- Lyon, 1 January: The Lumiére factories have been forced to close down due to the coal shortage. This puts an end to the manufacture of negative film in the unoccupied zone.
- Los Angeles, 17 January:
 Witty, glamorous, tough, notoriously outspoken and a splendidly versatile actress, Carole Lombard is dead at the age of 34. The much-loved star of Bolero, Twentieth Century, Now and Forever, Nothing Sacred and Made for Each Other, among other films, was killed last night on her return from a highly successful War Bonds tour, when the airplane crashed in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. All 19 passengers aboard the DC-3 from Indianapolis, including the star's mother and her press agent, met their deaths. Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on 6 October 1908, but moved to Los Angeles at the age of six when her parents separated. At age 16, she signed with Fox and changed her name, but shortly thereafter a serious car accident laid her off for 18 months. After short stints with both Mack Sennett and Pathé, in 1930 she signed a seven-year contract with Paramount. By 1937, Academy Award-nominated for her wonderfully screwball performance opposite ex-husband William Powell in My Man Godfrey, Lombard was Hollywood's highest paid actress and then decided to freelance. Her last film, To Be or Not To Be, an anti-Nazi satire for Lubitsch, was completed just two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and is awaiting release. In 1939, after a long and complicated courtship, Lombard married Clark Gable, who is now reported to be in a grief-stricken state at the couple's Encino ranch.
- Hollywood, 24 January: David O. Selznick signed up the young actress Phyllis Walker. She is to be known as Jennifer Jones.
- New York, 28 January:
 In Sullivan's Travels, the latest film from Preston Sturges, Joel McCrea plays a successful director of film comedies who goes off to live the life of a tramp in order to have first-hand experience of social deprivation for a drama he wishes to make. Things turn nasty and he ends up in a chain gang. One night, the sullen prisoners shuffle in to see a movie, but they are soon laughing uncontrollably at a Mickey Mouse cartoon. This convinces Sullivan that to make people laugh is the finest achievement. The credo of this tragi-comic romantic fable can be taken as writer-director Sturges' own. His mission has been to make people laugh since he started his career.
- Paris, 31 January: Box-office takings in the French capital have increased 68 percent in comparison with January 1941.
- Los Angeles, 4 February: Orson Welles has left to join his film crew in Rio de Janiero, where he is to film the Carnival for one of the semi-documentary episodes of the Pan-American project for RKO, It's All True.
- Vichy, 10 February: From now on, Jews and foreigners are forbidden by law to use a pseudonym on screen.
- Algiers, 16 February: Because of the coal shortage, all weekday film matinees are canceled.
- Hollywood, 17 February: Ernst Lubitsch has presented his latest comedy, To Be or Not To Be, with Carole Lombard (her last film before her tragic death), Jack Benny and Robert Stack. The heroes of the film are a group of Polish actors confronted by the Nazis.
- Copenhagen, 19 February: The critics applauded at the preview of Afsporet (Distraction), by Bodil Ipsen and Lau Lauritsen.
- Hollywood, 26 February: The annual Academy Award presentation ceremony took place this evening at the Biltmore Hotel, two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the American entry into the war. Academy President Bette Davis asked that the event be held in a large auditorium and be open to the public for the price of a ticket, the proceeds of which would go to the Red Cross. When her request was rejected, Davis resigned. However, in keeping with the somber spirit of our times, formal attire was banned, there were no searchlights playing outside the venue, and the banquet was downgraded to a dinner. Donald Crisp, Best Supporting Actor winner for John Ford's How Green Was My Valley and a veteran of the Boer War and the Great War, presented himself in uniform. James Stewart, last year's Best Actor, was in his Air Corps lieutenant's uniform as he handed the statuette to Gary Cooper, the star of Sergeant York. Joan Fontaine was Best Actress for Suspicion, and How Green Was My Valley carried off the Best Director and Best Picture awards.
- Paris, 1 March: French cartoon films a making a comeback. There are at present four films underway, including Le Marchand de notes (The Note Seller), by Paul Grimault, produced by one of the UFA branches, Continental.
- Hollywood, 6 March:
 The critics are divided about Ernst Lubitsch's latest picture, To Be or Not To Be, a biting satire set in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Jack Benny and Carole Lombard portray a husband-and-wife acting team, Joseph and Maria Tura, who use their thespian skills in a running battle with the Gestapo. Lubitsch's flair for cynically urbane comedy has not prepared some critics for this excurtion into the dark side of events in Europe. Life thunders, "In years to come, the fact that Hollywood could convert part of the world crisis into such a cops and robbers charade will certainly be regarded as a remarkable phenomenon." However, the movie's most remarkable phenomenon is Benny's performance as the self-infatuated Joseph Tura, the most succulent of classical hams. When, in disguise, he asks buffoonish Gestapo man Sig Ruman what he thinks of Tura's (his own) acting, Ruman replies, "Ah yes, I saw him once before the war. Believe me, what he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland." Playing way beyond his normal range, Benny, supported by a luminous Lombard in her last film, reveals a far greater acting talent than usual, while Lubitsch demonstrates that this is his funniest film to date, because it is the most serious.
 - Paris, 1 April: Jean-Louis Barrault portrays Hector Berlioz as a romantic and passionate character in La Symphonie fantastique, the title borrowed from one of the French composer's most famous works. The movie, directed by Christian-Jaque, is an evocation of Berlioz's tumultuous life, during which he climbs from obscurity to fame. It also provides a feast of musical extracts "conducted" by Barrault. Other parts are played by Renée Saint-Cyr and Jules Berry.
- Los Angeles, 15 April:
 Woman of the Year, now showing at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, has brought Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn together for the first time. Though both have already won Oscars®, Tracy is at the height of his fame, while Hepburn's career has been flagging from the failure of many of her films over the last few years. But thanks to the great success of The Philadelphia Story, she was given a long-term MGM contract and her choice of co-star, her director George Stevens, who had made some of her RKO movies, as well as two little-known writers, Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin. The chemistry of the stars is the real triumph of the picture, and rumor has it that they have fallen in love. When Hepburn was first introduced to Tracy by Herman Mankiewicz in a corridor at MGM, she said, "I'm afraid I'm a little too tall for you, Mr. Tracy." Mankiewicz then responded, "Don't worry, Kate, he'll soon cut you down to size," referring to Tracy's rather well-known strong-willed personality. Soon afterwards, Hepburn realized that he was the man she really understood. She declared, "I'm dull, nervous and sometimes I'm a real nuisance. However, he is so manly that for him I'm an easy target. He can put me down, but not offend me." She was divorced in 1934, but she can become Tracy's wife only in screenplay, because he has been married to Louise Treadwell since 1923 and has two children, John (born in 1924) and Louise (born in 1932). In the film, Kate plays an international columnist on a New York newspaper, while Spencer is a sportswriter on the same paper.
- Hollywood, 24 April: Ingrid Bergman, who is under contract to producer David O. Selznick, has been loaned out to Warners for the co-lead in Casablanca. In return, Warners have put Olivia De Havilland at Selznick's disposal for eight weeks.
- New York, 7 May: Premiere at Radio City Music Hall of Saboteur, a taut espionage thriller from Alfred Hitchcock, with Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane.
- Hollywood, 22 May: Rita Hayworth has decided to divorce her multi-millionaire husband, Edward Judson. She is reported to be in love with Victor Mature, whom she met during the filming of My Gal Sal.
- Hollywood, 28 May:
 Yankee Doodle Dandy begins in 1937 with James Cagney taking the complex role of composer-singer-playwright-actor-dancer and producer George M. Cohan recounting his life story to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Afterwards, the President decorates him for his services to the American musical theater, a medal that the multi-talented Cagney has convinces us is merited. Cagney emotes, sings and hoofs his way into the hearts of millions with his portrayal of the pint-sized showman. When Cohan sold Warner Bros. the rights to his life story, he had insisted that Cagney play him. In fact, Cagney, with his head forward and bottom sticking up in the "Cohan Strut," even outdoes its originator. His exuberant singing and dancing are best exhibited in a lengthy extract from Cohan's hit show Little Johnny Jones, containing two of its most successful ditties, the title song and "Give My Regards to Broadway." Although the screenplay of this warm and witty biopic has taken some liberties (for example Cohan was not born on 4 July, but the day before), Yankee Doodle Dandy remains as true an account of the Cohan story as Hollywood is capable of. Thus we see Cohan in his early years as part of a family vaudeville act called the Four Cohans, and then his big break in Peck's Bad Boy. We follow his successful association with producer Sam Harris and also watch his relationship with Mary, the woman who would become his wife. The film, directed by Michael Curtiz, is going over as a treat with audiences, because it not only a nostalgic extravaganza but also a patriotic pageant featuring songs like "You're a Grand Old Flag."
- Hollywood, 6 June:
 MGM has lent its considerable weight to the British war effort with William Wyler's film Mrs. Miniver. Greer Garson stars as the plucky middle-class British housewife of the title, reading Alice in Wonderland to her children in the air raid shelter and capturing the downed German flier Helmut Dantine in her garden. Co-star Walter Pidgeon plays her tweedily reliable husband in a glossily photographed Hollywood version of Britain at war, which ends in a bombed church to the strains of "Land of Hope and Glory."
 - Hollywood, 1 July: RKO took unfair advantage of Orson Welles' absence in South America by editing down The Magnificent Ambersons from 131 minutes to 88. Because Citizen Kane failed at the box office, the studio hoped that his second attempt would appeal to a wider public, but they were displeased at the rushes and decided to edit it themselves. Although the film remains a haunting and ironic portrait of Booth Tarkington's declining aristocratic 19th-century family, the director was furious at the liberties taken with his work.
- Paris, 8 July: Sacha Guitry donated a painting by Utrillo, worth 650,000 francs, at the Union of Artists' gala. A great number of artists attended the evening's entertainment.
- Moscow, 9 July: A documentary, Leningrad Takes Up Arms, made from footage taken by four cameramen during the seige of the city, has been released by the Leningrad studios.
- Paris, 19 July: Germaine Dulac, the avant-garde director and cinema theorist, died unexpectedly during the night.
- Paris, 7 August: The release of screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot's first full-length film as director, L'Assassin habite... au 21 (The Murderer Lives at No. 21), starring the delightful Suzy Delair and Pierre Fresnay.
- Hollywood, 31 August: Darryl F. Zanuck has resigned as head of production at 20th Century-Fox to join the armed forces. His is to serve as a colonel in the motion picture section of the Signal Corps.
- Vichy, 15 October: Effective immediately, no English or American films may be screened in France. Any already extant copies must be handed in to the the Ministry of Information.
- Hollywood, 31 October: Charles Chaplin has started work on a screenplay about the life of the notorious Henri Desiré Landru, the 20th-century Bluebeard. Chaplin has paid Orson Welles $5,000 for having suggested the idea.
- Hollywood, 31 October:
 A plain, drab, gauche and unhappy spinster, driven to a breakdown, re-emerges as a poised, glamorous and charming woman who finds romance... Thus does Bette Davis, star of the irresistible new three-hankie tear-jerker Now, Voyager, prove that no challenge is beyond her formidable gifts. Directed by Irving Rapper for Warners, the movie could start a new fashion for lovers, certain to copy Bette's co-star, Paul Henreid, in lighting two cigarettes simultaneously and handing one to his amour. Seductive stuff!
- Paris, 13 November: The actress Gina Manès has been seriously wounded by a tiger while taking part in a performance at the Médrano circus.
- New York, 16 November: An article in the New York Time has announced that the producer David O. Selznick has lent most of his contracted players to Fox. These include Dorothy McGuire, Joan Fontaine, Gregory Peck and the producer-director Alfred Hitchcock.
- Los Angeles, 19 November: Release of I Married a Witch, directed by René Clair, with the charming Fredric March beautifully paired with Veronica Lake.
 - Los Angeles, 19 November: Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth are dancing up a storm in Columbia's You Were Never Lovelier, a musical romance with the currently fashionable Latin American background, deftly directed by William A. Seiter. Fred pursues the lovely Rita with the aid of her matchmaking father Adolphe Menjou and a delicious score by Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer. The title is an apt description of Hayworth as she dreamily duets with Astaire on a moonlit terrace, proving once again her sensationaly skills as a dancer.
- Berlin, 24 November: Release of Die goldene Stadt (The Golden Town), filmed in Agfacolor by Veit Harlan.
- Hollywood, 26 November: The producers of Casablanca have taken out a $100,000 insurance policy to cover the company in the event of the death of the leading player Humphrey Bogart. In fact, his wife Mayo Methot, convinced that he is having an affair with co-star Ingrid Bergman, has been threatening to kill him.
- Hollywood, 4 December:
 Every pirate film cliché is paraded in glorious Technicolor in Fox's The Black Swan, directed with immense drive by Henry King. Tyrone Power is a swashbuckling sea gypsy who teams up with burly Laird Cregar's Henry Morgan to sail the Spanish Main in search of booty and busty Maureen O'Hara. She persuades Power to end his pirate ways, which leads to a climactic showdown with his old rival Redbeard, played with snarling relish by George Sanders. Alfred Newman's throbbing score, magnificent cinematography from Leon Shamroy, bravura acting and a series of excitingly stage action sequences employing full-size galleons and blazing broadsides add up to a thundering screen spectacle.
 - Paris, 5 December: Marcel Carné's new film, Les Visiteurs du soir (The Devil's Envoy), is a medieval fable in which two minstrels (Alain Cuny and Arletty), actually servants of the Devil (Jules Berry), arrive at a castle during the betrothal feast of a baron's daughter and knight. When Cuny falls in love with the bride-to-be, the Devil turns them into stone, though their hearts continue to beat. Audiences are interpreting it as an allegory of the Occupation, with the Devil representing the occupiers, and the lovers the indomitable French spirit.
- New York, 6 December: Producer Val Lewton, who always wanted to make horror films with a difference, has released his first production, Cat People. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, it stars Simone Simon and Kent Smith.
- Hollywood, 7 December: In the last year American studios have produced 150 free films for the armed forces' training programs.
- Paris, 16 December: Release of Jean Delannoy's Macao, l'enfer du jeu, which stars Sessue Hayakawa and Pierre Renoir.
- New York, 17 December:
 Velvet-voiced Ronald Colman and glamorous Greer Garson co-star in Random Harvest, based on James Hilton's novel and directed for MGM by Mervyn LeRoy. Set in England in a very convincing re-creation, this is the tale of a wartime amnesia victim who, in a clever twist, suffers a double memory loss. Though somewhat hard to believe and with a focus on the grief suffered by the woman who loves this man, a crack team has produced a highly romantic film from a painful subject. Audiences are left tear-sodden but happy, and box-office tills are working overtime.
- Beverly Hills, 23 December: The young actress Joan Barry, whose contract had been canceled by Charles Chaplin, burst into his home and threatened to kill herself.
- Hollywood, 31 December: Having officially acquired American nationality in June 1939, Marlene Dietrich has now been totally rejected by the Nazi regime. The newspaper Der Stürmer has published a photo of the star posing in front of the Star-Spangled Banner with the caption: "Born in Germany, Dietrich has become totally de-Germanized by consorting with the Jews of Hollywood." This has had no effect on her, and she continues to use a large part of her fortune to help her friends in Germany to escape to the US or Great Britain. She sees very little of her husband Rudolph Sieber, though he is employed in the foreign department of Universal. However, Marlene is often with Jean Gabin, with whom she is in love. At the moment, the French star is busy shooting The Impostor, for director Julien Duvivier, which is an account of the activities of the Free French forces and the Resistance movement. The film is a testimony to the political commitment of both the actor and director. On a neighboring sound stage, Dietrich is completing The Spoilers, co-starring John Wayne and Randolph Scott, in between continuing her humanitarian work.
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2 March - Exeter, NH, 
8 April - Los Angeles, 
23 October - Chicago, IL,