- Nice, 4 January: René Clément is shooting the final scenes of Les Maudits (The Damned) in the Victorine studios. The film stars Michel Auclair, Florence Marly and Henri Vidal.
- Los Angeles, 7 January:
 Director Frank Capra has taken the title of his latest film, It's a Wonderful Life, from a Christmas card, which hints at the sentimental treatment he has given an engaging fantasy about the basic decency of smalltown America. James Stewart, in his first film since returning from war service, stars here as a suicidal bank manager who is persuaded not to kill himself by Angel (2nd Class) Henry Travers. His heavenly friend shows him a vision of his hometown as it would have been had he not been born, a Middle-American idyll transformed into a sleazy hell. All ends happily, but some critics are finding this charming fairy tale too sugary for current taste.
- Paris, 29 January: Christian-Jaque and Renée Faure, whom he directed in La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma), are to marry.
 - London, 6 February: Director Carol Reed's first postwar film, made for Alexander Korda, is Odd Man Out. Adapted from F. L. Green's novel by R.C. Sherriff, it follows the final hours of an idealistic IRA gunman (James Mason), on the run in Belfast after being fatally wounded during a raid on a factory. Unfortunately, Mason takes an unconscionable amount of time to die, and some of his encounters, notably with pop-eyed artist Robert Newman, verge on the bizarre. However, Reed's fascination with the theme of a man doing the wrong thing for the right reason, together with Mason's richly romantic performance as the doomed gunman, strike a powerful, dramatic chord.
- Moscow, 24 February:
 The release of Part II of Ivan the Terrible has prompted Stalin to meet Sergei Eisenstein and the leading actor Nikolai Cherkassov to discuss the film. The atmosphere in Moscow has become more and more repressive. Last August the Central Committee of the Party took a stand against certain magazines that published "anti-Soviet" authors. Then came the attacks on various films, many of which were subsequently banned or re-edited. It seems as if the cinema here is having to undergo a purge. The second part of Eisenstein's fresco on the life of the Czar has aroused Stalin's anger because the film has become a meditation on the exercise of power and its abuse.
- Moscow, 26 February: The actor Nikolai Cherkassov has been made "an artist of the people." His letter of thanks to Stalin starts: "Dear Comrade Stalin, thank you for everything..."
 - Hollywood, 5 March: With Boomerang, his third feature film, Elia Kazan has gained the reputation of being among the best film directors in America. Born in Istanbul in 1909 to Armenian parents who emigrated to the US when he was five years old, Kazan acquired fame directing and acting on Broadway. In 1933, he joined the radical Group Theater run by Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford and Harold Churman, who practised Stanislavsky's acting method as instituted at the Moscow Art Theatre. Revealing more of the influence of Italian neo-realism, Boomerang relates the story of the arrest of an innocent man charged with the murder of a clergyman. Presented as the objective facts of a police statement, the film, nevertheless, becomes a critique of weaknesses in the American judicial system.
- Hollywood, 13 March:
 The 36-year-old actor Ronald Reagan has launched himself into politics. Reagan has been involved in film industry affairs since his return from war service as a captain in the USAAF assigned to the production of training films. Today sees his election to the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan's vice-president is Gene Kelly. They succeed, respectively, Robert Montgomery and Franchot Tone, who resigned because of their production interests, as have committee members Dick Powell, John Garfield, Harpo Marx, Dennis O'Keefe and James Cagney. Reagan resumes a screen career with Warners after a five-year gap.
 - Hollywood, 13 March: Hosted by Mervyn LeRoy and presented by Jack Benny, the 19th Academy Awards ceremony was dominated by William Wyler's film The Best Years of our Lives. It walked away with seven Oscars®: Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Screenplay (Robert E. Sherwood), Editing (Daniel Mandell) and Scoring (Hugo Friedhofer). Russell also received a Special Award for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." Thwarting what was nearly a clean sweep was the Best Actress award won by Olivia De Havilland for her performance in To Each His Own as the unwed mother who must remain "aunt" to her son John Lund. And the Best Supporting Actress award went to Anne Baxter for her portrayal of the alcoholic whom Tyrone Power romances on the rebound from Gene Tierney in The Razor's Edge.
- Prague, 14 March: The release of Uloupena Hranice (The Stolen Frontier) marks the rebirth of Czech cinema. The film, Jiri Weiss' first attempt at fiction, is based on the events of 1939.
- Paris, 10 April:
 The French film actress Martine Carol threw herself off the Alma bridge into the Seine at 5:15 a.m. this morning. She was fished out and taken rapidly to the hospital where her condition is judged to be satisfactory. It seems most likely that it was a suicide attempt caused by depression related to personal problems and to the profession she chose when she was an adolescent. Born Maryse Mourer in Biarritz on 16 May 1920, she attended the dramatic classes of René Simon and Robert Manuel before her screen debut in 1941 in Le Dernier des six, directed by Georges Lacombe. Six years and eight films later, she has still not made much of an impression on the public, and has failed to either win fame or a man's love. Extremely lonely, she chose to end her life at the beginning of the spring. In fact, it is possible that this bungled suicide attempt might gain her some much-needed publicity and bring her the recognition that her acting talent has failed to do. It will be interesting to see whether the box-office receipts for her latest film, Carré de valets, will increase because of her melodramatic gesture.
 - New York, 11 April: Charles Chaplin's long-awaited film Monsieur Verdoux that premiered today at the Broadway Theater, sees him turn from the Tramp into the dapper anti-hero of the title, murdering a string of wealthy women to support his crippled wife. It's hard work, particularly when the intended victim is murder-proof Martha Raye. Before the guillotine catches up with him, Verdoux explains that he is merely practising, on a small scale, what is sometimes sanctioned by the State on an infinitely greater scale. As a businessman, he kills for profit. War, and the death of millions, is simply bigger business. The film's message has convinced many hostile critics that Chaplin is feeding the American public Communist propaganda. There were hisses as well as laughter from the audience at the movie's premiere.
- New York, 12 April: Charles Chaplin's alleged lack of patriotism was the focus of a violent verbal attack on the filmmaker at a recent press conference.
- Paris, 21 May: Danielle Darrieux has been granted a divorce from the South American diplomat Porfirio Rubirosa.
- London, 26 May:
 Michael Powell has re-created the Himalayas in the studios at Pinewood in his remarkable screen version of Rumer Gooden's Black Narcissus. A group of nuns, led by Deborah Kerr, move into a remote Nepalese palace, at one time the home of the ruler's concubines. They stir the sexual static of this "House of Women." The movie's pulsing colors and feverish climax, scored by Brian Easdale, strengthen the film's disturbing erotic charge.
- Mexico, 12 June: Release of Gran Casino, Luis Buñuel's first Mexican film, from producer Oscar Dancigers, with Jorge Negrete and the Argentinian star Libertad Lamarque.
- Moscow, 19 June: Sergei Eisenstein has been made head of the cinematographic section of the History and Art Institute at the Soviet Union Science Academy.
- Brussels, 19 June: Jean Dréville's Copie conforme (Confessions of a Rogue), starring Louis Jouvet in a double role, is the French entry for the World Festival of Film and Fine Arts in Belgium. The film also stars Jean Carnet in his first big role.
- France, 28 June: Rita Hayworth, in France for the release of Gilda, attended a gala exhibition of stylish automobiles in the gardens at the Trocadero.
 - Brussels, 29 June: The organizers of the World Festival of Film and Fine Arts probably never expected anything like the sight of the French ambassador to Belgium leaving the hall in protest against a French picture! The movie in question was none other than Claude Autant-Lara's Le Diable au corps (Devil in the Flesh), adapted from Raymond Radiguet's novel that created a scandal when it was published in 1923. The ambassador's reaction subsequently deprived the film of the Grand Prix for which it was a candidate. A far less controversial French film, René Clair's Le Silence est d'or (Silence Is Golden), was presented with the statue of St. Michel awarded to the best feature. Nevertheless, the jury still wanted to acknowledge Devil in the Flesh, doing so via the best actor prize, which was handed to Gérard Philipe, whose performance as an adolescent in love with a married woman impressed everybody. The International Critics proved their independence by presenting their prize to the Autant-Lara film. As for the 17 other participating countries, those that stood out were England, which garnered the Grand Prix of the Belgian Government for Carol Reed's Odd Man Out; the US, awarded the best screenplay prize for William Wyler's The Best Years of our Lives, and for Myrna Loy's performance in the same film. Finally, Italy was rewarded with the Special Grand Prize for Roberto Rossellini's Païsa.
- Belle-Ile-en-Mer, 20 July: The shooting of La Fleur de l'age, begun last May, has been interrupted, probably permanently. Directed by Marcel Carné and written by Jacques Prévert, the film describes a tragic revolt in a children's prison. After having mobilized all the inhabitants of the town and shaved the heads of 200 boys, the director seems to have lost control of the film. The producers reproached him for over-spending and not keeping to previous commitments. But negotiations have failed, and the crew and actors, including Nicole Dreyfus -- whom Carné has since renamed Anouk Aimée -- are stranded.
- Hollywood, 23 July: Edward Dmytryk, who is suspected of communist sympathies by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), has completed his latest film Crossfire. The film stars Robert Young, Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan and deals with the subject of anti-Semitism.
- Paris, 28 July: Danielle Darrieux and Pierre Louis have broken off their engagement, citing incompatibility of temperament of their respective mothers.
 - New York, 14 August: The fourth film of singer-dancer-comedian Danny Kaye, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, is also his best so far, as it gives him the opportunity to play several characters and use the full range of his talents and personality. Though James Thurber, who wrote the original short story about a day-dreaming henpecked husband, offered to give producer Samuel Goldwyn $10,000 not to film it, the picture has turned out successful on almost all fronts. To allow for romance, the screenplay has made the timid Walter Mitty a bachelor, though dominated by his mother (Fay Bainter) and his pushy fiancée (Ann Rutherford). Mitty's imaginary adventures punctuate the film, which culminates in his taking part in a real adventure. Among the characters hilariously impersonated by Kaye are a fast-drawing cowboy, a Mississippi riverboat gambler, a brilliant surgeon, a dashing RAF pilot and lastly "Anatole of Paris," a French fashion designer. In Mitty's dreams, the same glamorous blonde heroine always appears, played by Virginia Mayo. As she was in his two previous films -- Wonder Man and The Kid from Brooklyn -- Mayo is Kaye's ideal woman. But here, the dream girl finally enters his real life, asking the confused Kaye to help her escape an evil character who's been following her.
Goldwyn spent more than $3 million to make this sumptuously produced Technicolor showcase for Kaye. So far, on each occasion since his manic debut in Up in Arms three years ago, Goldwyn's discovery has delivered the goods. This latest extravaganza, that also features Boris Karloff and the Goldwyn Girls, should keep box offices humming for a long time to come. Kaye, born David Daniel Kaminski on 18 January 1913 in Brooklyn, began his clowning career on the "Borscht Circuit," playing various resorts in New York's Catskill Mountains, before making his Broadway debut opposite Imogen Coca in The Straw Hat Revue. But it was his appearance in Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark on Broadway, during which he stopped the show with his tongue-twisting rendition of "Tchaikovsky," that brought him to the attention of Goldwyn, who astutely signed him up, and got him to dye his hair bright reddish-blonde. Not only was a star born, it exploded across the screen.
- Le Bourget, 3 September: Three bronze reproductions of the scupture La Victoire de Samothrace have flown off to the US. They are meant for Bette Davis, Gary Cooper and William Wyler, who were selected by the French public as the most popular Americans in films.
- Rueil, 3 September: It was just another Saturday night at the Select cinema in the suburbs of Paris. Nearly 800 filmgoers were packed together in the auditorium, hoping for a brief release from the drudgery of daily life in the darkness of the theater. Then catastrophe struck. An electrical fault sparked a conflagration. Ninety people died in the blaze and many more were seriously injured. This is the worst tragedy to occur in a theater since the fire at the Charity Bazaar on 3 May 1897, an incident which marred the early days of film and threatened to turn audiences away at a time when its popularity was growing.
- Hollywood, 5 September: Release of Dark Passage, directed by Delmer Daves and based on David Goodis' novel. This marks the third co-starring venture for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
- Paris, 12 September:
 At its publication in 1923, five years after the Armistice, Le Diable au corps (Devil in the Flesh), the novel by Raymond Radiguet, shocked patriots and created a scandal because, in the context of the Great War, it was sympathetic to the guilty liaison between a young student and a married woman whose husband was at the Front. A quarter of a century later, and two years after the end of the last war, the scandal has resurfaced. But this time it concerns the film, adapted from the novel by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost and directed by Claude Autant-Lara. After the premiere of the film in Bordeaux, the local press described it as "vile," "ignoble" and a "stream of filth," and asked that it be removed from the screens on the grounds that it exalted adultery and ridiculed the Family, the Red Cross and also the Army. Now in Paris some critics have joined the "scandalized" camp, not hesitating to describe the movie as "repugnant." Paradoxically, the publicity surrounding the release of the film has been excellent for the box office. But if it deserves success, it is due to its artistic qualities and the performances of Gérard Philipe and Micheline Presle, who portray the two lovers with so much sensitivity and honesty.
- Cannes, 12 September: The city's cinemas went on strike for two hours to add weight to their demands for compensation in order to counter the effects of the film festival. According to managements the occasion results in dramatic loss of takings.
 - Hollywood, 14 September: Broadway audiences have had 3,224 opportunities to delight in the long-running comedy, Life With Father. Now the whole country can enjoy the heartwarming piece, which is brought to the screen in a sumptuous, Technicolored re-creation of 1880s New York. This is the charming tale of an eccentric, irascible father -- with a heart of gold underneath, of course -- who upsets his family by refusing to be baptized. It is directed with a light touch by Michael Curtiz, who is actually associated with tougher fare, and it is acted in fine style by William Powell as father, enchanting Irene Dunne as mother, and a first-class supporting cast. Warner Bros. is clearly in for a box-office bonanza.
- Stockholm, 16 September: Gustav Molander has completed Kvinna utan Ansikte (Woman Without a Face), with Alf Kjellen and Anita Björk. The film marks Molander's first joint effort with Ingmar Bergman who wrote the script.
- Cannes, 28 September: At the moment, while the Cannes Film Festival is drawing to a close, the increasingly numerous commentators are busy deploring the fact that many international festivals are concentrated around the same time each year. No fewer than three festivals have taken place during just the past four months: Lugano (Switzerland), Venice (Italy) and Cannes (France). And the latter two practically overlap, casting a shadow over each other -- Cannes opens before Venice has finished. One can easily imagine the problems that the organizers of both festivals are faced with in order to procure rare cinematographic gems before the other does. Is it then for this reason that the Cannes Festival has lost some of its international flavor this year? Besides its exclusively French jury, the winning works came only from France and the United States. The prizes went to Jacques Becker's film Antoine et Antoinette, René Clément's The Damned, Crossfire from Edward Dmytryk, Walt Disney's cartoon feature Dumbo and MGM's all-star showcase, Ziegfeld Follies.
  The international jury of the Mostra at Venice has shown itself to be far more open to world cinema by awarding the Golden Lion to the Czechoslovakian film The Strike (Sirena), directed by Karel Stekly, which has given that country's revived industry a shot in the arm. The prize for best director and best actor both went to Frenchmen: Henri-Georges Clouzot, who had not been permitted to direct a film for four years, for his atmospheric thriller Quai des Orfèvres, and Pierre Fresnay for his portrayal of the 17th-century saint, Vincent de Paul, in Monsieur Vincent, directed by Maurice Cloche. Fresnay, growing from a young man into old age, manages to evoke saintliness without sermonizing and sanctimoniousness. As for the best actress prize, there were no complaints when Anna Magnani won for the title role in Angelina (L'Onorevole Angelina). In this Italian-made comedy-drama, directed by Luigi Zampa, Magnani plays a housewife, fighting heroically to improve the living conditions of her family and neighbors in post-war Italy. The magnificent Italian actress makes the most of this star vehicle, exploiting her earthiness, humor and passion. What is significant about the Venice Film Festival in contract to that of Cannes, is that all the winners are associated with films that were important socially, politically or carried a moral message. Cannes, on the other hand, was quite content to acknowledge more commerical motion pictures made purely for entertainment.
- Paris, 3 October:
 For having made Le Corbeau in 1943, a film produced by the German company Continental and then judged at the time of Liberation as a piece of anti-French propaganda, the director Henri-Georges Clouzot had difficulties working in France again. Louis Jouvet, an admirer of Clouzot's work, invited him to take up his career again. The result is Quai des Orfèvres, a thriller in which Jouvet plays an ambiguous police inspector investigating a murder in the milieu of a music hall. Clouzot's observation of human frailty, expressed with a mixture of wit and compassion, and filmed with a fine sense of compostion and atmospheric lighting, and the memorable performance of Jouvet, part cynic, part sentimentalist, make Quai des Orfèvres a great comeback.
- Paris, 8 October: Yves Allégret has started shooting Dédée d'Anvers (Dedee), which stars Simone Signoret and Bernard Blier.
- France, 14 October: Jean Cocteau has arrived at Vizelle, the ancient capital of the Dauphiné, for the first scenes of his new film starring Jean Marais, L'Aigle à deux têtes (The Eagle Has Two Heads).
- Paris, 26 October: The Gaumont Palace has organized a special session of Jacques Becker's film Antoine et Antoinette, with free admission to those with either of the title names. The film is a tender chronicle of the lives of a young working class couple in Paris.
- Moscow, 30 October: The Soyezdetfilm studios have released Selskaya outchitelnitsa (The Village Teacher), by Mark Donskoi.
- Los Angeles, 10 November: Release of Body and Soul, directed by Robert Rossen. This film, co-starring John Garfield and Lilli Palmer, deals with an ambitious young boxer's rise to fame.
- New York, 11 November:
 "Oh, God, I've got it. It's the only way. I'll be Jewish!" With these ringing words, magazine journalist Gregory Peck launches his crusade to expose the extent of anti-Semitism in America in Fox's new Gentleman's Agreement, adapted from Laura Z. Hobson's best-selling book and directed by Elia Kazan. Posing as a Jew, Peck finds that his incognito investigation has an alarming effect on himself, his family and his friends. For example, his girlfriend Dorothy McGuire, the daughter of the magazine's publisher, fails to understand the baleful effect of racial intolerance, even though she is convinced that she is free of bigotry. Amid the agonizing and breast-beating, and bouts of bewildered sincerity from Peck, it is left to John Garfield as a Jewish serviceman to bring a measure of sincerity to a film that is admirable and absorbing, but somewhat overly convinced of its own impeccable credentials. Written by Moss Hart, Gentleman's Agreement bears the hallmarks of the producer Darryl F. Zanuck's preoccupation with realistic films that explore contemporary problems from a stolidly liberal viewpoint. Even though Zanuck's firm commitment to these projects has been hailed as daring in some quarters, other, including critic James Agee, regard them as a profitable form of "safe fearlessness." After a preview of the movie, writer Ring Lardner Jr. quipped, "The movie's moral is that you should never be mean to a Jew, because he might turn out to be a Gentile."
- New York, 24 November: The 50 most influential studio chiefs and producers have decided to dismiss any of their employees who refuse to cooperate with the HUAC, or whom they suspect of harboring Communist sympathies.
- Los Angeles, 25 November: Release of Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past, with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas.
- Washington, DC, 26 November:
 The witch hunt for Communists has spread its tentacles into Hollywood. On the urging of Eric Johnston, president of the Association of Motion Picture Producers and also the successor to Will H. Hays, Edward Dmytryk, the director of the highly praised Crossfire, has been dismissed by RKO. Nine others have suffered the same fate: Adrian Scott, the producer of Crossfire, producer-director Herbert Biberman and screenwriters John Howard Lawton, Lester Cole, Dalton Trumbo, Alvah Bessie, Albert Maltz, Ring Lardner, Jr., and Samuel Ornitz. They have been cited for "contempt of Congress", after refusing to divulge to the House Un-American Activities Committee their past and present political affiliations. The Hollywood Ten, as they are already being dubbed, refused to answer the question: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a Communist?" They regard the activities of the Committee, which has been investigating alleged Red infiltration of Hollywood since the spring, as unconstitutional. John Howard Lawson declared that "I am not on trial here... the Committee is on trial before the American people." One of the few to condemn the treatment of the Hollywood Ten has been Sam Goldwyn, no lover of Communism but a man who feels the Committee's behavior is itself un-American.
 - Hollywood, 30 November: The Hollywood director of German origin, Ernst Lubitsch, has died at the age of 55 after a long illness. The shooting of That Lady in Ermine, on which he worked for 35 days, has been interrupted until Otto Preminger takes over. Lubitsch was born in Berlin on 28 January 1892, the son of a wealthy tailor. He was drawn to the stage in his teens and acted in Max Reinhardt's company. Then in 1914, he began acting, writing and directing a series of short comedy films. Included among the features he did in Germany were a number of ironic historical romances such as Madame Dubarry (1919), Anna Boleyn (1920) and The Loves of Pharaoh (1922). He arrived in Hollywood in 1923 to direct Mary Pickford in Rosita. After completing five scintillating social comedies for Warner Bros. he went to Paramount where he established a style of wit and sophistication in opulent surroundings. Lubitsch's first sound film, The Love Parade, cast Maurice Chevalier opposite Jeanette MacDonald. He worked again with both stars in one of the most polished of screen musicals, The Merry Widow (1934). Other gems in the Lubitsch collection included Trouble in Paradise (1932) and To Be or Not To Be (1942). The now-famous "Lubitsch Touch" has been variously defined, but the touch is that of a master chef who knows exactly the right amount of spice or sugar to add to a dish. He will be greatly missed.
- Hollywood, 3 December: The Production Code has been even further tightened by a recent amendment that bans all scenarios describing the life of "notorious criminals" unless the character is seen to pay the price of his crime. A list of previous films that fall short of this principle has been published and theaters have been advised not to screen them.
- Hollywood, 4 December: Fox has added an edifying prologue and epilogue to Otto Preminger's Forever Amber after accusations of immorality by Cardinal Spellman.
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