- Paris, 18 January: Isabelle Adjani appeared as newsreader Bruno Masure's guest on the Channel Two news at 8 p.m. this evening. The appearance was planned to put an end to rumors that the star is dying of AIDS. Adjani, who appeared to be in perfect health, said she had no idea how the rumor had started but that she was finding its persistence demoralizing.
- New York, 19 January: Release of Radio Days, Woody Allen's nostalgic evocation of his childhood and the role played by the radio in American homes.
- Paris, 4 February:
 The French-Canadian film director Denys Arcand has finally gained an international reputation with his fifth fiction picture, Le Declin de l'empire américain (The Decline of the American Empire). It focuses on a group of Québecois artists and intellectuals -- four men and four women preparing a gourmet dinner in a country mansion. Their sexually segregated discussions range over the subjects of sexuality, fidelity, aging, success and failure. Later, at the dinner, the wide-ranging conversation takes a different turn when one of the women announces that she has slept with two of the men, including one whose wife is present. The film, on similar lines to John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979) and Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983), is a cynical and observant conversation piece in which the protagonists' attitudes toward sex serve to unmask their personalities, and their deeper political concerns. From early on in his career, beginning with his full-length documentary On est au coton (aka Cotton Mill, Treadmill, 1970), about abuses in the textile industry, Arcand has demonstrated that he is an astute chronicler of social and political life in Québec. The Decline of the American Empire is informed with the same spirit, but with a sharper satirical edge.
- Hollywood, 18 February: Taxi's Emmy Award-winning actor Danny DeVito will make his directorial debut with a comedy for Orion Pictures, Throw Momma from the Train. Filming is scheduled to start in Los Angeles in April. DeVito will co-star with Billy Crystal.
- Hollywood, 27 February: Hollywood has decided to hold a centenary celebration in its own honor. For those who are confused, in 1887 an estate agent named Harvey Henderson Wilsox registered a new land subdivision as Hollywood Ranch. It soon became the greatest dream factory in the world.
- Hollywood, 8 March:
 Once again Mel Gibson is cast as a man on the edge, this time playing strung-out cop Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon, directed by Richard Donner. The weapon of the title is not a fearsome handgun of the type usually waved in the faces of bad guys by Dirty Harry. It's Riggs himself, a veteran of the Special Forces in Vietnam who has been so traumatized by the death of his wife that he has become a psychological time bomb, ready to explode at any moment. He teams up with middle-class black colleague Danny Glover to wreak spectacular justice on a gang of drug traffickers, led by maverick military man Mitchell Ryan and ex-Vietnam mercenary Gary Busey. This combination of cop thriller, buddy movie and vigilante picture enables Donner to restage the Vietnam War -- with heroin the issue at stake and, this time at least, the good guys coming out on top. Gibson and Glover's on-screen chemistry is so effective that a sequel (or two) seems inevitable.
- Los Angeles, 20 March: Barry Levinson exposes the world of aluminum siding salesmen in the 1950s with Tin Men, Danny DeVito and Richard Dreyfuss star.
 - New York, 23 March: Coline Serreau's Trois hommes et un cauffin (Three Men and a Cradle), one of the most popular French films for many years -- it has attracted over 10 million spectators in France alone -- is about to be remade by Hollywood as Three Men and a Baby, with the action transposed to the USA. It is to be directed by Leonard Nimoy, best known for his role as Spock in the Star Trek TV and film series, and not by Serreau as originally intended. She will be retained as screenwriter. The three carefree bachelors who have an abandoned baby thrust upon them are being portrayed by Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg. The remake is being produced by Disney's Touchstone company, with Jean-François Lepetit, the producer of the French film, as executive producer.
- Paris, 25 March: Release of Le Grande chemin, by Jean-Loup Hubert, with Anémone and Richard Bohringer.
- New York, 30 March: The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, have released their second feature, Raising Arizona, starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter. An offbeat satire, it confirms the promise of their debut feature Blood Simple (1985).
 - Los Angeles, 30 March:
 After a lull of seven years since Apocalypse Now, the last serious film to depict the Vietnam War, Oliver Stone's Platoon forcefully returned the war to the Hollywood agenda, and picked up Oscars® for both Best Picture and Best Director in the process. Loosely autobiographical, Stone's screenplay follows raw recruit Charlie Sheen into the hell of Vietnam, where he witnesses the torture and killing of Vietnamese peasants by American soldiers who also suffer a dependency on drugs. The Best Actor award was given to Paul Newman, reprising his role as 'Fast' Eddie Felson in The Color of Money, Martin Scorsese's sequel to the 25-year-old The Hustler. In contrast to Newman, who had astonishingly never won an Oscar® before, the Best Actress winner was Marlee Matlin, a hearing-impaired actress making her screen debut as a deaf-mute in Children of a Lesser God.
- Hollywood, 10 April: At last night's AFI Life Achievement Award dinner in her honor, Barbara Stanwyck's comment after being lauded for 90 minutes by many of Hollywood's top personalities was, "Honest to God, I can't walk on water!"
- New York, 15 May: In Gardens of Stone, Francis Ford Coppola depicts the war in Vietnam indirectly, through the eyes of the men who take care of the military cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
 - Cannes, 19 May:
 This year's prize-giving ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival was broadcast live throughout the world. A special 40th anniversary prize was presented to Intervista, Federico Fellini's affectionate tribute to the Cinecittà studios in Rome, where he made most of his movies. In contrast to the warm reception given to the maestro, Maurice Pialat was booed by a small section of the audience when he came up to accept the Golden Palm for Sous le soleil de Satan (Under Satan's Sun). True to his reputation, Pialat raised his fist at his detractors, and shouted, "If you don't like me, then I can say I feel the same about you lot." This incident obscured the fact that this was the first French film to win the top prize since Un homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman) in 1966. Based on a novel by Georges Bernanos, Sous le soleil de Satan, an uncompromisingly bleak, claustrophobic and humorless film, was not destined to please the majority. Gérard Depardieu portrays a simple and devout priest who senses Satan everywhere, especially in the heart of a wild, young murderess (Sandrine Bonnaire). The German Wim Wenders was judged the best director for his fantasy Wings of Desire.
- New York, 22 May:
 Release in the U.S. of Juzo Itami's Tampopo (Dandelion). In this humorous paean to the joys of food, the main story is about trucker Goro who rides into town like a modern Shane to help Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) set up the perfect fast-food noodle restaurant. Woven into this main story are a number of smaller stories about the importance of food, ranging from a gangster who mixes hot sex with food to an old lady terrorizing a shopkeeper by compulsive squeezing of his wares. Released in Japan in 1985, Itami's film proved to be one of the most popular in recent history in his homeland, and its international release is certain to bring more fans to this wonderful gastronomic comedy.
- Los Angeles, 1 June: A Los Angeles Superior Court jury has found director John Landis and four co-defendants not guilty of all charges related to the fatal 1982 helicopter accident. The judge declared the deaths of Vic Morrow and two child actors on the set of The Twilight Zone "an unforeseeable accident."
- Paris, 18 June: Brigitte Bardot held an auction sale of her dresses, make-up case, guitar and other souvenirs to raise funds for her association for the prevention of cruelty to animals.
 - New York, 19 June: In Withnail and I, British writer-director Bruce Robinson takes us on an autobiographical return journey to the 1960s. It's the fall of 1969 and two out-of-work actors, Richard E. Grant's eponymous Withnail and Paul McGann's "I", abandon their grungy London flat for a trip to a country cottage owned by Withnail's homosexual Uncle Monty, played with gloriously corpulent relish by Richard Griffiths. After various wild and comic adventures they say goodbye to each other and to the Sixties themselves.
- Washington, DC, 22 June: The U.S. Copyright Office's decision on Friday to register colorized versions of black-and-white films was a blow for the detractors of the process, and a boon to those in the colorization business who believe it opens up film classics to a new generation of viewers.
- New York, 26 June:
 American audiences have given a warm welcome to Jean de Florette, the first of two pictures by Claude Berri based on Marcel Pagnol's 1963 novel. Faithful to Pagnol's vision, Berri has told a good yarn against gorgeous sun-bleached Provençal settings. The three male leads give towering performances: Daniel Auteuil, simple, comic and touching; Yves Montand, earthy, charming and cunning; and Gérard Depardieu, loving and tragic in the title role of the hunchback deprived of his land by the other two.
 - Los Angeles, 17 July: For his American debut with Robocop, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven has resurrected the Frankenstein myth in the form of the robot policeman of the title. This unstoppable composite is fashioned from the remains of mortally wounded Peter Weller and a grim carapace of computerized body armor. It's Robocop's duty to patrol the streets of a nightmarish Detroit of the near future where both police and criminals are controlled by Omni Consumper Products, the ultimate in rampant capitalism, which sees death simply as an opportunity to update its hardware. Things unravel violently when their latest example begins to recall his human past.
- Hollywood, 21 August:
 Unheralded, a small-budget ($5 million) romance about a Jewish teen who gets lessons in life, love and dancing at a Catskill resort in the early 60s, is a wow. Dirty Dancing is a star-making showcase for hunky dancer-turned-actor Patrick Swayze, best known previously for television's "North and South," now revealing himself as able to top Travolta. Jennifer Grey, daughter of Joel, charms as the awkward heroine and, if melodramatic clichés tend to take over from the comedy, Swayze's hot gyrations more than compensate.
 - Los Angeles, 21 August: Set in New Orleans, The Big Easy is a flavorsome romantic thriller in which homicide detective Dennis Quaid locks horns with formidable lady DA Ellen Barkin. Competently directed by Jim McBride from a decent script, with stalwarts Ned Beatty and John Goodman among those lending local color, the film makes for smooth entertainment. But what makes it worthy of reportage is the combustible teaming of the two leads. Barkin in particular makes an impact as a woman repressed, uncompromising yet vulnerable. Playing uptight but undone by Quaid's easy charm, she and he give us one of the steamiest clothed sex scenes in memory.
- Rhode Island, 28 August:
 John Huston has died aged 81 of the emphysema that had plagued him for the last 10 years. His death has come just before his last film, The Dead, is to be shown at the Venice Film Festival. Huston's illness forced him to direct the picture from a wheelchair, while constantly using an oxygen mask. Nevertheless, he was seldom absent from the set, although the insurance company insisted that Karel Reisz stand by at all times to take over if necessary. The Dead, based on the James Joyce short story, stars the director's daughter Anjelica, and his son Tony wrote the script. "I won't retire until the last nail has been hammered into my coffin," Huston once said.
 - London, 4 September: For Hope and Glory, the autobiographical wartime family saga written and directed by John Boorman, a meticulously detailed suburban street was built which was one of the largest outdoor film sets constructed in Britain since Hitchcock recreated the East End at Lime Grove for Sabotage. The film focuses on the early years of the war and follows the progress towards maturity of a young boy, played by Sebastian Rice-Edwards, and the experiences of his family as the Blitz brings disruption and excitement in equal measure. Rich performances and Boorman's sure feel for the deceptive intricacies of family life make Hope and Glory a hymn to England.
- Venice, 6 September:
 Au revoir les enfants was based by Louis Malle on "the most dramatic experience of my childhood." Set at a French boys' boarding school during the Nazi occupation, this unsentimental but affectionate view of a boyhood spent in exceptional circumstances deservedly won the Golden Lion at this year's festival. The Silver Lion was shared by James Ivory's Maurice, a view of the narrow attitude twoards homosexuality in Edwardian England, and Ermanno Olmi's Lunga vita alla signora (Long Live the Lady!), an allegory of greed.
 - Paris, 16 September: Wim Wenders, winner of the best director prize at Cannes this year for Wings of Desire, is gratified by the film's success in Paris. The main strength of this whimsical tale of two angels descending on a modern and crumbling Berlin is the masterful black-and-white photography of the great 75-year-old Henri Alekan.
- Los Angeles, 18 September: David Puttnam has announced he will resign his position as chairman of Columbia Pictures. The decision follows the Columbia-TriStar merger that formed Columbia Pictures Entertainment. The new company appointed Victor A. Kaufman as its head, thus greatly reducing Puttnam's capacity as chairman and CEO.
- New York, 18 September:
 Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction from producers Sherry Lansing and Stanley R. Jaffe is causing a huge controversy. The story is unremarkable: successful executive Michael Douglas, happily married to Anne Archer, falls into the trap of a one-night stand with sophisticated Glenn Close when his wife is away. He thinks the terms are clear, but she clings on, gradually revealing herself as some kind of dangerous lunatic. It's a terrific melodrama, expertly put together, with steamy sex, tension, and goodies and baddies nicely delineated. However, a large body of opinion believes the Close character makes the film deeply suspect, and feminists are picketing. Others see it as a metaphor for AIDS and a warning against promiscuity. What is clear is that box-office tills will keep ringing.
- Washington, DC, 24 September: Bob Fosse collapsed with a heart attack a few minutes before he was due to go on stage in Sweet Charity last night. Fosse's highly acclaimed semi-autobiographical film, All That Jazz, takes on a prophetic quality; its choreographer suffers a similar fate.
- Los Angeles, 12 October: Barfly, the German director Barbet Schroeder's newley released American movie, evokes the twilit world of writer Charles Bukowski. Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway star as a pair of hopeless alcoholics.
- Los Angeles, 14 October: Lillian Gish is celebrating her 90th birthday today. Miss Gish, whose screen career began in 1912, made her last appearance to date in 1978 in Robert Altman's A Wedding.
- New York, 31 October: The stock market crash has affected most film companies including the most successful. The major studios' shares have dropped by 20 percent.
- New York, 6 November:
 Richard Attenborough brings his customary epic, Gandhi-style treatment to Cry Freedom. Kevin Kline is excellent as the crusading South African journalist Donald Woods, forced to flee after the death of his black activist friend Steve Biko (Denzel Washington). The movie plays like an old-fashioned escape adventure, missing its opportunities, but at least the anti-apartheid message is clear. It has been banned by the South African government.
 - New York, 20 November: Bernardo Bertolucci latest film, The Last Emperor tells the dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic. Hong Kong-born actor John Lone (born in Dzyn Lung in Hong Kong in 1952) plays Pu as an adult. Given the name "Johnny" as he was growing up in the opera school in Hong Kong, around the age of twenty Dzyn assumed as an English surname "Lone", reflecting the fact that he had been an orphan without a family, who never knew the names of his parents. We never really warm up to Lone in the title role, but this movie focuses more on visuals than characterization. Filmed in the Forbidden City, it is spectacularly beautiful, with director of photography Vittorio Storaro filling the screen with saturated colors and exquisite detail. The supporting cast includes Peter O'Toole and Joan Chen.
- Los Angeles, 9 December:
 Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun tells the story of Jim Graham (played by Christian Bale), an aristocratic British youth who is separated from his family at the start of World War II after the Japanese Army invades British controlled areas of China. Reduced to living on the street and fighting for food, the youth is eventually interned in a Japanese POW camp for British civilians. Here, admiration quickly develops both for captured American pilots and the Japanese themselves. When the war ends, the boy torn from everything he knew attempts to again find his parents. Spielberg's supporting cast includes John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Joe Pantoliano.
- Copenhagen, 15 December: According to statistics, a cinema closes in Denmark every two weeks.
 - New York, 16 December: Director Norman Jewison has set out to make an old-fashioned fairy tale of love at first sight in the manner of Lubitsch or Capra. Moonstruck is set in the Italian section of New York City and stars Cher as a widowed accountant who accepts a proposal of marriage from dull businessman Danny Aiello and then falls head over heels for his volatile baker brother Nicolas Cage. Cher's accent seems located more in Little Venice, Californian than Little Italy and the relentless emphasis on pasta and vino threatens to turn this romantic comedy into a compendium of clichés, but it charms nonetheless. Vincent Gardenia and Olympia Dukakis are outstanding as Cher's parents, Cosmo and Rose Castorini.
- New York, 23 December: Release of Oliver Stone's Wall Street. The film depicts the pitiless world of the stock market and high finance, with Michael Douglas as an unscrupulous dealer and mentor to rookie Charlie Sheen.
- Paris, 23 December:
 Conceived by Federico Fellini as a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Cinecittà studios, Intervista is more of a self-homage from a director who has earned such a right. While in the process of making a film of Kafka's Amerika, the maestro, interviewed by a Japanese TV crew, reminisces about his first visit to the studio as a young reporter, lightly balancing illusion and reality. The director then takes the Japanese, and Marcello Mastroianni, on a nostalgic visit to Anita Ekberg's house in the country. Thus follows a moving reunion between the two stars of La Dolce vita, changed by time, who watch a scene from the film together.
 - Chicago, 23 December: Stand-up comedian and TV's "Mork and Mindy" star Robin Williams, in his seventh feature film, Good Morning, Vietnam, now has a vehicle guaranteeing him a wider audience. Director Barry Levinson has turned to Vietnam for his subject but, this time, to satirize the buffoon-like stupidity of the top brass back in the comfort of their headquarters and, while not eschewing poignancy, to raise a barrel of laughs, largely provided by his star. Williams is (real-life) armed forces radio DJ Adrian Cronauer, and dazzles with his Danny Kaye-like and irreverent verbal pyrotechnics that win the devotion of the boys on the battlefield and provoke fury among their superiors.
- Copenhagen, 26 December: Release of Pelle erobreren (Pelle the Conqueror), directed by Bille August, starring Pelle Hvengaard and Max von Sydow.
- France, 31 December: The latest survey of the number of cinemas has shown a drop of 346 from last year for a total of 4,808.
- Hollywood, 31 December: Paramount has accounted for 20 percent of the total distribution takings for the year, thanks to three big films: Beverly Hills Cop II, Fatal Attraction and The Untouchables.
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27 January - Montré, Québec, Canada, 
