Ralston
  Esther Ralston was an American movie actress whose greatest popularity came during the silent era.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• The Chinese Parrot
  The Chinese Parrot (film)
  The Chinese Parrot is a silent film, the second in the Charlie Chan series and was directed by Paul Leni. The film is an adaptation of the 1926 Earl Derr Biggers novel of the same name. It is a lost film....
  
  
• College
  College (1927 film)
  College is a 1927 comedy-drama silent film directed by James W. Horne and Buster Keaton, and starring Buster Keaton, Anne Cornwall, and Harold Goodwin.-Plot:...
  
  , starring Buster Keaton
  Buster Keaton
  Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
  
  
• The Dove, starring Norma Talmadge
  Norma Talmadge
  Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...
  
  , Gilbert Roland
  Gilbert Roland
  Gilbert Roland was a Mexican-born American film actor.He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was...
  
   and Noah Beery
• Downhill
  Downhill (film)
  Downhill is a 1927 silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the play Down Hill. It is Hitchcock's fifth film as director.-Plot:...
  
  , directed by Alfred Hitchcock
  Alfred Hitchcock
  Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
  
  , starring Ivor Novello
  Ivor Novello
  David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
  
   and Isabel Jeans
  Isabel Jeans
  Isabel Jeans was an English stage and film actress known for her roles in several Alfred Hitchcock films, among others.-Career:...
  
   (U.K.)
• The Drop Kick
  The Drop Kick
  The Drop Kick was a 1927 silent film directed by Millard Webb written by Katherine Brush about a college football player who finds his reputation on the line when he pays an innocent visit to a woman whose husband kills himself. It was one of the early films of John Wayne who was only aged 20 in...
  
  
• Education of a Prince - (France
  French films of 1927
  A list of films produced in France in 1927:-1927:-External links:* at the Internet Movie Database**...
  
  )
• The End of St. Petersburg
  The End of St. Petersburg
  The End of St. Petersburg is a 1927 silent film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin and produced by Mezhrabpom. Commissioned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, The End of St Petersburg was to be Pudovkin's most famous film and secured his place as one of the foremost Soviet...
  
   (Konets Sankt-Peterburga) - (U.S.S.R.)
• The First Auto
  The First Auto
  The First Auto is a 1927 film about the transition from horses to cars and the rift it causes in one family. It stars Russell Simpson, Charles Emmett Mack, and Patsy Ruth Miller...
  
  , starring Barney Oldfield
  Barney Oldfield
  Berna Eli "Barney" Oldfield was an automobile racer and pioneer. He was born on a farm on the outskirts of Wauseon, Ohio. He was the first man to drive a car at 60 miles per hour on an oval...
  
  , Patsy Ruth Miller
  Patsy Ruth Miller
  Patsy Ruth Miller was an American film actress.After being discovered by the actress Alla Nazimova at a Hollywood party, Patsy Ruth Miller got her first break with a small role in Camille, which starred Rudolph Valentino...
  
  , Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack , was an American film actor during the silent film era. He appeared in 17 films between 1916 and 1927. Born Charles Emmett McNerney in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mack was a protégé of pioneering film director D. W...
  
  , Russell Simpson
  Russell Simpson (actor)
  Russell McCaskill Simpson was an American character actor.Born in San Francisco, California, Simpson is best known for his work in the films of John Ford and, in particular, for his portrayal of Pa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath in 1940.Simpson reportedly prospected for gold in Alaska in his youth,...
  
  , and Gibson Gowland
  Gibson Gowland
  Gibson Gowland was an English film actor.Early sources had his birth place place as Newcastle. He started work as a sailor and later became mate of a ship...
  
  
• The Gaucho
  The Gaucho
  The Gaucho is a 1927 movie starring Douglas Fairbanks and Lupe Vélez set in Argentina. The lavish adventure extravaganza, filmed at the height of Fairbanks' box office clout, was directed by F...
  
  
• Her Wild Oat
  Her Wild Oat
  Her Wild Oat is a silent comedy film made by First National Pictures, directed by Marshall Neilan, and starring Colleen Moore. The screenplay was written by Gerald C...
  
  , starring Colleen Moore
  Colleen Moore
  Colleen Moore was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era.-Early life:...
  
  
• His First Flame
  His First Flame
  His First Flame is an American silent comedy film starring Harry Langdon and directed by Harry Edwards. Additional cast members include Natalie Kingston, Ruth Hiatt, Vernon Dent, and others.-Plot:...
  
  , starring Harry Langdon
  Harry Langdon
  Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...
  
  
• The Honorable Mr. Buggs
  The Honorable Mr. Buggs
  The Honorable Mr. Buggs is a 1927 silent comedy film featuring Anna May Wong and Oliver Hardy.-Cast:* Matt Moore - Mr. Buggs* Anna May Wong - Baroness Stoloff* Sojin - A crook* Oliver Hardy - Butler* Martha Sleeper - The fiancée* Laura La Varnie...
  
  
• Hula, starring Clara Bow
  Clara Bow
  Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
  
  
• Huntingtower, by George Pearson, starring Harry Lauder
  Harry Lauder
  Sir Henry Lauder , known professionally as Harry Lauder, was an international Scottish entertainer, described by Sir Winston Churchill as "Scotland's greatest ever ambassador!"-Early life:...
  
   - (U.K.)
• It
  It (1927 film)
  It is a 1927 silent romantic comedy film which tells the story of a shop girl who sets her sights on the handsome and wealthy boss of the department store where she works. Because of this film, actress Clara Bow became known as the "It girl"...
  
  , starring Clara Bow
  Clara Bow
  Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
  
  
• The Jazz Singer
  The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
  The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
  
  , starring Al Jolson
  Al Jolson
  Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
  
   and May McAvoy
  May McAvoy
  May McAvoy was an American actress, who worked mainly during the silent film era. She starred in Hollywood's revolutionary part talking film, The Jazz Singer.-Career:...
  
  
• The Kid Brother
  The Kid Brother
  The Kid Brother is a 1927 American Classic comedy silent film starring Harold Lloyd. It was successful and popular upon release and today is considered by critics and fans to be one of Lloyd's best films, integrating elements of comedy, romance, drama, and character development...
  
  , a comedy starring Harold Lloyd
  Harold Lloyd
  Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
  
  
• The King of Kings, directed by Cecil B. DeMille
  Cecil B. DeMille
  Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
  
  , starring H. B. Warner
  H. B. Warner
  H. B. Warner was a British actor.-Early life:He was born Henry Byron Charles Stewart Warner-Lickford in St John's Wood, London, England in 1875...
  
  , Dorothy Cumming
  Dorothy Cumming
  Dorothy G. Cumming was an actress of the silent film era. She appeared in 39 American, English, and Australian films between 1915 and 1929, notably appearing as the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 film The King of Kings and the jealous wife in Lillian Gish's 1928 The Wind. She also appeared...
  
   and Joseph Schildkraut
  Joseph Schildkraut
  Joseph Schildkraut was an Austrian stage and film actor.-Early life:Born in Vienna, Austria, Schildkraut was the son of stage actor Rudolph Schildkraut. The younger Schildkraut moved to the United States in the early 1900s. He appeared in many Broadway productions...
  
  
• The Lady in Ermine
  The Lady in Ermine (1927 film)
  The Lady in Ermine is a silent film romance/drama directed by James Flood and produced by Corinne Griffith, and distributed by First National Pictures...
  
   starring Corinne Griffith
  Corinne Griffith
  Corinne Mae Griffith was an American actress. Dubbed "The Orchid Lady of the Screen", she was one of the most popular film actresses of the 1920s and widely considered the most beautiful actress of the silent screen...
  
  
• The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
  The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
  The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog is a silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926 and released on 14 February 1927 in London and on 10 June 1928 in New York City. The film, based on a story by Marie Belloc Lowndes and a play Who Is He? co-written by Belloc Lowndes, concerns the hunt for a...
  
  , directed by Alfred Hitchcock
  Alfred Hitchcock
  Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
  
  , starring June
  June Tripp
  June Tripp , sometimes known just by her screen name, June, was a British actress.Born June Howard-Tripp in London, she worked mainly on stage . She made a handful of films, mostly in the silent era...
  
   and Ivor Novello
  Ivor Novello
  David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
  
   - (U.K.)
• London After Midnight
  London After Midnight (film)
  London After Midnight aka The Hypnotist is a silent mystery film with horror overtones produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film stars Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall, and Polly Moran and was directed by Tod Browning. It is also a lost film, quite...
  
  , directed by Tod Browning
  Tod Browning
  Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
  
  , starring Lon Chaney, Sr.
  Lon Chaney, Sr.
  Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...
  
  , Conrad Nagel
  Conrad Nagel
  Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...
  
   and Marceline Day
  Marceline Day
  Marceline Day was an American motion picture actress whose career began as a child in the 1910s and ended in the 1930s....
  
  
• Long Pants
  Long Pants
  Long Pants is a 1927 American comedy silent film starring Harry Langdon and directed by Frank Capra. Additional cast members include Gladys Brockwell, Alan Roscoe, Priscilla Bonner, and others.-Plot:...
  
  , directed by Frank Capra
  Frank Capra
  Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
  
  , starring Harry Langdon
  Harry Langdon
  Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...
  
  
• The Love of Jeanne Ney
  The Love of Jeanne Ney
  The Love of Jeanne Ney is a 1927 silent German drama film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.-Cast:* Édith Jéhanne - Jeanne Ney* Uno Henning - Andreas Labov* Fritz Rasp - Khalibiev* Brigitte Helm - Gabrielle* Adolf E...
  
   (Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney), directed by G.W. Pabst - (Germany)
• The Love of Sunya
  The Love of Sunya
  The Love of Sunya is a silent film directed by Albert Parker, and based on the play The Eyes of Youth by Max Marcin and Charles Guernon. Produced by and starring Gloria Swanson, it also stars John Boles and Pauline Garon. It premiered at the grand opening of the Roxy Theatre in New York City on...
  
  , starring Gloria Swanson
  Gloria Swanson
  Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
  
  
• The Loves of Carmen
  The Loves of Carmen
  The Loves of Carmen is a Technicolor film starring Rita Hayworth as the gypsy Carmen and Glenn Ford as her doomed lover Don José. It was directed by Charles Vidor and released by Columbia Pictures. The film was publicized as a dramatic adaptation of the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and is...
  
  , starring Rita Hayworth
  Rita Hayworth
  Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
  
   and Glenn Ford
  Glenn Ford
  Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
  
  
• Metropolis
  Metropolis (film)
  Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
  
  , directed by Fritz Lang
  Fritz Lang
  Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
  
  , starring Alfred Abel
  Alfred Abel
  Alfred Abel was a German film actor, director, and producer. He appeared in over 140 silent and sound films between 1913 and 1938...
  
   - (Germany)
• Mockery, starring Lon Chaney
  Lon Chaney, Sr.
  Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...
  
  
• The Mountain Eagle
  The Mountain Eagle
  The Mountain Eagle is a British silent film, and Alfred Hitchcock's second as director following The Pleasure Garden.-Plot:The film is set in Kentucky. J. P. Pettigrew's wife died giving birth to his son Edward who was born a cripple. Pettigrew hates John Fulton who also loved Pettigrew's wife...
  
  , directed by Alfred Hitchcock
  Alfred Hitchcock
  Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
  
  , starring Nita Naldi - (U.K.)
• My Best Girl, starring Mary Pickford
  Mary Pickford
  Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
  
   and Buddy Rogers
• Napoléon directed by Abel Gance
  Abel Gance
  Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
  
  , starring Albert Dieudonne
  Albert Dieudonné
  Albert Dieudonné was a French actor, screenwriter, film director and novelist.Dieudonné was born in Paris, France and made his acting debut in silent film in 1908 for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise, with musical score by Camille Saint-Saëns. In 1924, he directed the film drama, "Catherine"...
  
   - (France
  French films of 1927
  A list of films produced in France in 1927:-1927:-External links:* at the Internet Movie Database**...
  
  )
• October: Ten Days That Shook the World - (U.S.S.R.)
• The Patent Leather Kid
  The Patent Leather Kid
  The Patent Leather Kid is a 1927 silent film which tells the story of a boxer who scoffs at fighting outside the ring... particularly for the United States once it enters World War I. Eventually, he is drafted, is shipped overseas, and performs a heroic act, which results in his being severely...
  
  , starring Richard Barthelmess
  Richard Barthelmess
  Richard Semler "Dick" Barthelmess was an Oscar-nominated silent film star.-Early life:Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut...
  
  
• The Private Life of Helen of Troy
  The Private Life of Helen of Troy
  The Private Life of Helen of Troy is a 1927 silent film about Helen of Troy based on a novel by John Erskine and adapted to screen by Gerald C. Duffy. The film was directed by Alexander Korda and starred Maria Corda as Helen, Lewis Stone as Menelaus, and Ricardo Cortez as Paris...
  
  , directed by Alexander Korda
  Alexander Korda
  Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
  
  
• Quality Street
  Quality Street (1927 film)
  Quality Street is a 1927 MGM silent film based on the 1901 play by James M. Barrie which starred Barrie favorite Maude Adams. The film starred Marion Davies and Conrad Nagel and was directed by Sidney Franklin...
  
  , directed by Sidney Franklin
  Sidney Franklin (director)
  Sidney Franklin was an American film director and producer. His brother Chester Franklin also became a director during the silent film era best known for helming the early Technicolor film Toll of the Sea....
  
  , starring Marion Davies
  Marion Davies
  Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
  
   and Conrad Nagel
  Conrad Nagel
  Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...
  
  
• The Red Mill
  The Red Mill (film)
  The Red Mill is a 1927 comedy film directed by Fatty Arbuckle and written by Frances Marion. The film never had a VHS release, though it aired on the network channel Turner Classic MoviesTCM on January 3, 2008, which was the birthday of leading role actress Marion Davies...
  
  , directed by William Goodrich (Fatty Arbuckle
  Fatty Arbuckle
  Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
  
  ), starring Marion Davies
  Marion Davies
  Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
  
  
• Romance of the Western Chamber
  Romance of the Western Chamber (1927 film)
  Romance of the Western Chamber is a 1927 silent Chinese film drama directed by Hou Yao.The film is an adaption of the classic Chinese dramatic work Romance of the West Chamber by Wang Shifu....
  
   - (China
  Chinese films of the 1920s
  This is a list of films produced in mainland China ordered by year of release in the 1920s. For an alphabetical listing of Chinese films see :Category:Chinese films-1920s:-See also:*Cinema of China...
  
  )
• The Scar of Shame
  The Scar of Shame
  The Scar of Shame is a silent film, which was filmed in 1926 and released in 1927.It was produced by the Colored Players Film Corporation of Philadelphia, in one of the earliest examples of "race movies", in which an entirely black cast performed a feature film specifically for a black audience...
  
  , a race movie
  Race movie
  The race movie or race film was a film genre which existed in the United States between about 1915 and 1950. It consisted of films produced for an all-black audience, featuring black casts....
  
   starring Harry Henderson and Lucia Lynn Moses
• Seventh Heaven, directed by Frank Borzage
  Frank Borzage
  Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor.-Biography:Frank Borzage's father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone, in 1859. As a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland; he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg , where she worked in a silk factory...
  
  , starring Janet Gaynor
  Janet Gaynor
  Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...
  
   and Charles Farrell
  Charles Farrell
  Charles Farrell was an American film actor of the 1920s silent era and into the 1930s, and later a television actor...
  
  
• Singed, starring Blanche Sweet and Warner Baxter
  Warner Baxter
  Warner Leroy Baxter was an American actor, known for his role as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona , for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1928–1929 Academy Awards. Warner Baxter started his movie career in silent movies...
  
  
• Slide, Kelly, Slide
  Slide, Kelly, Slide
  Slide, Kelly, Slide is a 1927 comedy film, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Edward Sedgwick, and starring William Haines and Harry Carey.-Cast:* William Haines - Jim Kelly* Sally O'Neil - Mary Munson* Harry Carey - Tom Munson...
  
  
• Spring Fever
  Spring Fever (1927 film)
  Spring Fever is a 1927 silent film starring William Haines and Joan Crawford and is based on a play by Vincent Lawrence. This was the second film together for Haines and Crawford, and their first romantic teaming. In March 2009 this film had its first ever home video release through the Warner...
  
  , starring Joan Crawford
  Joan Crawford
  Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
  
  
• The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
  The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
  The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, also known as The Student Prince and Old Heidelberg, is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1927 silent film based on a novel by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster. Ernst Lubitsch directed the picture...
  
  , directed by Ernst Lubitsch
  Ernst Lubitsch
  Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
  
  , starring Ramón Novarro
  Ramón Novarro
  Ramón Novarro was a Mexican leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "Sex Symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino...
  
   and Norma Shearer
  Norma Shearer
  Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...
  
  
• Sunrise
  Sunrise (film)
  Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise, is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" by Hermann Sudermann.Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production...
  
  , directed by F.W. Murnau, starring George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor
  Janet Gaynor
  Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...
  
  
• Twelve Miles Out
  Twelve Miles Out
  Twelve Miles Out is a 1927 silent drama film starring John Gilbert and Joan Crawford.-Plot summary:Jerry Fay , is a bootlegger who expropriates the home of society girl, June , for his illicit activities...
  
  , directed by Jack Conway, starring John Gilbert
  John Gilbert (actor)
  John Gilbert was an American actor and a major star of the silent film era.Known as "the great lover," he rivaled even Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw...
  
   and Joan Crawford
  Joan Crawford
  Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
  
  
• Underworld
  Underworld (1927 film)
  Underworld is a 1927 silent crime film directed by Josef von Sternberg.-Plot:Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.-Cast:* George Bancroft as "Bull" Weed* Evelyn Brent as "Feathers"...
  
  
• The Unknown, directed by Tod Browning
  Tod Browning
  Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
  
  , starring Lon Chaney Sr., Norman Kerry
  Norman Kerry
  Norman Kerry was an American actor whose career spanned over twenty-five years in the motion picture industry beginning in the silent era at the end of World War I.-Biography:...
  
  , and Joan Crawford
  Joan Crawford
  Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
  
  
• The Way of All Flesh
  The Way of All Flesh (film)
  The Way of All Flesh is a drama film directed by Victor Fleming, written by Lajos Biró, Jules Furthman and Julian Johnson from a story by Perley Poore Sheehan. The film is unrelated to Samuel Butler's novel The Way of All Flesh, and is now considered a lost film.-Cast:*Emil Jannings - August...
  
  , starring Emil Jannings
  Emil Jannings
  Emil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
  
  
• When a Man Loves
  When a Man Loves
  Manon Lescaut is a 1926 silent German feature film based on the oft-filmed novel by Abbe Prevost. It stars Lya De Putti and was directed by Arthur Robison. It was produced and distributed by renown German film company Universum Film AG better known as UFA. A young actress named Marlene Dietrich had...
  
  , an early Vitaphone
  Vitaphone
  Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
  
   sound movie
  Sound film
  A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
  
   starring John Barrymore
  John Barrymore
  John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
  
   and Dolores Costello
  Dolores Costello
  Dolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...
  
   who would become John Barrymore's future wife
• White Gold
  White Gold (1927 film)
  White Gold is a 1927 silent film dramatic western produced and distributed by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by William K. Howard. -Cast:*Jetta Goudal as Dolores Carson*Kenneth Thomson as Alec Carson*George Bancroft as Sam Randall...
  
  , directed by William K. Howard
  William K. Howard
  William K. Howard was a film director, writer and producer.Howard began his work in Hollywood as an assistant director on the 1920 release The Adorable Savage. The following year, he received his first directing credits, for Get Your Man, Play Square and What Love Will Do...
  
   and starring Jetta Goudal
  Jetta Goudal
  Jetta Goudal was a Dutch-born American actress, successful in Hollywood films of the silent film era.-Early life:Goudal was born as Juliette Henriette Goudeket in 1891, daughter of Mozes Goudeket , a wealthy, Orthodox Jewish diamond cutter in Amsterdam, and Geertruida Warradijn...
  
  
• Why Girls Love Sailors
  Why Girls Love Sailors
  Why Girls Love Sailors is a comedy short silent film directed by Fred Guiol for Hal Roach Studios starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before they had become the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy. It was shot during February 1927 and released July 17, 1927, by Pathé Exchange...
  
  
• Wings
  Wings (film)
  Wings is a silent film about World War I fighter pilots, produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman and released by Paramount Pictures. Wings was the first film, and the only silent film, to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Wings stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and...
  
  , directed by William A. Wellman
  William A. Wellman
  William Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation...
  
  , starring Clara Bow
  Clara Bow
  Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
  
  , Charles 'Buddy' Rogers and Richard Arlen
  Richard Arlen
  -Biography:Born Sylvanus Richard Van Mattimore in St. Paul, Minnesota, he attended the University of Pennsylvania. He served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. His first job after the war was with St. Paul's Athletic Club...
  
  

Comedy film series

• Harold Lloyd
  Harold Lloyd
  Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
  
   (1913–1938)
• Buster Keaton
  Buster Keaton
  Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
  
   (1917–1944)
• Our Gang
  Our Gang
  Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
  
   (1922–1944)
• Harry Langdon
  Harry Langdon
  Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...
  
   (1924–1936)
• Laurel and Hardy
  Laurel and Hardy
  Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
  
   (1921–1945)

Animated short film series

• Felix the Cat
  Felix the Cat
  Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history...
  
   (1919
  1919 in film
  The year 1919 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 5 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists...
  
  –1962
  1962 in film
  The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
  
  )
• Aesop's Film Fables
  Aesop's Film Fables
  Aesop's Film Fables was a series of animated short subjects, created by American cartoonist Paul Terry. Terry came upon the inspiration for the series by young actor-turned-writer Howard Estabrook, who suggested making a series of cartoons based on Aesop's Fables. Although Terry later claimed he...
  
   (1921
  1921 in film
  -Top grossing films :-Films released in 1921:U.S.A. unless stated*$10,000 Under a Pillow, silent film directed by Frank Moser*The Ace of Hearts, silent film directed by Wallace Worsley*Across the Divide, silent film directed by John Holloway...
  
  –1933
  1933 in film
  -Events:* March 2 - King Kong premieres in New York City.* June 6 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey.* British Film Institute founded....
  
  )
• Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes (1924
  1924 in film
  -Events:* Entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures to create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
  
  -1927)
• Alice Comedies
  Alice Comedies
  The "Alice Comedies" are a series of animated cartoonscreated by Walt Disney in the 1920s, in which a live action little girl named Alice and an animated cat named Julius have adventures in an animated landscape....
  
  
  • Alice the Golf Bug
  • Alice Foils the Pirates
  • Alice at the Carnival
  • Alice at the Rodeo
  • Alice the Collegiate
  • Alice in the Alps
  • Alice's Auto Race
  • Alice's Circus Daze
  • Alice's Knaughty Knight
  • Alice's Three Bad Eggs
  • Alice's Picnic
  • Alice's Channel Swim
  • Alice in the Klondike
  • Alice's Medicine Show
  • Alice the Whaler
  • Alice the Beach Nut
  • Alice in the Big League
• Krazy Kat
  Krazy Kat
  Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
  
   (1925
  1925 in film
  -Events:*November 5: The Big Parade holds its Grand Premier*December 30: premier of Ben-Hur the most expensive silent film ever made costing 4-6 million dollars -Top grossing films :...
  
  –1940
  1940 in film
  The year 1940 in film involved some significant events, including the premieres of the Walt Disney classics Pinocchio and Fantasia.-Events:*February 7 - Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio is released....
  
  )
• Un-Natural History (1925
  1925 in film
  -Events:*November 5: The Big Parade holds its Grand Premier*December 30: premier of Ben-Hur the most expensive silent film ever made costing 4-6 million dollars -Top grossing films :...
  
  -1927)
• Pete the Pup
  Pete the Pup
  Pete the Pup was a Pit Bull character in Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies during the 1920s and 1930s...
  
   (1926
  1926 in film
  -Events:*August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film....
  
  -1927)
• Inkwell Imps
  Koko the Clown
  Koko the Clown was an animated character created by animation pioneer Max Fleischer. The character originated when Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope, a device that allowed for animation to be more lifelike by tracing motion picture footage of human movement. To test out his new invention...
  
   (1927-1929
  1929 in film
  -Events:The days of the silent film are numbered. A mad scramble to provide synchronized sound is on.*January 20 - The movie In Old Arizona is released. The film is the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors....
  
  )
• Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
  Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
  Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is an anthropomorphic rabbit and animated cartoon character created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney for films distributed by Universal Pictures in the 1920s and 1930s...
  
  
  • Trolley Troubles
  • Oh, Teacher
  • The Mechanical Cow
  • Great Guns
  • All Wet
  • The Ocean Hop
  • The Banker's Daughter
  • Empty Socks
  • Rickety Gin
• Newslaffs (1927-1928
  1928 in film
  -Events:Although some movies released in 1928 had sound, most were still silent.* July 28 - Lights of New York is released by Warner Brothers. It is the first "100% Talkie" feature film, in that dialog is spoken throughout the film...
  
  )

Births

• January 17 - Eartha Kitt
  Eartha Kitt
  Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
  
  , actress, singer (d. 2008)
• February 7 - Juliette Greco
  Juliette Gréco
  Juliette Gréco, — also Michelle – is a French actress and popular chanson singer.-Early life and family:Juliette Gréco was born in Montpellier to a Corsican father and a mother who became active in the Résistance, in the Hérault département of southern France. She was raised by her maternal...
  
   singer, actress
• February 20 - Sidney Poitier
  Sidney Poitier
  Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...
  
  , actor
• March 1 - Harry Belafonte
  Harry Belafonte
  Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
  
   actor, singer
• March 20 - Cairbre (also known as Leo), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
  
  's lion mascot, born in Dublin Zoo
  Dublin Zoo
  Dublin Zoo , in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland is the largest zoo in Ireland and one of Dublin's most popular attractions. Opened in 1831, the zoo describes its role as conservation, study, and education...
  
  
• April 13- Maurice Ronet
  Maurice Ronet
  Maurice Ronet was a French film actor, director and writer.-Biography:Maurice Ronet was born Maurice Julien Marie Robinet in Nice, Alpes Maritimes, the only child of professional stage actors Émile Robinet and Gilberte Dubreuil. He made his stage debut in 1941, along side his parents, in Sacha...
  
   actor, director, writer
• May 13 - Herbert Ross
  Herbert Ross
  Herbert Ross was an American film director, producer, choreographer and actor.-Early life and career:Born Herbert David Ross in Brooklyn, New York, he made his stage debut as Third Witch with a touring company of Macbeth in 1942...
  
  , director (d. 2001)
• June 23 - Bob Fosse
  Bob Fosse
  Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
  
  , director (d. 1987)
• July 4 - Gina Lollobrigida
  Gina Lollobrigida
  Gina Lollobrigida is an Italian actress, photojournalist and sculptress. She was one of the most popular European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was also an iconic sex symbol of the 1950s. Today, she remains an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the...
  
  , actress
• July 6 - Janet Leigh
  Janet Leigh
  Janet Leigh , born Jeanette Helen Morrison, was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis....
  
  , actress (d. 2004
  2004 in film
  The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
  
  )
• September 16 - Peter Falk
  Peter Falk
  Peter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo...
  
  , actor (d. 2011
  2011 in film
  The year 2011 is notable for containing the release of the most film sequels in a single year, at 27 sequels. The following tables list films that are in production or have completed production and will be released in the United States and Canada at some point in 2011.- Highest-grossing films :...
  
  )
• September 19 - Rosemary Harris
  Rosemary Harris
  Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...
  
  , actress
• October 14 - Roger Moore
  Roger Moore
  Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
  
  , actor
• October 18 - George C. Scott
  George C. Scott
  George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
  
  , film and stage actor (d. 1999)
• October 31 - Lee Grant
  Lee Grant
  Lee Grant is an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Carp in the...
  
  , actress
• November 14 - McLean Stevenson
  McLean Stevenson
  Edgar McLean Stevenson, Jr. , better known as McLean Stevenson, was an American actor most recognized for his role as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on the TV series M*A*S*H...
  
  , American actor (d. February 15, 1996)
• November 20 - Estelle Parsons
  Estelle Parsons
  Estelle Margaret Parsons is an American theatre, film and television actress and occasional theatrical director.After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program Today and made her stage debut in 1961...
  
  , American actress

Deaths

• January 13 - Arnold Daly
  Arnold Daly
  Arnold Daly was an American actor, playwright and producer. He was the father of actress and Algonquin Rountable personality Blyth Daly....
  
  , stage & film actor (b. 1875)
• March 17 - Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack , was an American film actor during the silent film era. He appeared in 17 films between 1916 and 1927. Born Charles Emmett McNerney in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mack was a protégé of pioneering film director D. W...
  
  , actor (b. 1900)
• April 25 - Earle Williams
  Earle Williams
  Earle Williams was a silent film star....
  
  , American silent screen actor (b. 1880)
• May 7 - Bruce McRae
  Bruce McRae
  Bruce McRae Bruce McRae Bruce McRae (January 15, 1867, India - May 7, 1927 City Island, New York, was an American stage and early silent film actor.Born in India in 1867 he entered acting as a stage actor. He was the first actor to play Dr. Watson to William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes. For several...
  
  , stage & screen actor (b. 1867)
• May 16 - Sam Bernard
  Sam Bernard
  Sam Bernard was a renowned stage, film and vaudeville star. He also performed comic opera and burlesque....
  
  , stage & screen actor, died aboard SS Columbus
  SS Columbus (1924)
  The Columbus, laid down before the start of World War I, was originally to be named Hindenburg. However, her then-sister, originally named Columbus, was handed over to the White Star Line after the war as part of reparations in 1920. The Allies allowed the Norddeutscher Lloyd , her owners, to keep...
  
   Atlantic Ocean (b. 1863
• June 3 - Einar Hanson
  Einar Hanson
  Einar Hanson , also known as Einar Hansen, was a Swedish silent film motion-picture actor.-Career:...
  
  , Swedish actor (b. 1897)
• June 4
  • Robert McKim
    Robert McKim (actor)
    Robert McKim was an American actor of the silent era. He appeared in 99 films between 1915 and 1927. He is best remembered for playing the arch villain opposite Douglas Fairbanks's Zorro in The Mark of Zorro in 1920. McKim also starred with Lon Chaney in the 1923 silent version of All The Brothers...
    
    , actor (the villain in Fairbanks' "Mark of Zorro") (b. 1886)
  • Julia Hurley, veteran actress, played Mr. Hyde's landlady in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
    Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 film)
    Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1920 horror silent film, produced by Famous Players-Lasky and released through Paramount/Artcraft. The film is based upon Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and starring actor John Barrymore.The film was directed by John S....
    
     (b. 1848)
• July 26 - June Mathis
  June Mathis
  June Mathis was an American screenwriter and one of the highest paid Hollywood executives in the 1920s. Mathis was the first female executive for Metro/MGM and at only 35, she was the highest paid executive in Hollywood. In 1926 she was voted the third most influential woman in Hollywood, behind...
  
  , screen writer highest paid woman in Hollywood (b. 1889)
• September 5 - Marcus Loew
  Marcus Loew
  Marcus Loew was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .-Biography:...
  
  , theater chain executive & founder of Loews Theaters (b. 1870)
• October 5 - Sam Warner
  Sam Warner
  Samuel Louis "Sam" Warner was an American film producer who was the co-founder and chief executive officer of Warner Bros. Studios. He established the studio along with his brothers Harry, Albert, and Jack Warner. Sam Warner is credited with procuring the technology that enabled Warner Bros...
  
  , co-founder of Warner Brothers studios (b. 1887)
• October 13 - Hughie Mack
  Hughie Mack
  Hughie Mack was an American actor of the silent era. He appeared in 195 films between 1910 and 1928.He was born in Brooklyn, New York and died in Santa Monica, California.-Selected filmography:...
  
  , rotund American silent film actor (b. 1884)
• November 4 - Valli Valli
  Valli Valli
  Valli Valli, born Valli Knust , was a musical comedy actress and silent film performer born in Berlin, Germany. She was descended from an old English family and lived most of her life in England. Her brother was a captain in the Royal Fusiliers, who fought for the British in France in World War I...
  
  , stage & film actress (b. 1882)
• December 6 - Kate Toncray
  Kate Toncray
  Kate Toncray was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 178 films between 1905 and 1925. She was born in St...
  
  , character actress (b. 1867)
• December 15 - Romaine Fielding
  Romaine Fielding
  Romaine Fielding , was an American actor, screenwriter and film director.Born William Grant Blandin in Riceville, Iowa, he worked and acted in live theatre for a number of years until 1911 when he turned to acting, writing and directing silent films for Philadelphia-based Lubin Studios...
  
  , silent film actor and director (b. 1868)

Film Debuts

• Robert Armstrong
  Robert Armstrong (actor)
  Robert Armstrong was an American film actor best remembered for his role as Carl Denham in the 1933 version of King Kong by RKO Pictures. He uttered the famous exit quote, "'Twas beauty killed the beast," at the film's end...
  
  
• Claudette Colbert
  Claudette Colbert
  Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...
  
  
• Mickey Rooney
  Mickey Rooney
  Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
  
  
• Barbara Stanwyck
  Barbara Stanwyck
  Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
  
  
• Lupe Vélez
  Lupe Vélez
  Lupe Vélez was a Mexican film actress. Vélez began her career in Mexico as a dancer, before moving to the U.S. where she worked in vaudeville. She was seen by Fanny Brice who promoted her, and Vélez soon entered films, making her first appearance in 1924. By the end of the decade she had...
  
  
• Fred Zinneman, director and producer