- London, 1 January: British actress Maggie Smith has been made a Dame of the British Empire in the New Year's Honours List.
- New York, 10 January:
 The past year has been a memorable one for the Warner Bros. studio. It led all the other companies at the box office, helped by such mega-hits as Batman and Lethal Weapon 2, and has taken part in a spectacular merger with the news magazine company, Time, Inc., to form the largest communications conglomerate in the world. The original plans for a swap of stock between the two companies were disrupted by a rival offer to Time by Paramount, and ended with Time making a friendly but costly takeover of Warners. The new company name is Time Warner Inc., with Warner boss Steven J. Ross, widely regarded as the mastermind behind the new deal, taking the post of chairman and co-chief executive. Accomplished at a cost of about $14 billion, the outlook for the new company is far from rosy, given the high level of debt it will be carrying into the 1990s.
 - Los Angeles, 12 January: Richard Gere hasn't had a real hit since An Officer and a Gentleman in 1982. His career seemed to grind to a halt two years ago, beset by the law of diminishing box-office returns. Now he's bidding for the big time again with two movies shot virtually back-to-back, the first of which has opened. Directed with style and tension by Brit Mike Figgis, Internal Affairs has Gere as a murderously brutal, corrupt and sexually sadistic cop, under investigation by I.A. officer Andy Garcia. Like its leading character, the movie is nasty and misogynistic but, for audiences who have the stomach for it, it should prove the vehicle Gere has been waiting for.
- Paris, 20 January: Rain Man drew the highest number of paying customers to the box office in the Paris region during 1989, with 1,509,707 tickets sold.
- Paris, 24 January:
 During the student uprising in May 1968 in Paris, Louis Malle was one of a group of directors whose protestations brought about the abandonment of the Cannes Film Festival. Twenty-two years later, Malle has reflected upon that extraordinary month from the perspective of the provinces in Milou en mai (Milou in May). This delightful black comedy revolves around a bourgeois family gathered on a country estate for the funeral of a matriarch. They spend their time squabbling over her will and belongings, and playing sexual games, believing the revolution is imminent. The film provides splendid ensemble playing, headed by Michel Piccoli.
- Hollywood, 25 January: Despite the serious financial problems connected with his Zoetrope studios, which he was forced to sell, producer-writer-director Francis Ford Coppola continued to be fairly active through the 1980s. He was producer-director on The Outsiders and Rumble Fish (both 1983), writer and director of The Cotton Club (1984) and the "Life with Zoe" episode in New York Stories (1989), and director only on Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988). Unfortunately, none of these movies, or others on which he served as executive producer, made much impression at the box office, failing to generate the profits needed to settle his substantial debts amounting to well over $20 million. Now the courts have finally declared him bankrupt. Typically, though, Coppola is currently in Italy, taking another crack at The Godfather with Part III.
 - Los Angeles, 9 February: Steven Seagal, former martial arts instructor to the stars, and to super-agent Mike Ovitz, actually proves impossible to kill in Hard to Kill, his second sadistic action extravaganza. Hyped as the new Stallone, and a suitably hulking heir to the Chuck Norris karate and kick-boxing genre, Seagal sweats it out as a tough cop battling corruption and disposing of an army of hired killers in an absurd revenge plot targeted at his Above the Law admirers.
- Hamburg, 20 February:
 Das schrecklicke Mädchen (The Nasty Girl) takes a novel attitude to the theme of German fascism, not only in the past, but in its present-day form, treating it in the style of a witty, satiric fable. For his plot, screenwriter and director Michael Verhoeven has taken the true story of a schoolgirl's investigations for an essay entitled "My Hometown During the Third Reich." Although she finds the inhabitants unwilling to help her, she doggedly continues in her determination to uncover the truth. The film, while scoring telling points, also has a youthful vigor and freshness, and even an attractive indiscipline in its structure. For her part, Lena Stoltze provides sharp, likable and smart acting in the part Sonja, the "nasty" girl of the title, which doesn't refer to provocative behavior on the heroine's part but rather Sonja's sudden reputation as a busybody, stirring up dirt about her neighbors' sundry crimes against humanity and being rebuffed or punished at every turn. Verhoeven uses her mission to present an epic myth for post-war Germany, with Sonja growing up and getting married before her quest is complete.
 - Paris, 21 February: The director Luc Besson promised that after his oceanic film Le Grand bleu (The Big Blue), his next picture would be dark, urban and violent. La femme Nikita, shot under highly secretive conditions, is everything he described. This glossy, pulsating thriller deals with the transformation of Nikita from a 19-year-old drug-addicted girl sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, into a top killer in the French secret service. The uninhibited performance from the beautiful Anne Parillaud in the title role holds the far-fetched plot together. Besson, as usual, displays a mastery of camerawork and editing to create the maximum impact. Jeanne Moreau is impressive as one of Nikita's mentors.
- Paris, 28 February: Release of Le Bal du gouverneur (The Governor's Ball), which marks the directing debut of actress Marie-France Pisier. The talented Pisier has adapted the film, shot mainly in New Caledonia, from her own novel.
- Paris, 4 March: A preview of the versatile Serge Gainsbourg's film Stan the Flasher has been shown on Canal Plus. The film is scheduled for release in three days.
- Paris, 20 March: Brigitte Bardot's lawyer, Maître Gilles Dreyfus, has categorically denied rumors that his client is planning to play Elene Ceaucescu, the wife of the powerful Romanian dictator, in a film.
- Los Angeles, 23 March:
 Following right on his bid to regain a place in the firmament with Internal Affairs, Richard Gere stars as an elegant millionaire asset-stripper in Garry Marshall's Pretty Woman. It should prove the big one. However, more notably, the movie introduces leggy, auburn-haired Julia Roberts (sister of Eric) as a hooker hired by Gere, who takes her on longer-term than intended and make a lady of her. Not since Audrey Hepburn has there been such a stunning debut. A Cinderella-cum-Pygmalion tale for the 90s, the film is witty, romantic and delightful. And watch out for Hector Elizondo...
 - Hollywood, 26 March: Jessica Tandy in the title role of Driving Miss Daisy has become, at 80 years and nine months, the oldest Oscar® winner ever for acting, outstripping George Burns, who was a mere 80 years and two months old when he won his Best Supporting Actor award for The Sunshine Boys in 1976. Aside from the Best Actress prize, Bruce Beresford's tender film about the relationship between a wealthy Jewish widow and her black chauffeur also carried off the Best Picture award and Best Screenplay adaptation. However, the Academy apparently thought the movie directed itself, since Beresford did not even receive a nomination for his direction. Born on the Fourth of July, Daisy's nearest rival, was left with the Best Director (Oliver Stone) and Film Editing Oscars®.
 In the Best Actor category, Daniel Day-Lewis as the quadraplegic Irish writer Christy Brown in My Left Foot edged out Tom Cruise (the favorite) as the paralyzed Vietnam War vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July. Stone struck a sour note by complaining that "There was a concerted right-wing media effort against the movie. Because it's political, it made a lot of people angry." Brenda Fricker, who played Day-Lewis' mother in My Left Foot captured the Best Supporting Actress prize, and Denzel Washington was voted Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the angry black Civil War soldier in Glory. Thirty seconds of television advertising space during the ceremonies cost advertisers a cool $3.5 million.
 - Paris, 28 March: Staying close to the content and poetic form of Edmond Rostand's late 19th-century romantic classic, director Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) is impressively spectacular. His handsome film captures the atmosphere of 17th-century France in a series of rumbustious set pieces -- particularly effective in the opening sequence at the theater, which introduces the audience (on- and off-screen) to the long-nosed army officer, fearless swordsman and brilliant poet of the title. Though perhaps not the ideal Cyrano, Gérard Depardieu plays him with sincerity, vigor, clrity and pathos. Anne Brochet, Vincent Perez and Jacques Weber give quality support.
- Hollywood, 30 March:
 Dreamed up in 1983 by a fast-food chef and a freelance illustrator, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have become a kids' phenomenon. The four masked, pizza-munching superheroes have progressed from cult comic strip to TV cartoon series to massive screen success and spin-off goldmine. New Line's $12 million debut feature took in $25.4 million in its first weekend, the biggest ever opening for an independent film. And with 250 merchandising outlets worldwide and a sequel next January, these terrapins should run!
- London, 2 April: Christie's has sold 10 paintings of Alain Delon's for £2 million.
- Nantes, 9 April: Agnès Varda has started shooting a film about her husband Jacques Demy's childhood and adolescence in Nantes. The title of the film has as yet to be decided.
- New York, 15 April: Garbo, perhaps the greatest of all female screen legends, is no more. The reclusive star died aged 84 in a New York hospital earlier today. It was Mauritz Stiller, the Swedish director and her mentor, who gave Greta Gustafsson the name of Garbo before he cast her in The Atonement of Gösta Berling (1924). In 1925 he accompanied her to Hollywood and MGM, where he realized his dream of creating a "sophisticated, scornful and superior" woman, but "warm and vulnerable" beneath the glittering surface. After stunning silent screen vehicles, the moment came when MGM trumpeted that "Garbo Talks!" in Anna Christie (1930). She displayed her maturing ability as tragic heroines in Queen Christina (1933), Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1937), and as a comedian in Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939). A year later Garbo suddenly retired from the screen permanently, shunning publicity ever after and hiding her face from the world. The legend will live on.
 - London, 20 April: Based on William Harrison's biographical novel, Burton and Speke, and on original journals by the 19th-century explorers Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, Mountains of the Moon is a sprawling, exciting homage to the spirit of the pioneer adventurer. It has long been a pet project of director Bob Rafelson, a filmmaker more associated with contemporary American subjects. He has crammed the historical and epic story with pertinent period detail, and Roger Deakins' exceptional photography has captured many of the places where it all took place. The film follows the rivalry (and possible homosexual relationship) between Richard Burton (Patrick Bergin) and John Hanning Speke (Iain Glen) exploring the source of the Nile in "the bleak and hopeless landscapes" of East Africa, confronting dangers such as blood-thirsty tribesmen. The adventurers are charismatically portrayed by the two leads, at the head of an excellent British cast.
- Switzerland, 23 April: Paulette Goddard, popular 1940s star, has died. Among her four husbands were Charles Chaplin, with whom she co-starred in Modern Times (1936), and novelist Erich Maria Remarque. Managing to escape typecasting, she is also remembered for her performance as Loxi Claiborne in Cecil B. De Mille's Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and in the title role of Jean Renoir's Diary of a Chambermaid (1946).
- Philadelphia, 25 April: Dexter Gordon, the famed jazz saxophonist who played the lead in Bertrand Tavernier's 'Round Midnight (1986), has died.
- London, 2 May: Parkfield Pictures' The Krays, an East End-thugland movie directed by Peter Madak, made a forceful first-week's entry in the capital with a box-office gross of £61,134.
- Los Angeles, 16 May:
 Christian Brando, the 32-year-old son of Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi, has been arrested for murder by L.A. police. He is accused of putting a bullet through the head of Dag Drollet, a young Frenchman, the boyfriend of Christian's 20-year-old half-sister Cheyenne. She is the daughter of Tarita, Marlon's second wife. The two men had quarreled at Marlon Brando's house. Christian had wanted Dag to leave Cheyenne, who had complained of being mistreated by her lover and sought help from her half-brother. The argument turned nasty yesterday when Christian got hold of a gun and shot Dag at point-blank range. On his arrest, the shocked Christian explained that it was an accident. Brando Sr. has canceled all his commitments to give support to his son. Christian was in the news at the age of 14 when his mother abducted him and hid him away from his father.
- New York, 18 May: Universal releases John Badham's Bird on a Wire, starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn who bring their own established appeal to their roles as old lovers who are reunited under unexpectedly dangerous circumstances. After testifying against some drug-running killers, Gibson's been safe under the protection of the FBI's witness relocation program, and Hawn coincidentally enters his life again just as the bad guys are hot on Mel's trail. They join up and go on the run from the villains and... well, let's just say Badham doesn't have any big surprises up his sleeve.
 - Cannes, 21 May:
 David Lynch's torrid road movie, Wild at Heart, sent a shock wave along the Croisette because of its provocative sexiness and the bizarre and amoral behavior of the nasty on-the-run lovers (Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern). Nevertheless, it was awarded the Golden Palm. Cage as wild, snakeskin-jacketed Ripley with an Elvis Presley voice, and Dern as the uninhibited Southern sex bunny Lula Pace Fortune, create mayhem as they take their own Yellow Brick Road to happiness. (The film is an unlikely tribute to The Wizard of Oz.)
This is all a long way from the comparatively innocent world of the Africa of Idrissa Ouedraogo's admirable Tilai, which won the Special Jury Prize. Set in a pre-colonial African past, Tilai is about an illicit love affair and its consequences. Saga (Rasmane Ouedraogo) returns to his village after an extended absence to discover that his father has taken Nogma (Ina Cissé), Saga's promised bride, for himself. Still in love with each other, the two begin an affair, although it would be considered incestuous. When the liaison is discovered, Saga's brother, Kougri (Assane Ouedraogo), pretends to kill Saga for the honor of the family and village. Saga and Nogma flee to another village, but when Nogma's birth mother dies, he returns home. Having brought ruin on the family, Saga is shot by Kougri, who walks off into exile and probable death.
- New York, 1 June:
 With his role in Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in the business of kicking butt spectacularly in a brutal, relentlessly action-packed entertainment. A clever adaptation from a Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner) short story, it's helmed by Paul Verhoeven with plenty of explosively, gruesomely amazing special effects. Big Arnie plays a 21st-century construction worker who's haunted by nightmares about his experiences on Mars, although he's never been to the colonized Red Planet. Or has he...? Thus he's plunged into a twisty mystery of his true past, memory erasure, mutants in rebellion and just why people keep trying to slaughter him. The sci-fi set pieces on the climactic trip to Mars will be the movie's big talking point.
- Moscow, 6 June: L'Aveu (The Confession), an attack on Stalinism made by Costa-Gavras in 1970, is at last being shown in Moscow where, for obvious reasons, its release was withheld.
 - Los Angeles, 15 June: Warren Beatty's version of Dick Tracy has opened at last. Chester Gould's original comic strip, on which the entertaining and visually striking film is based, began life in 1931, and has already been made into four serials, four shoestring features, and both a live-action and cartoon series on TV. Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma were among the directors considered when the film option was bought in 1974, while Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford were keen to play the jut-jawed detective. But Beatty won out to produce, direct and star, with a budget around $20 million and another $10 million for marketing and post-production. Beatty, somewhat bland in the title role, has good support from Madonna and Al Pacino.
- Paris, 20 June: Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who is in Paris to present his new film ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down) co-starring Victoria Abril and Antonio Banderas, is reportedly furious over the X-rating given to the movie by the MPAA and is seeking to have the film re-certified R.
- Auckland, 10 July: New Zealand director Jane Campion has agreed to worldwide release of An Angel at My Table. At the outset, Campion wanted to stop theatrical showings of her film, which was made as a three-part mini-series for TV, as she felt it was unsuitable for cinema viewing. Favorable reactions from theatrical buyers in Cannes and the "most popular film" vote from audiences at the Sydney Film Festival are responsible for this change of heart.
- Hollywood, 13 July:
 Patrick Swayze badly needed a hit and Ghost, an unheralded $15 million film that has been captivating preview audiences weary of action blockbusters this summer, is it. Jerry Zucker (Airplane! & the Naked Gun series) injects a good deal of fun into his first "straight" directing solo, a supernatural romance thriller in which Swayze's hero is bumped off in reel one to get to grips with the afterlife, solve his own murder, devise a revenge sting and haunt his true love, Demi Moore. The film also revives the fortunes of Whoopi Goldberg, a comedian-actress for some time adrift on a sea of poor material, and here a delight as the phony medium getting more than she bargains for. The premise is ludicrous, but some of the special effects are inspired, the performances from Swayze and Moore are sweet, and Whoopi, firing on all cylinders, is a shamelessly entertaining smorgasbord of sex, guns, gags, and even a dance number. Swayze and Moore doing naughty things with wet clay over a potter's wheel might trigger a craze for pottery!
 - Hollywood, 18 July: Remembering Jaws, it's no surprise to learn that Steven Spielberg was the executive producer for director Frank Marshall's Arachnophobia. The story has the always appealing Jeff Daniels as a doctor in search of a new life, who moves to the country with his wife (Haley Jane Kozak) and kids, only to be confronted by a mysterious plague of killer spiders. The movie provokes screams of real fright and shrieks of laughter in a cunning mix of entertainment. Funniest of all is John Goodman, whose cameo as a bumbling termite exterminator is truly riotous. Matt Sweeney's effects are terrific, matched by Mikael Salomon's cinematography and the cast's straight-faced acting. Even arachnophobiacs should have a good time.
- Armenia, 21 July: Sergo Paradjanov, the innovative Russian director, has died. Pradjanov directed his first feature film Andreish in 1955, but it was with Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1964), which won over a dozen international awards, that he gained worldwide recognition. He earned further overseas acclaim in 1977 with the long withheld release of Sayat Nova. In 1974 he was imprisoned for five years for homosexuality and several trumped up charges. However, a campaign by European filmmakers led to an early release. Paradjanov made his final picture, Ashik Kerib, in 1988.
- New York, 3 August:
 Set "not so long ago" among the UHB ("urban haute bourgeoisie") of New York, Metropolitan folows a red-haired radical in a rented tuxedo who semi-accidentally gets invited to a debutante party. He finds himself, however, thrown into the company of the "Sally Fowler Rat Pack," a group of neurotic, rich young things who get together after formal balls and stay up all night doing nothing in particular. With only a smattering of plot, this refreshingly different and intelligent movie is far more concerned with dialogue and character. Director Whit Stillman, making an impressive debut, observes these idle young people with a keen and satiric eye, but never presents them as merely two-dimensional social parasites. So convincing are the performances by, among others, Carolyn Farina, Edward Clements and Christopher Eigerman, that is is difficult not to believe that they have inside experience of the characters. Yet this realism is placed in a fantasy-tinged vision of New York City during the Christmas season.
- London, 10 August: Hong Kong director John Woo's melodramatic, ultra-violent thriller The Killer has opened at the ICA cinema today.
- Hollywood, 22 August: Paramount's romantic thriller Ghost has overtaken the $100 million mark in only 39 days of domestic release and looks set to outdistance the summer's biggest blockbusters Dick Tracy and Die Hard 2.
 - Los Angeles, 12 September: Carrie Fisher's comically excruciating backstage Hollywood to hell and back confessional, Postcards from the Edge, has been filmed by Mike Nichols. Meryl Streep finally gets a sharply witty vehicle for her hitherto undervalued comedic talents: an actress in drug rehab, struggling to rescue her career and resolve her nerve-wracking relationship with her boozy, overpowering mother, an aging but ballsy musical star played bravely and brilliantly by Shirley MacLaine. The teaming is hugely entertaining, as are a host of starry supporting turns from the men, notably Gene Hackman, as Tinseltown denizens. Both leading ladies make show-stoppers out of their musical numbers. Yes, Streep can sing!
- New York, 19 September:
 Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas is a long, violent and enthralling interweaving of biography (the real-life tale of Henry Hill, who grew to manhood in the Mafia, and eventually ratted on his former associates), social observation and black comedy. The superb cast includes some of the best of New York's character actors: Paul Sorvino, Lorraine Bracco (as Hill's JAP wife), and Joe Pesci, who turns in a remarkably realistic performance, most menacing when he feigns anger with Hill (Ray Liotta), and when he guns down a young man who has insulted him. A commendably restrained Robert De Niro, in his sixth collaboration with Scorsese, is only the second lead as Hill's mentor, but makes his usual impact. As Henry Hill, the young "hero," relative newcomer Liotta gives a mercurial portrayal of this complex character -- an Irish-Italian kid who succeeds in his youthful ambition to become a wealthy gangster, only to have his position slowly eroded until it almost destroys him. Scorsese sustains the fast tempo of the tale to the exciting climax. Nevertheless, the physical impact of the movie tends to supress the troubling issues that lie beneath it: to what extent is the graphic depiction of horrifying violence justified, and is it permissible to find these unscrupulous characters glamorous or sympathetic?
 - Paris, 26 October:
 Two monts after the triumph of La Gloire de mon père (My Father's Glory), the second part of Marcel Pagnol's childhood memories, Le Château de ma mère (My Mother's Castle), has just been released, and there is no reason to think it will not be equally successful. The excellent director of both films is Yves Robert, who demonstrated many years ago with La Guerre des boutons (The War of the Buttons, 1962) that he was able to penetrate the psychology of children. In this lyrical and sensuous Pagnol diptych, Robert has managed to evoke the blissful childhood of Marcel (Julien Ciamaca), recapturing his summer holidays in the Provençal countryside spent with his brother Paul, his little sister, his loving parents, and Aunt Rose and Uncle Jules. The films show Marcel's discovery of the beauties of nature, country estates and gardens. Robert had long wanted to adapt the books to the screen, and approached their author in 1963. Pagnol (who died 11 years later) gave Robert the rights, despite his desire to make the films himself.
- Los Angeles, 1 November:
 The long and troubled history of Kirk Kerkorian's reign as owner of MGM has finally ended with the sale of the company to Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti for $1.3 billion. As the Financial Times noted, "In the 21 years since Mr. Kerkorian bought control of MGM, he has spun off, sold, rebought and generally shuffled assets with great fervor." During the past six years alone there were deals to sell all or part of the company to CNN's Ted Turner, then to Guber-Peters-Barris; rumors of negotiations with Sony and with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., were followed by a deal with Australian entrepreneur Christopher Skase's Quintex group in 1989, which fell through. Now, with financial backing from the giant French Crédit Lyonnais, Parretti has succeeded. Two years ago he rescued the Cannon group, renaming it Pathé Communications, and as of today, he owns MGM/UA. A glossy booklet out for the occasion says, "Three names now united in a worldwide multi-media conglomerate with the production resources, management talent and creative energy to forge the most formidable entertainment concern since the origin of Hollywood itself."
 - New York, 9 November: Advance word on Kevin Costner's $18 million directorial debut, a three-hour ode to the noble Native American -- some of it in Sioux with subtitles -- had Hollywood wags gleefully referring to "Kevin's Gate." But Dances With Wolves is a personal and artistic triumph for Costner. The title is the name the Indians give to Costner (who also plays the lead), a Civil War officer, after he's posted to the frontier and goes native. The story of how he comes by his new name makes as enchanting a Western as ever was, rich, lyrical and full of exciting action, beautifully shot by Australian Dean Semler. Strong supporting performances are offered by Mary McDonnell and Graham Greene. Even though the film treads down the "white man bad, red man good" path, come Oscar® night, it will be a major surprise if this evocative and enjoyable epic from Costner's own Tig Productions is not in there pitching -- and hitting.
- Sarasota, 15 November: The French Minister for Culture, Jack Lang, accompanied by Catherine Deneuve, Alain Delon and producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, is in Florida to open the second Festival of French Films.
- Los Angeles, 16 November:
 John Hughes, who for years has tapped into the youth market, has written the script for Home Alone, directed by Chris Columbus. This time for children of all ages, it's a delightful romp in which Hughes' utterly engaging discovery, Macaulay Culkin, plays an eight-year-old accidentally left behind when his family goes away at Christmas. The boy ingeniously defends the family house against criminals (broadly and hilariously played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern). Riotously funny, with Culkin set to become the biggest child star since Shirley Temple.
- Moscow, 3 December: The Mir Cinema has reopened under the direction of Paris-Moscow-Media, a Franco-Russian company. The renovated theater, which seats 1,200, is intending to specialize in French films.
 - Los Angeles, 7 December: Tim Burton's greatest pleasure as a child was watching Vincent Price movies on TV. Price appears as a Dr. Frankenstein figure in Burton's new film, Edward Scissorhands, a beguiling fable about a young man with scissors for hands, which draws on fairy tale and Gothic romance. In a beautifully re-created early 1960s kitsch wasteland, the good-natured hero, played by Johnny Depp with effective little-boy poignancy, falls hopelessly in love with Winona Ryder (his real-life girlfriend). Burton peoples his suburban anti-utopia with larger-than-life female grotesques, including Kathy Baker, Conchata Ferrell and Caroline Aaron, and Ryder's too-good-to-be-true parents Dianne Wiest and Alan Arkin.
- France, 10 December: The little district borough of Mériel in the Val d'Oise is creating a Jean Gabin Museum. A bust of the actor, donated by Jean Marais, is to be erected in the village square. It was here that Jean Moncorgé, the future Jean Gabin, spent the greater part of his childhood and adolescence.
- Rome, 21 December: A recent poll shows that Italian art-house attendances now account for almost 10 percent of all cinemagoers. Of Italy's 1,300 screens, 200 fit into the art-house category.
- New York, 25 December:
 Francis Ford Coppola, after a number of relative flops such as Gardens of Stone and Tucker: The Man and His Dream, and hungry to recover his past success, has gone back to the Corleone dynasty in The Godfather, Part III. Ironically, it was not so long ago that Coppola refused to embark on another Godfather, saying, "I would just take the story and tell it again, which is what they do on these sequels. I'm not really interested in gangsters anymore." Yet the director has succeeded in creating a sumptuous and powerful, if uneven, coda to the family saga that began 16 years ago. There are several surviviors from the original cast -- Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, now the paterfamilias, doing deals with the Vatican; Diane Keaton, as his wife, and Talia Shire (Coppola's own sister) his sister. It would certainly not have been possible to make without Pacino, who allowed Coppola to twist his arm with $5 million plus a percentage. The younger generation is well represented by Andy Garcia, carving his way into the family by courting -- then giving up -- the Corleone daughter, played by Coppola's daughter Sofia, disastrously replacing an ill Winona Ryder.
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10 January - Woodland Hills, CA, 
