- London, 3 January:
 Gainsborough Pictures bring the music-hall magic of comedian Will Hay to the screen in the comedy film Oh! Mr. Porter! Directed by Marcel Varnel, Hay plays a bungling station master sent to remote Northern Ireland, where gun-running with the Free State is rife. Sterling support comes from crazed Moore Marriott and, joining Hay for the first time, cheeky fat boy Graham Moffatt.
- Paris, 15 January: Abel Gance has been forced to accept the release of an entirely altered version of his film The Life and Loves of Beethoven. Despite the court decision allowing cuts to 55 sequences, the film has been given a highly favorable reception. Harry Baur is memorable as Beethoven.
 - New York, 22 January: Greta Garbo has given her most intensely moving performance as Dumas' consumptive courtesan in the movie Camille, which co-stars Robert Taylor, who made his first big impression in 1935 with Magnificent Obsession. In his piece in the New York Herald Tribune, writer Howard Barnes says, "With her fine intelligence and unerring instinct, she has made her characterization completely credible, while giving it an added poignancy that, to me, is utterly irresistible." Seeing Camille's death scene, it is hard to imagine the difficulty skilled director George Cukor had in shooting it. His leading lady required several takes, as she repeatedly burst into uncontrollable fits of nervous laughter the moment the cameras began to roll.
- Nice, 23 January:
 The Escuriel and the Rialto, who have been simultaneously showing Marcel Pagnol's César, the last part of his Marseilles trilogy, have netted their largest box-office takings since Ben-Hur -- a total of 315,000 francs. All of the 58 copies that Pagnol made of the film in his Marseilles laboratories are circulating thoughout Provençe, gaining huge success everywhere. The Trilogy, begun six years ago with Marius, was an adaptation of Pagnol's play, with no real thought to any sequel. But the popularity of the film, directed by Alexander Korda, encouraged the author to do a follow-up by transposing Fanny to the screen, directed by Marc Allégret. Pagnol decided to direct César himself, which is the only one of the films to have been written directly for the screen. This transformation of a single work into a diptych and then a triptych has been justified because Pagnol's characters are so alive, and the actors who embody them so brilliant, that the public demanded more of them. Who could forget Raimu as César, the crabby but loveable proprietor of the Marine Bar, whose son Marius (Pierre Fresnay) runs away to sea, leaving a pregnant Fanny (Orane Demazis). Poor Fanny then marries Panisse (Charpin), a kindly widower who then dies, leaving the way for reconcilliation all around. The three films are fictionalized portraits of Marseilles life described by a wonderful storyteller who creates pathos without sentimentality.
- Paris, 29 January:
 Jean Gabin and Mirelle Balin have been brought together again in Pépé-le-Moko, Julien Duvivier's new film. Gabin, who was seen recently in Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths and in Duvivier's La Belle équipe, is appearing in his 25th film in less than five years. He is now the highest paid actor in France, getting fees of 100,000 francs per film. With dialogue by Henri Jeanson, adapted from the novel by Roger D'Ashelbé, Pépé-le-Moko is an exotic tale set in Algiers. Gabin plays Pépé, a high-powered jewel thief and bank robber forced to flee from his beloved Paris and live in the Algerian Casbah as his only means of avoiding arrest. When he falls in love with a beautiful visiting Parisienne (Balin), he leaves the Casbah to seek her and is caught. Gabin, at his most attractively roguish, brilliantly portrays the quintessential loner in a film that teems with life, romance, suspense and humor. The studio-constructed Casbah, under Duvivier's expert direction, is beautifully lit and photographed (by Jules Kruger), with songs sung by Fréhel, who herself plays an old singer in the film. Pépé-le-Moko is the fourth motion picture on which Gabin and Duvivier have worked, and they obviously make a perfect team.
- France, 31 January: Jean Renoir has begun filming La Grande illusion in the town of Colmar's barracks. Pierre Fresnay has accepted to play the role of Captain de Boëldieu.
- Moscow, 2 February: The Mosfilm production company held a preview of The Last Night by the filmmaker Yuli Raizman.
- Paris, 8 February: The CGT has announced that Jean Renoir is to make a new film about the French Revolution. The project, already supported by the Union, Ciné-Liberté magazine and the Popular Front government, will be financed by a national subscription.
- Los Angeles, 4 March:
 The Great Ziegfeld, directed by Robert Z. Leonard was awarded the Best Film Oscar® and its female star, Luise Rainer, the Best Actress award. Frank Capra was named Best Director for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Paul Muni won the Best Actor Oscar® for The Story of Louis Pasteur. Supporting acting Oscars® were awarded for the first time: Walter Brennan won for Come and Get It, and Gale Sondergaard picked up a statuette for her performance in Anthony Adverse.
- Hollywood, 9 March: Captain Dreyfus' son, Pierre Dreyfus, has approved the script inspired by the Dreyfus case that Warner Bros. want to produce under the title The Life of Emile Zola. Paul Muni will play Zola, and William Dieterle will direct.
- London, 21 March: Alexander Korda has abandoned I, Claudius with only 20 minutes of expensive filming completed. Adapted from Robert Graves' bestseller, this major production, directed by Josef von Sternberg with Charles Laughton in the title role and Merle Oberon playing Messalina, has been dogged by both dispute and disaster. Sternberg's obsessive perfection upset Laughton, and his disregard for the budget alarmed Korda. To top it all, Miss Oberon has received serious injuries in a car crash.
 - London, 9 April: An intriguing collaboration between Zoltan Korda and celebrated documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty has produced a new star, Sabu, an enchanting 13-year-old Indian boy. Flaherty discovered Sabu, a former stable boy at the court of an Indian maharajah, and immediately cast him in the title role of Elephant Boy to play the native lad who claims he knows the location of a mythical elephant herd. The movie is loosely based on a Kipling story. Flaherty filmed the exterior scenes on location in India, and the interiors were shot by Zoltan Korda. Flaherty has given the film the required authenticity, the Kordas have provided the polish and Sabu has supplied bags of unforced charm. Director Zoltan Korda, the younger brother of Alexander Korda and also a product of the vanished Austro-Hungarian empire, has played an enthsiastic part in the celebration of the slowly vanishing British empire. His Sanders of the River, adapted from an Edgar Wallace story, cast Paul Robeson as an African chief, but was fashioned into a hymn for British imperialism that so upset the left-leaning black American star that he walked out of the London premiere when asked to make a speech. One suspects, however, that Korda is more interested in picturesque adventure than the politics of empire. But the more pliable Sabu proves the perfect centerpiece for Elephant Boy's romantic view of the British Raj. He was paid a living wage during filming, and was grateful for it, but fame and fortune beckon, and it seems unlikely that he will return to the maharajah's stable.
- Hollywood, 17 April: Release of Porky's Duck Hunt, a Tex Avery cartoon for Warner Bros.' "Looney Tunes," introducing the character of Daffy Duck.
- Moscow, 25 April:
 No one will ever see Sergei Eisenstein's first sound feature, Belzhin lug (Belzhin Meadow). Inspired by a Turgenev tale, it tells of the youthful organizer of a village Young Pioneer group who is killed by his own kulak father while guarding the collective harvest against sabotage. The film's troubled production began in the spring of 1935 but has been constantly interrupted by Eisenstein's ill health and orchestrated political interference. And drastic revisions in the screenplay to conform to the Soviet doctrine of Socialist Realism have proved unavailing. All work on the film was stopped in March, followed by a vicious attack on Eisenstein in Pravda. The director has now been forced to make a public admission of his "errors" and to disown his film. The state-sponsored campaign to humiliate Eisenstein has reached new and shameful heights.
 - Rome, 28 April: Italy has just opened its own "dream factory" called Cinecittà. It has been set up in the Roman countryside, 10 kilometres from the via Tuscolana, and covers 60 hectares filled with workshops, auditoria, laboratories, nine sound stages, and villas to accomodate the casts, crews and directors. Just like Hollywood, Cinecittà enjoys a mild climate and an exceptional quality of light. All of it took over a year to construct, making it the largest cinematographic complex in Europe. Mussolini laid the first stone at 9 a.m. on the morning of 29 January 1936. The studio has been created with the intention of breathing new life into Italian film production, because the cinema has been recently recognized as an important means of propaganda. A prestigious workplace was needed to entice the filmmakers, and Il Duce hopes it will become an international attraction, an ambitious Fascist Hollywood. Above the gates of the studio, an aggressive motto has been inscribed: "The Cinematograph is the Strongest Weapon."
- Paris, 11 May:
 Sacha Guitry's new film, Les Perles de la couronne (The Pearls of the Crown), is a trilingual story -- French, English and Italian -- about seven pearls given to a range of famous personages over the ages, and a number of contemporary people of different nationalities who search for them. As usual, Guitry has provided a film of style and wit, with most of the pearls in the dialogue, rathen than in the plot.
 - Los Angeles, 7 June: Jean Harlow has died in the hospital of a cerebral edema. She became seriously ill during the silming of Saratoga and had been treated for uremic poisoning. Some blame her mother, a Christian Scientist, for preventing Harlow from receiving the treatment that might have saved her. Novelist and screenwriter Anita Loos claims that Harlow was severely depressed by the end of her affair with William Powell.
- Paris, 8 June: Premier of Marc Allegret's Gribouille, with Michèle Morgan, Jean Worms, Raimu and Juliet Carette.
- Paris, 8 June:
 Jean Renoir's latest film, La Grande illusion, has just opened to a warm reception from the public and critics. After his The Lower Depths, Renoir has returned to a more personal subject and created an anti-war masterpiece in the process. The story was inspired by the adventures of General Pinsard, whom Renoir met in 1916 when they served in the same squadron. The director also added many of his own memories of the war. For him, "the Frenchmen in the film are good Frenchmen, and the Germans are good Germans. It is not possible for me to take the side of any of my characters." A wonderful cast has been assmebled to play these characters: Jean Gabin, Marcel Dalio and Pierre Fresnay are three French prisoners-of-war, and Erich von Stroheim is the sympathetic German commandant. Stroheim had been leading a hand-to-mouth existence in Hollywood since the early 1930s. In 1935, he cabled desperately to Sergei Eisenstein: "Can you get me a job in Moscow?" Shortly thereafter, Renoir brought him to France to play the prison commandant in La Grande illusion, and Stroheim has since made Paris his headquarters, starring in French films and occasionally returning to Hollywood.
- Hollywood, 30 June: Rita Cansino, who married the millionaire Edward Judson just three months ago, has adopted the screen name Rita Hayworth during the shooting of her 13th film Criminals of the Air.
- Hollywood, 30 June: Actor Ronald Reagan has signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros. for $200 per week.
- Peking, 24 July:
 A new Chinese film, Malu tianshi (Street Angel), is a highly original work, even if it's been influenced by Frank Borzage's 1928 Hollywood drama of the same title. Its 28-year-old director, Mu-jih Yuan, had a distinguished career on stage before entering films as an actor and writer. The movie captures the atmosphere of one of Shanghai's poorest areas, where a young man is in a chaste affair with a woman pressed into prostitution. The tragi-comic film is firmly rooted in reality, and explicit in its criticism of Chinese society.
- Prague, 30 July: Release of Svet patri nam, by Martin Fric. The film appeals for a mobilization against Nazism.
- New York, 22 August: Alfred Hitchcock has arrived on board the Queen Mary. According to news reports, he is on holiday in the United States.
- Munich, 1 September: Jacques Feyder is undertaking the filming of Les Gens du voyage (Wanderers) for Tobis, with Françoise Rosay and André Brulé.
 - Paris, 7 September: The scenario of Julien Duvivier's new film, Un Carnet de bal (Dance Card), focuses on a rather original idea. A wealthy, middle-aged widow (Marie Bell) finds an old dance card dating back to her sixteenth year, and decides to find out what has happened to the men whose names are on it. She discovers an epileptic doctor (Pierre Blanchar), a monk (Harry Baur), a hairdresser (Fernandel), a crooked nightclub owner (Louis Jouvet), a skiing instructor (Pierre Richard-Willm) and a small-town mayor (Raimu). Her quest reveals the indifference and pettiness of the world, and she finds her existence meaningless. However, when she adopts an orphan boy, her life takes on new meaning. The optimistic ending dies not efface the pessimism that precedes it. This elegant film allows a galaxy of French stars to do short turns, doubtless contributing to its great success.
- London, 10 September: René Clair is filming Break the News at Pinewood Studios, with Jack Buchanan and Maurice Chevalier.
- France, 25 September: Popular French actress Danielle Darrieux has embarked for Hollywood to make The Rage of Paris for Universal, while director Julien Duvivier has been taken on by MGM for a trial period of six months. His first project for the studio will be the Johann Strauss biopic, The Great Waltz.
 - Hollywood, 26 September:
 This has been a good year for producer David O. Selznick. Two years after leaving MGM to form his own independent production company, Selznick International Pictures, he has begun to fulfill his promise. Two outstanding new films have already opened, A Star Is Born with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, and The Prisoner of Zenda, based on the novel by Anthony Hope and with an all-star cast headed by Ronald Colman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Raymond Massey, Madeleine Carroll and Mary Astor. In addition, a third project, Nothing Sacred, has been slated for a November premiere. This last is from the same team as A Star Is Born: director William A. Wellman, art director Lyle Wheeler, actor Fredric March starring (with Carole Lombard), and color specialist W. Howard Greene behind the camera. Both pictures were filmed in Technicolor and demonstrate that it can enhance the look of a modern drama or comedy, and need not be restricted to costume pictures, musicals or exotic subjects. Most of all, these films reflect Selznick's commitment to top quality stories and scripts -- not only published works such as Zenda or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (currently filming), but to film originals like Nothing Sacred from Ben Hecht, and A Star Is Born from Wellman and Robert Carson, and scripted by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell.
- Paris, 29 September:
 In his latest film, Gueule d'amour (Lady Killer), Jean Gabin assumes his habitual role of pessimistic anti-hero, playing an army officer who is betrayed by the woman he loves. But this time he allows himself to suggest a vulnerability in his screen persona that has previously been concealed from movie audiences. Nevertheless, he remains film's quintessential loner, doomed in life and love.
- New York, 30 September: Vienna-born Hedy Kiesler, who fled to America to escape the Nazi regime and her husband -- the arms manufacturer Friedrich Mandl -- has decided to take Hedy Lamarr as her new stage name, in memory of Barbara La Marr, the star of silent films.
 - Paris, 20 October: The new film from Marcel Carné, Drôle de drame (Bizarre, Bizarre), was greeted with whistles and boos when it opened at the Colisée. The public failed to appreciate the craziness of the humor which recalls L'Affaire est dans le sac (It's in the Bag) by the Prévert brothers. This connection is not accidental because Bizarre, Bizarre is Jacques Prévert's second collaboration with Carné. The film, set in Edwardian London, tells what happens when a mystery writer (Michel Simon) has to pretend to a visiting bishop (Louis Jouvet) that his wife (Françoise Rosay) has been called away. The failure of this witty and anarchic farce is even more bitter because it was shot in an unpleasant atmosphere. Jouvet and Simon didn't think much of it, and spent their time making nasty comments on the set.
- Paris, 22 October: Release of Max Ophüls' film Yoshiwara, with Pierre Richard-Willm and Sessue Hayakawa.
- Paris, 25 October: Censorship has been tightened up. From now on, visas from the censorship committee will be refused to all films that make the army look ridiculous or could upset the national feelings of foreigners. The latest changes are directly aimed at war and spy films.
- Paris, 28 October:
 Audiences who go to see Marcel Pagnol's Regain (Harvest) will be astonished to learn that the ruined village, in which the action of the film unfolds, was built entirely from scratch in Provençe by Marius Broquier, the art director. Drawn from a novel by Jean Giono, the film tells the story of a poacher (Gabriel Gabrio), longing for fatherhood, who coaxes an itinerant girl (Orane Demazis) away from her simple knife-grinder companion (Fernandel). He sets up house with her in a deserted village, which they bring back to life. The film contains superb pantheistic images, and atmospheric music by Arthur Honegger. Harvest will be given a gala showing tonight at the Marignan cinema, for the benefit of the country's war orphans, and will be attended by the President of the Republic, Albert Lebrun.
 - Paris, 31 October: The first winner of the new Suzanne Bianchetti Prize is a young actress from Marseilles, Junie Astor. She has won the award for her performance in Raymond Bernard's film Coupable, Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths, and Jean de Limur's work La Garçonne. Mlle. Astor made her screen debut three years ago, sparring with Noël Noël's gloriously befuddled soldier in Ademai aviateur. This prize has been set up by the critic René Jeanne as a memorial to his wife, Suzanne Bianchetti, who tragically disappeared without a trace in November 1936 at age 47. A star of the silent screen she appeared in many films, including Jacques de Baroncelli's Le Père Goriot in 1921, Léonce Perret's Madame Sans-Gêne in 1925 and finally in Abel Gance's Napoléon in 1927.
- Hollywood, 4 November:
 Director Leo McCarey has scored a tremendous success with a hilarious Columbia release, The Awful Truth, which stars Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. They play a married couple whose decision to divorce lends to innumerable complications. A graduate of the Hal Roach studio and the man responsible for pairing Stan Laurel with Oliver Hardy, McCarey has found in Grant and Dunne the perfect combination of warmth and comedy technique. If proof is required that, for the moment at least, Columbia need not rely solely on Frank Capra, then McCarey has demonstrated it.
- Washington, 11 November: President Roosevelt has enjoyed a private view of The Grand Illusion, screened at the White House, and has declared that in his opinion "every democratic person in the world should see this film."
- California, 30 November: The French film Club de femmes (Women's Club), by Jacques Deval, has been accused of immorality by the American censors who have demanded several cuts. The film has already been banned by the censors in Great Britain. Other films under attack are: Faisons un réve (Let's Dream a Dream), by Sacha Guitry, and Lucretia Borgia, a historical drama by Abel Gance.
 - Hollywood, 21 December: Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton are among the stars attending the premiere, at the Cathay Circle Theater, of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated film in three-strip Technicolor. Disney, who hit the road to fame and fortune in 1928 when he created Mickey Mouse, has taken an enormous artistic and financial risk in the creation of Snow White, which has been four years in the making at a cost of $1.5 million. In addition to the pioneering animation techniques employed by the Disney studio, under the supervision of David Hand, music plays an important part in the production, and tunes like "Whistle While You Work" and "Some Day My Prince Will Come" look like they will become immediate big hits with the public.
- Los Angeles, 24 December: After seeing the new Swedish film Intermezzo, from director Gustav Molander, David O. Selznick is reported to be very taken with the young actress Ingrid Bergman.
- Mexico, 31 December: Among the 38 films produced in Mexico during the year, 20 were based on the "rancheros," a mixture of folklore and country life. The success of these films in all Latin American countries puts the Mexican cinema on the top rung of the Spanish-speaking film industry.
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15 January - San Diego, CA,