- New York, 18 January:
 The Coen brothers, a young pair of sibling screenwriters who divide producing (Ethan) and directing (Joel) chores, make their sensational debut with Blood Simple. Blatant clever homage to film noir peppers a twisting thriller in which the hapless protagonists remain largely in the dark, while the audience is grippingly informed about who is doing what to whom. A faithless wife and her bartender boyfriend (Frances McDormand and John Getz) are the pawns in a cold, cunningly plotted tale of duplicity and murder, set in motion by her boorish husband (Dan Hedaya) and the sleazy private eye (M. Emmet Walsh) he's hired to kill them. Executed on a shoestring budget with ingenuity and style, the film serves notice of two to watch.
- Hollywood, 29 January: MGM-United Artists has just announced that Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is to be colorized using a new process developed by Color System Technology. The studio is planning, initially, to have 20 black-and-white films colorized.
- Paris, 6 February: Emmanuelle, made by Just Jaeckin with Sylvia Kristel, has finished its long run. It had been showing at the Triomphe cinema on the Champs-Elysées since its release on 26 June 1974, beating the previous record held by West Side Story.
 - Philadelphia, 8 February: Peter Weir's classy thriller Witness has an unusual setting, a farm in an Amish religious community whose inhabitants live lives little changed from those of the Pilgrim Fathers. One of their children (Lucas Haas) has been an inadvertent witness to a murder in Philadelphia, and cop-on-the-lam Harrison Ford arrives to persuade the boy's widowed mother (Kelly McGillis) to allow him to testify. The killers are on Ford's trail, and he hides out with McGillis, who finds herself romantically drawn to him. Weir, who took on the assignment on short notice, skillfully handles the fish-out-of-water scenario and draws strong performances from Ford and the 27-year-old McGillis, previously seen as Tom Conti's girlfriend in 1983's Reuben, Reuben. This tall, commanding actress is particularly effective and moving as a young woman who knows that her desire for Ford cannot be fulfilled.
- Los Angeles, 15 February:
 Acting in his seventh movie and directing his third, comedian Albert Brooks (real name Albert Einstein) has come up with a winner, which he also co-wrote. The ironically titled Lost in America has Brooks as a high-flying member of the rat race who quits his job after a row, and decides that he and his wife (the fabulous Julie Hagerty) will abandon materialistic values and get back to their simple life. He sells off their worldly assets and buys a motorhome equipped to the hilt with every last appurtenance of middle-class living. This is the first satirical sideswipe at the character he plays, and sets the tone for the rest of a rollicklingly funny, clever and salutary tale.
 - Paris, 20 February: Terry Gilliam, the brilliant animator on the madcap "Monty Python" TV series of the 1970s, has moved away from Pythonesque humor in his third solo-directed movie Brazil, which opened in France today. Gilliams' long battle with Universal to gain the "final cut" on the picture was justified by the result, which is a visually stunning portrayal of an Orwellian future. Jonathan Pryce plays a put-upon worker in the oppressively bureaucratic Ministry of Information, whose apartment is invaded by a guerilla engineer, none other than Robert De Niro. Still not released in the U.S., Gilliam's Brazil is being enjoyed by a wide European audience.
- New York, 1 March:
 The title of Woody Allen's new film, The Purple Rose of Cairo, refers to the movie-within-the-movie, a sleek and sophisticated black-and-white romance, made to divert audiences during the Depression. The story focuses on Celia (Mia Farrow), a battered wife and overworked waitress, who spends most of her free time at the movies. One day, as she watches Purple Rose for the umpteenth time, the hero (Jeff Daniels) addresses her directly and comes down from the screen to enter her life. It is not the first time that Allen has played with this Pirandellian concept, or with the thin dividing line between film, fantasy and fact, but never with such warmth or technical aplomb.
- Los Angeles, 1 March: Release of Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing, starring John Cusack as Gib, a freshman college student who plans a cross-country trip to visit his friend in California during winter break. Awaiting there is a bikini-clad babe (Nicolette Sheridan) whom his friend assures him is a "sure thing". Meanwhile, Allison (Daphne Zuniga), a cute (but somewhat anal retentive) girl at Gib's college has also decided to head out to California to see her boyfriend during break. Gib and Allison are thrust together on a road trip from hell, and somewhere along the way, they find each other's company to be tolerable. This is Reiner's second feature as director, following his 1984 debut, This is Spinal Tap.
 - Paris, 2 March: At a glittering César award ceremony, where Simone Signoret, Kirk Douglas, Jeanne Moreau and Gina Lollobrigida were among the presenters, Claude Zidi's Les Ripoux was the winner of the best film and director prizes. This amiable and amusing comedy about police corruption shows how veteran roguish cop (Philippe Noiret) initiates his prudish new partner (Thierry Lhermitte) into his wicked ways. The acting awards went to Sabine Azéma in Bernard Tavernier's Un dimanche à la compagne (A Sunday in the Country), and to Alain Delon in Bernard Blier's Notre histoire (Our Story). On this tenth anniversary of the Césars, the public was asked to vote for the "César of Césars." Robert Enrico's Le Vieux fusil (The Old Rifle) (1976) topped the poll. Danielle Darrieux and the late François Truffaut were awarded honorary Césars.
- Hollywood, 7 March: Gene Kelly has been honored with the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award.
- New York, 8 March: Release of Peter Bogdanovich's Mask starring Cher, Sam Elliott and Eric Stoltz, who plays a boy with a massive skull deformity. The supporting cast includes Estelle Getty, Richard Dysart and Laura Dern.
- New York, 14 March:
 Ever since wealthy financier Kirk Derkorian bought MGM in 1969, it has been unclear as to whether he had any real interest in movies or movie-making, or merely regarded the studio as just another of his many investments. In 1981 Kerkorian purchased United Artists and there was a suggestion that the new MGM/UA would become a more active player in Hollywood, but recent results have been distinctly mixed. Thus, the appointment of Alan Ladd Jr. as the studio's new head of production (the latest in a long line of executive changes) will be watched with interest. During the past decade, Ladd has built up a reputation as one of the most highly respected of production executives, first as production chief at 20th Century-Fox in the mid-1970s and then as the head of his own independent production outfit, The Ladd Co., during 1979-1984.
- London, 18 March: Launch of British Film Year with the presentation to the Queen of David Lean's screen adaptation of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India.
 - Hollywood, 25 March: Amadeus took away eight Oscars® at this year's ceremony, including Best Picture, Best Director (Milos Forman), and Best Actor. Surprisingly, the latter was not given to Tom Hulce's dazzling performance in the title role, but to the less flashy F. Murray Abraham as Mozart's rival Salieri. Sally Field collected her second Best Actress Oscar® for her role as the indomitable cotton-picking widow and mother in Places in the Heart. The Best Supporting Actor went to Cambodian screen debutant Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields, while one of England's greatest actresses, 77-year-old Peggy Ashcroft, finally won international recognition in A Passage to India. The selection of The Times of Harvey Milk as Best Feature Documentary at this year's ceremony marks a significant shift in attitude from Academy voters. The portrait of San Francisco's murdered gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk, won against strong competition from Maximilian Schell's Marlene and the El Salvador chronicle, In the Name of the People.
- Berlin, 29 March:
 Four years after Mephisto, audiences can look forward to the arrival of Klaus Maria Brandauer in another towering role and performance, as Oberst Redl (Colonel Redl), which will shortly be on the international circuit. Directed by Mephisto's Istvan Szabo with the same theatrical sweep as the previous film, this is based on Englishman John Osborne's play, A Patriot for Me, set in the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Redl, of humble origins, high intelligence and massive ambition, rises to become head of military intelligence, but conceals that he is both Jewish and bisexual. His flawed nature betrays others, and, ultimately, destroys him.
- Hollywood, 31 March: My Mother's Keeper, an autobiographical book by Bette Davis' daughter Barbara, has caused a scandal with its unsavory revelations about the great star.
- Buenos Aires, 4 April: Luis Puenzo has released his much awaited film La Historia oficial (The Official Story), about middle-class life under the harsh dictatorship of the junta.
 - Paris, 10 April:
 After his startling debut with Le Dernier combat (The Last Battle) in 1983, 26-year-old Luc Besson has fulfilled his promise as a director with a striking visual sense in his second feature, Subway. It is set mainly in the Paris Métro, where safecracker Christophe Lambert has fled after stealing important documents from a crooked businessman whose wife, Isabelle Adjani, he has fallen for. The movie has the advantage of high-tech art work from veteran Alexandre Trauner and a daring use of CinemaScope and Dolby sound, creating a fantastic yet familiar nether world inhabited by social misfits. Adjani, in her first movie for two years, is as lovely as ever in a smallish role.
- Paris, 15 May: Filmmaker Youssef Chahine is in Paris to present Adieu Bonaparte, the Franco-Egyptian co-production which he directed. The film, an official entry at Cannes, is about the life of an Egyptian family in Alexandria during Napoleon's occupation, and stars Michel Piccoli, Mohsen Mohieine, and Patrice Chéreau as the French Emperor.
 - Cannes, 20 May:
 The winner of the Golden Palm at this year's festival was an entry from Yugoslavia called Otac na sluzbenom putu (When Father Was Away on Business), directed by Emir Kusturica. The 30-year-old director had already won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1981 with his auspicious film debut, Sjecas li se, Dolly Bell (Do You Remember Me, Dolly Bell?). His second film is an absorbing portrait of provincial life and politics in 1950s Yugoslavia. Tito's break-up with Stalin in 1948 marked the beginning of not only confusing, but also very dangerous years for many hard-core Yugoslav communists. A careless remark about the newspaper cartoon is enough for Mesha (Miki Manojlovic) to join many arrested unfortunates. His family is now forced to cope with the situation and wait for his release from prison. The story is told from the perspective of Malik (Moreno D'E Bartolli), his young son who believes the mother's story about father being "away on business". Kusturica's observation and humor must have reminded jury president Milos Forman of some of his early work. Juliette Binoche was the best actress for Rendez-vous by André Téchiné, who won best director, while William Hurt took the best actor award for his effeminate gay prisoner in Hector Babenco's Kiss of the Spider Woman.
- New York, 22 May:
 Reflecting the latest approach in movie marketing strategies in the United States, Rambo: First Blood, Part II, the latest blockbuster release from the new TriStar studio, has opened in over 2,000 theaters across the country. It thus breaks the record set by Star Trek III just one year ago, which was given a blanket release in 1,966 cinemas. As devised by the marketing experts, such a "saturation" opening of a new picture, especially during the peak movie-going months from mid-May through early September, is ideal for taking advantage of nationwide media coverage and, especially, making use of advertising on national network TV. This new $25 million action adventure sequel will obviously also benefit from the fact that audiences are already familiar with the character of avenger-hero John Rambo as played by Sylvester Stallone in First Blood, produced by the Carolco company in 1982.
 - Tokyo, 1 June: The most universal of Japanese filmmakers, Akira Kurosawa, has never hidden his admiration for William Shakespeare, the most universal of English playwrights. Apart from Kumonosu jô (Castle of the Spider's Web, 1957), which was based directly on Macbeth, many of his other epics testify to the influence of Shakespeare. King Lear has always been a favorite, especially now that the 75-year-old director feels that he is the dethroned king of Japanese cinema. Ran, which means "chaos" in Japanese, is its venerable maker's first film for five years, and is an adaptation of Lear. Although Kurosawa has turned the daughters into sons, and transported the action to 16th-century Japan, he has kept many of the main themes of Shakespeare's tragedy, those that have preoccupied the director over the years. Kurosawa has dealt with the theme of old age, and that of the drive for power most effectively in his past period pieces, as well as in strong contemporary tales such as Ikuru (To Live, 1952) and Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (The Bad Sleep Well, 1960).
Ran begins with the aged Lord Hidetora's abdication in favor of his eldest son Taro, only to find himself driven out of his own kingdom, which is then torn apart by greed and rivalry. There are powerful performances from Tatsuya Nakadai as the Lear figure, and Mieko Harada as an evil masculine amalgam of Goneril and Regan. There is also an effective rendering of the Fool by a transvestite going under the sole name of Peter. The battles are visually stunning, far more involving than in Kagemusha, Kurosawa's previous picture from 1980. The 162-minute Franco-Japanese production cost $11.5 million, $7 million of which was Japanese, and the rest from a French company, Greenwich Films. It is said that Kurosawa is the best known of Japanese directors in the West because he is most influenced by European and American culture. Yet however much he has been attracted to Western art, he is essentially Japanese in that he is drawn into the world of Noh drama, as well as being a man deeply affected by the ravages of World War II on his country. It is this combination of twin cultures that makes Ran such a fascinating experience.
Kurosawa's camera covers sweeping panoramas as well as intimate interiors.
- France, 9 June: At this year's International Festival of Animated Pictures (JICA - Journée Internationales du Cinéma d'Animation) in Annency, the jury, to everyone's amusement, awarded equal first prize to Hell (U.S.S.R.) and Ishu Patel's Paradise (Canada).
- Los Angeles, 21 June:
 Peter Pan meets E.T. in Ron Howard's Cocoon as a group of Florida senior citizens discover a fountain of youth courtesy of some obliging aliens in human form led by Brian Dennehy. Howard has borrowed elements from E.T., The Man Who Fell to Earth and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in a tale that eventually succumbs to sentimentality but is sustained by the warm skills of veteran actors Wilford Brimley, Jack Gilford, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapleton, Gwen Verdon and Don Ameche. The theme of rejuvenation is particularly appropriate for Ameche, debonair Fox star of the 1930s and 40s, who has been enjoying a new lease of cinematic life after his comeback in 1981 in Trading Places.
 - New York, 28 June: A small mining community working the seams of Carbon Canyon is threatened by a grasping mine owner and his hired killers. Riding to their rescue comes a mysterious stranger, a preacher with what appears to be a pattern of fatal bullet wounds on his back. In Pale Rider, his first Western since The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976), director-star Clint Eastwood combines elements of his own High Plains Drifter and George Stevens' classic Shane. Its impact is undercut by Eastwood's low-key performance as the miners' possibly supernatural savior -- he is the soul of good sense, exemplifying the same solid values represented by the prospectors. The Gothic unterpinning is provided by the lyrical cinematography of Bruce Surtees.
- Hollywood, 28 June:
 St. Elmo's Fire is the ideal showcase for many of the young "Brat Pack," now growing up. The plot follows the lives of a batch of college graduates: Emilio Estevez as a law student in love with Jenny Wright; Rob Lowe married to a girl he made pregnant but does not love; Mare Winningham as a virgin social worker enamoroed with Lowe; Judd Nelson as a philanderer who is having an affair with Ally Sheedy; Demi Moore as a drug-taking high-flyer; and Andrew McCarthy as an obituary writer who longs for better things. This glossy package, which will certainly appear to the yuppie generation, is neatly tied up by director Joel Schumacher.
 - New York, 3 July: Ecological concerns and a protest at man's disdain for nature and his fellow human beings lie at the heart of John Boorman's new film, The Emerald Forest. As is to be expected from Boorman (Deliverance, Excalibur, etc.), the film ravishes the eye (photography by Philippe Rousselot) but sits less kindly on the ear and suffers from simplistic characterization. However, the message comes across loud and clear in a plot that hold the attention as engineer Powers Boothe searches for his lost son (Charley Boorman) in the Brazilian jungle. The boy is living with an Indian tribe, learning their rituals and a respect for nature that so-called civilized man has lost.
- Los Angeles, 3 July:
 Teen heart-throb Michael J. Fox -- 24 going on 16 -- takes a rollercoaster ride into the past in Robert Zemeckis' science fiction romp Back to the Future. Hitching a lift in mad inventor Christopher Lloyd's time-traveling De Lorean automobile, he finds himself back in the Fifties, where he must arrange for his mismatched parents to meet, or he won't exist. The trouble is that Mom seems more interested in him! Spielberg protégé Zameckis pushes the picture along at a cracking pace. According to his simple philosophy, "Good directing is good writing and good casting, that's all!"
- Paris, 8 July: Jean-Jacques Annaud announced that he plans to make a film version of Umberto Eco's prize-winning bestseller The Name of the Rose.
- New York, 23 July: Woody Allen has signed a new contract with Orion Pictures. At his request it includes a clause forbidding the marketing of his films in South Africa because of that country's color apartheid.
- France, 25 July: Actor Rock Hudson has been admitted to the American Hospital at Neuilly where he continues his battle against AIDS.
- New York, 16 August: Singer Madonna and actor Sean Penn were married in a private ceremony here today.
- New York, 27 August: The Warner Bros. production, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, was the top box-office draw this past weekend. The episodic comedy, by first-time director Tim Burton, features the rather surreal Pee Wee Herman in a manic search for his stolen bicycle.
- Venice, 7 September: At this year's Festival, French director Agnès Varda has carried off the Golden Lion for Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond), while the Silver Lion for Best First Work went to another woman director, Marion Hänsel, for Dust. The best actor award was won by Gérard Depardieu for his performance in Maurice Pialat's film Police. The jury's special prize was awarded to Tangos, l'exil de Gardel, directed by Fernando E. Solanas.
- New York, 13 September:
 Martin Scorsese lays on a "yuppie nightmare" in After Hours, a black comedy set in the arty SoHo district of Manhattan. Griffin Dunne plays a word processor operator, dissatisfied with the clinical world of new technology, whose artistic and social aspirations lead to a night of spiraling disaster. A chance encounter with spaced-out Rosanna Arquette triggers an inexorable chain of Kafka-esque events that confirm his worst paranoid fears and, in an ironic climax, leave him trapped inside a plaster of Paris sculpture. Scorsese has peopled his Manhattan nightscape with a cast of strange but weird characters, most effectively portrayed by a once-in-a-lifetime supporting cast: Verna Bloom, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, John Heard, Catherine O'Hara, Dick Miller, Will Patton and Bronson Pinchot, among others. Scorsese himself appears briefly as a demonic figure in a SoHo nightery.
- Los Angeles, 19 September: Elizabeth Taylor is organizing a gala evening to collect funds for the fight against AIDS.
- New York, 7 October: Several thousand people took part in a demonstration in front of Lincoln Center today. They were protesting, in response to an appeal by the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, against the "blasphemous nature" of Jean-Luc Godard's film 'Je vous salue Marie' (Hail Mary). The film is currently being shown as part of the 23rd New York Film Festival.
- Hollywood, 15 October: Rupert Murdoch's relentless march towards media control in the U.S. is causing concern on Wall Street. His latest acquisition, 20th Century-Fox from Marvin Davis' holding company, cost him over $500 million. Last month Murdoch gave up his Australian citizenship and became an American citizen in order to buy up five of Metromedia's television stations. The magnate has now announced the merger of Fox with the television stations to form Fox, Inc.
- New York, 16 October: Yul Brynner, who lost his fight against lung cancer last week, has left a last testament to the world -- a short film "clip" begging all smokers to give up cigarettes.
- London, 16 November:
 Orignally made for Channel Four television, Stephen Frears' My Beautiful Laundrette explores life in multi-racial Britan in the context of a love affair between two youths from South London, the Asian Gordon Warnecke and the white Daniel Day-Lewis, the latter a jaunty Cockney with blond-streaked hair whose connection with the racist National Front organization adds an element of tension to their relationship. Hanif Kureishi's screenplay skillfully weaves together themes of class, sexuality, race and politics in an intriguing commentary on Britain, well acted by an interesting cast.
- Los Angeles, 13 December: Paramount's Clue, the first film to be based on a popular board game, is releasing today with four different endings on 1,006 screens. Along with Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn and Christopher Lloyd, the film features Eileen Brennan. Clue heralds Brennan's return to the screen following a devastating run-in with a speeding Thunderbird in late 1982.
 - Stockholm, 13 December: One of the most delightful surprises of the year is the second feature by Lasse Hallström, Mitt liv som hund (My Life as a Dog). Avoiding cuteness and sentimentality, the director tells an enchanting tale of a resourceful and energetic 12-year-old boy who lives with his beloved dog, elder brother and sick mother in 1950s Sweden. Proving too much of a handful, he's sent away to stay with relatives in a small country village, almost entirely populated by eccentrics. There he gets involved in the lives of the rural community, suffering growing pains in the process. The young hero is played unaffectedly by Anton Glanzelius.
- Los Angeles, 16 December: The "unreleasable" Brazil has won top honors at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's annual vote. The controversial movie, which has been the center of a heated dispute between director Terry Gilliam and MCA president Sidney Scheinberg, almost swept the field by winning best picture, best director and best screenplay (Gilliam, Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown).
- New York, 31 December: According to a marketing company, in 1985 movie attendance by the adolescent population dropped by 20 percent. On the other hand, this same group rents three times as many films on video than previously.
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5 January - Monterey, CA, 
28 May - Monterey, CA, 
