List of years in film

This page indexes the individual year in film pages. Each year is annotated with its significant events.

• 19th century in film
• 20th century in film:
  • 1900s – 1910s – 1920s – 1930s – 1940s – 1950s – 1960s – 1970s – 1980s – 1990s
• 21st century in film:
  • 2000s – 2010s – 2020s

19th century in film

See also: 19th century in film

Before Muybridge's 1878 work, photo sequences were not recorded in real-time because light-sensitive emulsions needed a long exposure time. The sequences were basically made as time-lapse recordings. It is possible that people at the time actually viewed such photographs come to life with a phénakisticope or zoetrope (this certainly happened with Muybridge's work).

• 1826 – View from the Window at Le Gras, Nicéphore Niépce takes the oldest known extant photograph.

• 1833 – Since 1833 onwards, 'animated films' or rather animated effects began to be made with the use of phénakisticopes, zoetropes and praxinoscopes.
• 1865 – Revolving, self-portrait by French photographer Nadar. Around 1865 he produced this series of self-portraits consisting of 12 frames showing different angles of him sitting still in a chair. Except for a smile in 1 frame, not even a fold in his jacket or a single hair seems to change between the different angles. This could be regarded as a predecessor to the chronophotography which Marey and Muybridge started to experiment with more than 10 years later. As the sequence revolves around space rather than time it is even more related to the bullet-time effect popularized by The Matrix about 135 years later. There's no clue if more than one camera was used in the shoot, but it's certainly well-executed.

1870s

See also: 1870s in film

• 1874 – Passage de Vénus, first precedent of a film. On December 9, 1874, french astronomer Pierre Janssen and Brazilian engineer Francisco Antônio de Almeida using Janssen's 'photographic revolver' photograph the transit of the planet Venus across the Sun. They were purportedly taken in Japan. It is the oldest film on IMDb.
• 1878 –
  • The Horse in Motion, British photographer Eadweard Muybridge take a series of "automatic electro-photographs" depicting the movement of a horse. Muybridge shot the photographs in June 1878. An additional card reprinted the single image of the horse "Occident" trotting at high speed, which had previously been published by Muybridge in 1877. The most famous of these electro-photographs is "Sallie Gardner" taken on June 19, 1878. Railroad tycoon Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to settle the questions of whether a galloping horse ever had all four of its feet off the ground. Muybridge's photos showed the horse with all four feet off the ground. Muybridge went on a lecture tour showing his photographs on a moving-image device he called the zoopraxiscope.
  • Le singe musicien, first animated movie using the praxinoscope.

1880s

See also: 1880s in film

• 1885 – French inventors Auguste Lumiere and Louis Lumiere film "Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory", which is considered the first motion picture.
• 1885 – American inventors George Eastman and Hannibal Goodwin each invent a sensitized celluloid base roll photographic film to replace the glass plates then in use; L'homme Machine, directed by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey. The oldest black and white animated known film.
• 1886 – Alice Guy Blache creates "La Fee aux Chou", also knowns as "the Fairy of the Cabbages", in France. Although many other films are seen as first moments of 'movie magic,' this film stands out as the first.
• 1886 – Louis Le Prince is granted an American dual-patent on a 16-lens device that combines a motion picture camera with a projector.
• 1887 – Man Walking Around a Corner, directed by French inventor Louis Le Prince. The oldest known film. Although according to David Wilkinson's 2015 documentary The First Film it's not film, but a series of photographs, 16 in all, each taken from one of the lens from Le Prince's camera. Pictures from the film were sent in a letter dated 18 August 1887 to his wife. Le Prince went on to develop the one lens camera and on the 14th October 1888 he finally made the world's first moving image, Roundhay Garden Scene.
• 1888 – Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving film by French inventor Louis Le Prince, is shot in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, through a groundbreaking 20 frames per second. Others short films made at the same time were Accordion Player and Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge.
• 1889 – Eastman Kodak is the first company to begin commercial production of film on a flexible transparent base, celluloid.

1890s

• 1891 – Dickson Greeting; Men Boxing; Newark Athlete
• 1892 – Le Clown et ses chiens; Pauvre Pierrot; Un bon bock, first projected animated films released by Émile Reynaud.
• 1893 – Blacksmiths, the first film shown publicly on the Kinetoscope, a system given to Edison; Thomas Edison creates "America's First Film Studio", Black Maria.
• 1894 –
  • Carmencita, according to film historian Charles Musser, directed and produced by William K.L. Dickson, the Scottish inventor credited with the invention of the motion picture camera under the employ of Thomas Edison was the first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and may have been the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States.
  • The Dickson Experimental Sound Film made by William Dickson in late 1894 or early 1895 is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto-sound-film system developed by Dickson and Thomas Edison.
• 1895 – In Paris, France on December 28, 1895, the Lumière brothers screen ten films at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris making the first commercial public screening ever made, marked traditionally as the birth date of the film; Gaumont Film Company, the oldest ever film studio, is founded by inventor Léon Gaumont.
• 1896 – L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, one of the six more short films released by the Lumière brothers; Pathé-Frères is founded. Le Manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle) is a French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès which depicts a pantomimed sketch in the style of a theatrical comic fantasy.
• 1897 – Vitagraph is founded in New York City.
• 1898 –The Astronomer's Dream; The Cavalier's Dream; Photographing a Ghost; Santa Claus;
• 1898 – Shinin No Sosei and Bake Jizo by Ejiro Hatta, some of the first films in Japan, which were ghost stories. Salvador Toscano creates the film, "Don Juan Tenorio", which is considered one of the first films in Mexico and perhaps the first fictional film in Mexico, as South America as a continent focuses on documentary in early film history.
• 1898 – Hiralal Sen is inspired and films the "Flower of Persia" play.
• 1899 – The Dreyfus Affair and Cendrillon (first screen adaptation of the traditional fairy tale Cinderella) released by Georges Méliès; earliest known use of a colour motion picture film footage by Edward Raymond Turner.

1900s

See also: 1900s in film

• 1900 – Sherlock Holmes Baffled, Joan of Arc
• 1901 – Blue Beard, Star Theatre, Stop Thief!, Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost
• 1902 – A Trip to the Moon, The Coronation of Edward VII
• 1903 – The Great Train Robbery, The Infernal Cauldron, Life of an American Fireman, Electrocuting an Elephant, The Kingdom of the Fairies
• 1904 – The Impossible Voyage; Titanus is founded
• 1905 – Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom
• 1906 – The Story of the Kelly Gang, The Merry Frolics of Satan, The '?' Motorist, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces; Nordisk Film is founded
• 1907 – That Fatal Sneeze, Ben-Hur, The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon, L'Enfant prodigue
• 1908 – Fantasmagorie, The Taming of the Shrew, The Thieving Hand, The Assassination of the Duke of Guise, The Adventures of Dollie; Pathé News invents the newsreel.
• 1909 – The Country Doctor, A Corner in Wheat, Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy, Les Misérables; 35 mm film becomes a filmmaking standard across the world; first public screening of Kinemacolor.

1910s

See also: 1910s in film

• 1910 – Frankenstein, In Old California, In the Border States, Jean the Match-Maker, White Fawn's Devotion
• 1911 – L'Inferno, Baron Munchausen's Dream, Defence of Sevastopol, The Lonedale Operator
• 1912 – The Cameraman's Revenge, Falling Leaves, Independenţa României, The Musketeers of Pig Alley, Richard III; Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures, Hollywood's two oldest major film studios, are founded; the British Board of Film Classification is established.
• 1913 – The Bangville Police, Fantômas, Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life, Raja Harishchandra, The Student Of Prague; invention of the film trailer
• 1914 – The Perils of Pauline, Tillie's Punctured Romance, Judith of Bethulia, Gertie the Dinosaur
• 1915 – The Birth of a Nation, The Tramp, Les Vampires, The Cheat
• 1916 – Intolerance, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Judex; invention of Technicolor.
• 1917 – Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, A Man There Was, The Immigrant
• 1918 – The Outlaw and His Wife, Stella Maris, Mickey, Shifting Sands, Shoulder Arms
• 1919 – Blind Husbands, Broken Blossoms, True Heart Susie, Dalagang Bukid, Male and Female, Wagon Tracks; United Artists is founded.

1920s

See also: 1920s in film

• 1920 – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Way Down East, The Penalty, The Mark of Zorro, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Golem: How He Came into the World, Within Our Gates
• 1921 – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Kid, The Phantom Carriage, Fool's Paradise, The Sheik, The Mechanical Man , Destiny, The Three Musketeers
• 1922 – Nosferatu, Foolish Wives, The Little Rascals, Blood and Sand, Nanook of the North, Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler; Motion Picture Association of America is established.
• 1923 – Safety Last!, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Ten Commandments; Warner Bros. Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures are founded; 16 mm film introduced.
• 1924 – The Thief of Bagdad, Greed, The Hands Of Orlac, Sherlock Jr., The Last Laugh, He Who Gets Slapped, Die Nibelungen; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures are founded
• 1925 – The Gold Rush, The Battleship Potemkin, The Big Parade, The Phantom of the Opera, Ben-Hur, The Lost World, The Pleasure Garden
• 1926 – The General, Don Juan, The Black Pirate, Faust
• 1927 – The Jazz Singer, Metropolis, Wings, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Napoléon, The King of Kings
• 1928 – The Man Who Laughs, Mickey Mouse, Lights of New York, The Circus, The Singing Fool, In Old Arizona; RKO Pictures is founded
• 1929 – Blackmail, Un Chien Andalou, Pandora's Box, Man with a Movie Camera, The Broadway Melody, Disraeli, The Virginian; 1st Academy Awards

1930s

See also: 1930s in film

• 1930 – Looney Tunes, King of Jazz, All Quiet on the Western Front, Earth, Journey's End, The Blue Angel, The Bat Whispers, Murder!, Animal Crackers, Hell's Angels, The Big House, The Big Trail
• 1931 – Frankenstein, Dracula, The Champ, The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, Cimarron, M, City Lights, The Front Page, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• 1932 – Shanghai Express, Scarface, Tarzan the Ape Man, The Mummy, Freaks, The Music Box, Trouble in Paradise, The Sign of the Cross, Grand Hotel; 8mm film introduced.
• 1933 – King Kong, Gold Diggers of 1933, The Invisible Man, 42nd Street, Duck Soup, Sons of the Desert, She Done Him Wrong
• 1934 – L'Atalante, It Happened One Night, The Thin Man, Cleopatra, The Goddess, Imitation of Life, Manhattan Melodrama, The Black Cat, Bright Eyes
• 1935 – A Night at the Opera, Bride of Frankenstein, The 39 Steps, Top Hat, Mutiny on the Bounty; 20th Century Fox and The Rank Organisation are founded
• 1936 – Modern Times, Swing Time, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Flash Gordon, My Man Godfrey, The Great Ziegfeld, Come and Get It, Romeo and Juliet, Camille
• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Life of Émile Zola, La Grande Illusion, Pépé le Moko, The Prisoner of Zenda, Lost Horizon
• 1938 – Bringing Up Baby, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Alexander Nevsky, Jezebel, A Christmas Carol, Boys Town, Angels with Dirty Faces
• 1939 – Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Rules of the Game, Sherlock Holmes, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Of Mice and Men, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach

1940s

See also: 1940s in film

• 1940 – His Girl Friday, The Great Dictator, Rebecca, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Tom and Jerry, The Grapes of Wrath, The Philadelphia Story, Road to... series
• 1941 – Citizen Kane, The Lady Eve, Sergeant York, Dumbo, How Green Was My Valley, The Maltese Falcon, The Wolf Man
• 1942 – Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, The Magnificent Ambersons, To Be or Not to Be, Bambi, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Cat People
• 1943 – The Song of Bernadette, Heaven Can Wait, Phantom of the Opera, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Ox-Bow Incident
• 1944 – Going My Way, Double Indemnity, Meet Me in St. Louis, Ivan the Terrible, Laura, To Have and Have Not, Murder, My Sweet; 1st Golden Globe Awards
• 1945 – Brief Encounter, Children of Paradise, Fallen Angel, Leave Her to Heaven, The Lost Weekend, The Naughty Nineties, Anchors Aweigh, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Spellbound, Along Came Jones
• 1946 – It's a Wonderful Life, Notorious, My Darling Clementine, Great Expectations, The Best Years of Our Lives, Song of the South, The Big Sleep, Blue Skies; First Cannes Film Festival
• 1947 – Miracle on 34th Street, Black Narcissus, The Lady from Shanghai, Monsieur Verdoux, Out of the Past, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, Odd Man Out, Life with Father
• 1948 – Bicycle Thieves, The Red Shoes, Red River, Hamlet, The Three Musketeers; 1st British Academy Film Awards
• 1949 – The Third Man, Late Spring, All the King's Men, White Heat, Whisky Galore!, Stray Dog, The Heiress

1950s

See also: 1950s in film

• 1950 – Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, Cinderella, Rashomon, Father of the Bride
• 1951 – A Streetcar Named Desire, An American in Paris, The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Place in the Sun
• 1952 – Singin' in the Rain, High Noon, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Quiet Man, Limelight, This Is Cinerama, The Greatest Show on Earth; first 3D films
• 1953 – Peter Pan, Tokyo Story, From Here to Eternity, Shane, Dangerous When Wet, The War of the Worlds, Ugetsu, The Earrings of Madame de..., Salome, Roman Holiday, The Band Wagon, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; first use of CinemaScope; British cinema advertisement company Pearl & Dean is founded.
• 1954 – Rear Window, Seven Samurai, Dial M for Murder, White Christmas, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, Sansho the Bailiff, A Star Is Born, On the Waterfront
• 1955 – Rebel Without a Cause, The Night of the Hunter, To Catch a Thief, The Seven Year Itch, Marty, Ordet, The Apu Trilogy, All That Heaven Allows, Smiles of a Summer Night, Lady and the Tramp, Oklahoma!
• 1956 – The Ten Commandments, High Society, Carousel, The King and I, The Silent World, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Around the World in 80 Days
• 1957 – The Bridge on the River Kwai, 12 Angry Men, Sweet Smell of Success, The Seventh Seal, Touch of Evil, Jailhouse Rock, Let's All Go to the Lobby, Wild Strawberries, Paths of Glory, Throne of Blood
• 1958 – Vertigo, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, Gigi, South Pacific, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Carry On, Jalsaghar, The Fly
• 1959 – Ben-Hur, Some Like It Hot, North by Northwest, Anatomy of a Murder, Rio Bravo, Pickpocket, Pillow Talk

1960s

See also: 1960s in film

• 1960 – Psycho, Spartacus, Breathless, The Apartment, Exodus, The Magnificent Seven, La Dolce Vita, L'Avventura
• 1961 – West Side Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Divorce, Italian Style, Judgment at Nuremberg, Yojimbo, One Hundred and One Dalmatians Chronicle of a Summer
• 1962 – Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Ivan's Childhood, The Manchurian Candidate, Lolita, La Jetée, Sundays and Cybele
• 1963 – The Birds, The Great Escape, Tom Jones, Hud, Cleopatra, Charade, 8½, Not on Your Life, Lilies in the Field, The Haunting, How the West Was Won, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Jason and the Argonauts, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
• 1964 – Mary Poppins, A Hard Day's Night, My Fair Lady, The Pink Panther cartoon series, Goldfinger, Dr. Strangelove, Dollars Trilogy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• 1965 – The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhivago, Repulsion
• 1966 – Persona, Blowup, Fantastic Voyage, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Au Hasard Balthazar, The Battle of Algiers, A Man for All Seasons, Winnie the Pooh, Born Free, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
• 1967 – Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke, In the Heat of the Night, The Jungle Book, Dont Look Back, The Dirty Dozen
• 1968 – 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rosemary's Baby, Planet of the Apes, Once Upon a Time in the West, Night of the Living Dead, Funny Girl
• 1969 – Midnight Cowboy, True Grit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider, The Wild Bunch, Z, The Italian Job

1970s

See also: 1970s in film

• 1970 – Love Story, The Conformist, Performance, Patton, M*A*S*H, Woodstock, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Five Easy Pieces, Airport, Let It Be; first IMAX films
• 1971 – The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Dirty Harry, Get Carter, The Last Picture Show, Fiddler on the Roof, Harold and Maude, Straw Dogs
• 1972 – The Godfather, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Poseidon Adventure, Cries and Whispers, Those People of the Nile, Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Solaris, Last Tango in Paris, Cabaret, Napoleon and Samantha, Deep Throat, What's Up, Doc?
• 1973 – The Exorcist, Enter the Dragon, Amarcord, The Sting, American Graffiti, Paper Moon, Mean Streets, The Wicker Man, Distant Thunder, Day for Night, Papillon
• 1974 – A Woman Under the Influence, The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Phantom of the Paradise, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Benji, The Conversation, Black Christmas, The Towering Inferno
• 1975 – Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Passenger, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Nashville; videocassette recorders appear on mass markets.
• 1976 – Taxi Driver, Rocky, Network, Carrie, All the President's Men, Logan's Run
• 1977 – Star Wars (original trilogy), Annie Hall, Saturday Night Fever, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, A Bridge Too Far, Eraserhead, Providence
• 1978 – Halloween, The Deer Hunter, Dawn of the Dead, Superman, Grease, Midnight Express, Days of Heaven, Up in Smoke, National Lampoon's Animal House
• 1979 – Apocalypse Now, Alien, Mad Max, Kramer vs. Kramer, Monty Python's Life of Brian

1980s

See also: 1980s in film

• 1980 – The Shining, Raging Bull, Airplane!, Caddyshack, Ordinary People, Kagemusha, The Blues Brothers
• 1981 – Raiders of the Lost Ark (first Indiana Jones film), Chariots of Fire, Reds, The Evil Dead, On Golden Pond, Pennies from Heaven, Das Boot, Scanners, Time Bandits, Clash of the Titans, Escape from New York, An American Werewolf in London
• 1982 – Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, Tron, Sophie's Choice, Tootsie, Fanny and Alexander, Fitzcarraldo, Gandhi, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, First Blood, 48 Hrs., The Dark Crystal, An Officer and a Gentleman
• 1983 – Michael Jackson's Thriller, Terms of Endearment, Risky Business, Sans Soleil, L'Argent, The King of Comedy, The Right Stuff, Strange Brew, National Lampoon's Vacation, Scarface, Nostalghia, Trading Places, A Christmas Story; THX sound system is developed.
• 1984 – This Is Spinal Tap, Amadeus, The Terminator, Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, Once Upon a Time in America, Paris, Texas, Stop Making Sense, Gremlins, Footloose, Beverly Hills Cop, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The NeverEnding Story
• 1985 – Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Out of Africa, The Color Purple, Brazil, Shoah, Ran, Come and See, The Goonies, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, A Room with a View
• 1986 – Blue Velvet, The Sacrifice, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Aliens, Platoon, Hannah and Her Sisters, Top Gun, Stand By Me, Crocodile Dundee, Short Circuit, The Fly
• 1987 – Fatal Attraction, The Untouchables, The Princess Bride, Dirty Dancing, Full Metal Jacket, Wings of Desire, The Dead, RoboCop, Evil Dead II, The Last Emperor, Raising Arizona, Wall Street, The Lost Boys, Hellraiser, Predator, Au revoir les enfants, Good Morning, Vietnam, Broadcast News
• 1988 – Rain Man, Cinema Paradiso, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Die Hard, Beetlejuice, My Neighbor Totoro, Akira, The Accused, Big, Days of Terror, The Bear, The Last Temptation of Christ, Child's Play, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
• 1989 – Do the Right Thing, Driving Miss Daisy, Batman, A Fish Called Wanda, The Abyss, When Harry Met Sally..., The Little Mermaid, Say Anything..., Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, Born on the Fourth of July; first publication of Empire

1990s

See also: 1990s in film

• 1990 – Home Alone, Ghost, Goodfellas, Close-Up, Dances with Wolves, Edward Scissorhands, Wild at Heart, Total Recall, Misery, Pretty Woman, Journey of Hope, The Hunt for Red October
• 1991 – The Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Beauty and the Beast, JFK, Boyz n the Hood, Thelma & Louise, A Brighter Summer Day, Barton Fink, The Addams Family
• 1992 – Unforgiven, Reservoir Dogs, Basic Instinct, Aladdin, A Few Good Men, The Player, The Crying Game, Wayne's World, Indochine, Candyman, A League of Their Own
• 1993 – Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, The Piano, Groundhog Day, In the Name of the Father, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Philadelphia, Three Colours trilogy, True Romance, Dazed and Confused
• 1994 – Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, The Lion King, Legends of the Fall, Clerks, Interview with the Vampire, Speed, True Lies, Léon: The Professional, Il Postino: The Postman, The Mask, Through the Olive Trees, Four Weddings and a Funeral
• 1995 – Braveheart, Se7en, Apollo 13, Toy Story, The Usual Suspects, Heat, 12 Monkeys, Clueless, Babe, Leaving Las Vegas, Before trilogy, Sense and Sensibility; first DVDs released.
• 1996 – Fargo, Flirting with Disaster, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Independence Day, Jerry Maguire, Mission: Impossible, Scream, That Thing You Do!, Shine, Shall We Dance?
• 1997 – Titanic, Life is Beautiful, Good Will Hunting, Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown, L.A. Confidential, Taste of Cherry, Gattaca, Hana-bi, Men in Black, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Full Monty, Princess Mononoke, Perfect Blue, The Fifth Element, I Know What You Did Last Summer
• 1998 – Saving Private Ryan, American History X, The Thin Red Line, Shakespeare in Love, The Big Lebowski, Buffalo '66, Bulworth, The Truman Show, The Wedding Singer, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Run Lola Run, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, There's Something About Mary
• 1999 – American Beauty, The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, Fight Club, Magnolia, Notting Hill, The Blair Witch Project, The Iron Giant, The Green Mile, Election, Being John Malkovich

2000s

See also: 2000s in film

• 2000 – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, In the Mood for Love, Gladiator, Cast Away, Platform, Memento, Erin Brockovich, Billy Elliot, Almost Famous, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, High Fidelity, Battle Royale, X-Men, Unbreakable, American Psycho, Before Night Falls, Requiem for a Dream; first digital cinema in Europe by Phillippe Binant.
• 2001 – The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Shrek, A Beautiful Mind, The Royal Tenenbaums, Spirited Away, Mulholland Drive, Donnie Darko, The Fast & the Furious, Moulin Rouge!, Zoolander, Training Day, Black Hawk Down, Monster's Ball, Amélie, Bridget Jones's Diary
• 2002 – City of God, Talk to Her, Minority Report, The Pianist, Russian Ark, Spider-Man, Chicago, 8 Mile, The Hours, The Quiet American, Gangs of New York, Bowling for Columbine, About a Boy, Frida, 28 Days Later, Bend It Like Beckham, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Punch-Drunk Love, The Ring, Better Luck Tomorrow, Catch Me If You Can, Adaptation
• 2003 – Oldboy, Kill Bill, Lost in Translation, Elephant, Monster, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Finding Nemo, Love Actually, Elf, Cold Mountain, The Room, School of Rock, Once Upon a Time in Mexico
• 2004 – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Million Dollar Baby, The Incredibles, The Passion of the Christ, Sideways, Hotel Rwanda, Downfall, Friday Night Lights, Ray, Saw, Shaun of the Dead, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Mean Girls, Howl’s Moving Castle, Napoleon Dynamite; Anti-piracy campaign "Piracy. It's a crime", which features the first line You Wouldn't Steal a Car, first advertised.
• 2005 – Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight trilogy, [A History of Violence]], Pride & Prejudice, Walk the Line, March of the Penguins, Munich, Capote, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Good Night, and Good Luck
• 2006 – Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, The Departed, Dreamgirls, The Lives of Others, The Prestige, Happy Feet, The Queen, Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, The Pursuit of Happyness, An Incovenient Truth, The Last King of Scotland, Babel, United 93; First Blu-rays released
• 2007 – 300, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, I Am Legend, Ratatouille, Into the Wild, Juno, Atonement, Persepolis, Once, La Vie En Rose
• 2008 – Iron Man (starting off the Marvel Cinematic Universe), WALL-E, Slumdog Millionaire, Mamma Mia!, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, Milk, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Cloverfield, Ip Man, Waltz with Bashir, In Bruges, Man on Wire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• 2009 – Avatar, Up, A Serious Man, District 9, The Hurt Locker, The Hangover, Coraline, Precious, An Education, In the Loop

2010s

See also: 2010s in film

• 2010 – The King's Speech, Inception, Black Swan, The Social Network, How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, 127 Hours, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• 2011 – The Artist, Drive, The Intouchables, Hugo, A Separation, The Tree of Life, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Bridesmaids, Moneyball, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Help, The Cabin in the Woods
• 2012 – Life of Pi, Argo, Lincoln, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, The Avengers, Silver Linings Playbook, The Hunger Games, Ted, Pitch Perfect, Magic Mike, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Zero Dark Thirty
• 2013 – The Wolf of Wall Street, Gravity, Frozen, 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club, Inside Llewyn Davis, Her, The Conjuring, Pacific Rim
• 2014 – Interstellar, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Birdman, Whiplash, Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Babadook, Paddington, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lego Movie, John Wick, The Theory of Everything
• 2015 – Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Inside Out, The Martian, Amy, Ex Machina
• 2016 – La La Land, Deadpool, Your Name, Moana, Moonlight, Train To Busan
• 2017 – The Shape of Water, Wonder Woman, Get Out, It, Dunkirk, Logan, The Disaster Artist, Baby Driver, Paddington 2, The Silent Child, In a Heartbeat, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour; The Harvey Weinstein scandal begins.
• 2018 – Bohemian Rhapsody, Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man: The Spider-Verse trilogy, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Black Panther, Hereditary, Free Solo
• 2019 – Joker, 1917, Avengers: Endgame, Parasite, Marriage Story, Uncut Gems, Knives Out

2020s

See also: 2020s in film

• 2020 – Nomadland, Minari, The Eight Hundred, Hamilton, Mank, The Invisible Man, Another Round, Promising Young Woman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Half of It; due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of films shut down production, or are either removed from their originally scheduled releases and moved to new release dates or digital releases.
• 2021 – Dune, The Power of the Dog, Encanto, Judas and the Black Messiah, Belfast, Licorice Pizza, Don't Look Up, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Flee, CODA, The White Tiger, Tick, Tick... Boom!, The Lost Daughter; American movie theatre chain AMC Theatres launches its movie theatre commercial starring actress Nicole Kidman
• 2022 – Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, RRR, Elvis, Aftersun, The Banshees of Inisherin, All Quiet on the Western Front, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
• 2023 – Barbie, Oppenheimer, Poor Things, M3GAN, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Maestro, The Boy and the Heron, Once Upon a Studio, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.; In Hollywood, the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA begin a series of strikes of actors and writers for six months separately, affecting the film and television industries
• 2024 – Civil War

See also

• List of cinematic firsts

References

Sources

• The Silent Cinema Reader edited by Lee Grieveson and Peter Kramer
• Movies of the 30s, edited by Jürgen Müller, Taschen
• The Magic of Méliès, documentary by Jacques Mény, special collector's edition DVD, Spain