- Hollywood, 23 January: At the 50th annual Golden Globe awards, Scent of a Woman was voted best film. Its writer, Bo Goldman, won for the best screenplay and its star Al Pacino was best actor. Clint Eastwood was best director for Unforgiven and Emma Thompson best actress for Howards End.
- Hollywood, 25 January: Paramount has announced that outtake footage from its films over the last 70 years is available to be hired for use in other films.
- Sundance, 31 January:
 Founded by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute in 1985 to showcase independent American films, the Sundance Festival has consistently mined emerging talents, discovering films such as Blood Simple and sex, lies and videotape. One of this year's gems is El Mariachi, made in Mexico by Robert Rodriguez for a derisory $7,000. It's a remarkably assured and ingenious thriller of mistaken identity, in which a black-clad guitarist (Carlos Gallardo as the mariachi) in a small Mexican town is mistaken for an identically dressed hit man who carries weapons in a guitar case. The consequences make for a film that is full of panache and wit.
 - New York, 12 February: A new and intriguing comedy directed by Harold Ramis, Groundhog Day, is about repeating the past. Bill Murray brilliantly takes the role of a cynical TV weatherman, sent for the fifth year running to the small town of Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog ceremony held every February 2nd. He wakes up the next morning to find it's February 2nd again, and he has to relive the day over and over, until forced to examine his attitudes and turns himself into a nicer person. In this he has help from Andie MacDowell as the romantic interest. Stephen Tobolowsky is also memorable as Ned Ryerson, the ubiquitous insurance salesman. This inventive and entertaining comedy-drama is reminiscent of Frank Capra's 1946 classic, It's a Wonderful Life.
- Paris, 5 March: Cyril Collard, who directed and starred in the semi-autobiographical Les Nuits fauves (Savage Nights), about a young man with AIDS, has died of the disease.
- Los Angeles, 19 March:
 Bridget Fonda stars as a killer duggie punk, transformed by a government agency program into a classy political assassin. Sound familiar? Point of No Return is a virtual shot-by-shot remake of Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita, with a few Hollywood frills muting the stylish force of the original. Americanizing foreign hits is not new: in 1932 the French Monsieur Topaz was snapped up for John Barrymore, while The Magnificent Seven originates in Kurosawa's masterpiece, The Seven Samurai. Now this approach -- cheaper than developing an original idea -- is becoming an epidemic since Disney's 1987 re-make of Trois hommes et un couffin into the $250 million-grossing Three Men and a Baby. Others among many include Cousins, Three Fugitives and The Woman in Red. Italy's 1974 Profumo di donna won Al Pacino his 1992 Oscar® for Scent of a Woman, while the classy Sommersby was fashioned from Le Retour de Martin Guerre. The 1988 Dutch thriller Spoorloos became The Vanishing, a 1993 vehicle for Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock. The trend shows no signs of slowing: Depardieu will reprise his French role in My Father the Hero, and Les Choix de la vie becomes Intersection for Richard Gere and Sharon Stone.
- Los Angeles, 25 March: The law has ruled in favor of Carl Mazzocone and Main Line Pictures in their case against actress Kim Basinger. Basinger backed out of Boxing Helena (directing debut of David Lynch's daughter, Jennifer), the tale of a man who severs the limbs of a beautiful woman in order to keep her to himself. Although sexy blonde Basinger, who was replaced by Sherilyn Fenn, argued that she had not signed a contract, the judge ordered her to pay a massive $8.9 million in damages for the loss of her advantageous presence.
 - Hollywood, 30 March:
 Clint Eastwood, after 30 years in the movie business, has finally gained his first Oscar® as Best Director for the Best Picture, Unforgiven. This "revisionist" Western is striking for its willingness to contront the effects of violence, and for the characters' realization of their own mortality. It took 25 years and eight nominations for Al Pacino to be honored with a Best Actor prize as the embittered blind ex-army colonel in Scent of a Woman. Pacino was completely convincing as a blind man, shifting seamlessly from comedy to pathos. The Best Actress award went to Emma Thompson for her nicely shaded performance as Margaret Schlegel in Howards End, one of the most subtle and least showy winners in this category. The surprise of the evening was the Best Supporting Actress winner, the hardly known Marisa Tomei for her hilarious gum-chewing motor-mechanic in My Cousin Vinny. In contrast, the Best Supporting Actor recipient was veteran Gene Hackman, the brutal sheriff in Unforgiven.
- Los Angeles, 3 April:
 With violence all too distressingly frequent here, the mindless shooting of at least six Asian grocers in the few weeks since Falling Down opened cannot be blamed on the film, but its reception has disquieted many. Michael Douglas, a stressed-out urban Everyman, snaps his spring and pitches into a Korean store owner, a fast food restaurant's staff, and anyone else who irritates him, using assorted weapons in a murderous spree that panders to the rage of self-pitying, middle-class white males who think themselves oppressed. The film takes a blackly comic stance on a screwed-up society, yet has provoked disturbing cheers of encouragement.
 - Rome, 18 April: Ricky Tognazzi (son of actor-director Ugo) typifies a heartening return by a new generation of Italian filmmakers to social themes. La Scorta (The Escort), a fictional but grimly realistic political thriller, is derived from incidents in a brutal war on prosecutors by the Sicilian Mafia. The tale of four incorruptible young carabinieri assigned to protect a new judge (Carlo Cecchi) determined to root out corruption, is grippingly well-told, and an intelligent tribute to the bravery of decent men. It should travel well.
- London, 23 April: The former manager of the Scala Cinema was convicted of breach of copyright for screening Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange this month. Since 1973, following a publc outcry over its violence and supposed corrupting influence, Kubrick ordered the film to be withheld from British theaters.
- Los Angeles, 30 April: Disney's Buena Vista Pictures Distribution today announced a deal by which they acquire Miramax Films, America's leading distributor of art-house films. Founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Miramax will become an autonomous division of Buena Vista continuing to distribute films under its own label.
- New York, 7 May:
 "This play is youthful," explained Kenneth Branagh, the director of the all-star Much Ado About Nothing. "There's a lot of sex in it. I felt it should be surrounded by nature and grapes and sweat and horses and just that kind of lusty, bawdy thing." Shot in the summer of 1992 in a 14th-century villa in the center of the Chianti wine region, this is a gorgeous, exuberant and sensuous movie, though it sometimes strives too strenuously to prove to a wide audience that "Shakespeare can be fun." Enjoying themselves thoroughly are Michael Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Denzel Washington, Richard Briers, Kate Beckinsale, and Branagh as Benedick opposite his wife Emma Thompson as Beatrice.
- London, 17 May: A host of Hollywood's top stars have flown in for today's opening at the London Planet Hollywood burger restaurant. More than £4 million has been spent on the interior of the restaurant, strategically situated at the corner of Coventry and Rupert Streets, where the rent alone costs £650,000 a year.
- Los Angeles, 21 May: Paramount releases Sliver, directed by Phillip Noyce, and starring Sharon Stone, Tom Berenger and William Baldwin. Adapted from Ira Levin's novel, the story concerns young publishing executive Carly Norris (Stone), who takes an apartment in an exclusive "sliver" building in New York City, only to learn that the previous tenant, who bore a great resemblance to Carly, died in a mysterious fall from the apartment balcony. When other tenants of the building begin to die likewise mysteriously, Stone begins to suspect that a killer may be inhabiting the building and that it may be either Zeke (Baldwin), the voyeuristic building owner with whom she's become involved romantically, or Jack (Berenger), a mystery writer with a suspicious quality. This picture purports to be a sexualized thriller about voyeurism, but it's really only a excuse to get Stone and Baldwin out of their clothes and into bed as quickly as possible.
 - Canne, 24 May:
 Jane Campion's The Piano and Kaige Chen's Ba wang bie ji (Farewell My Concubine) shared the Golden Palm at this year's Cannes Film Festival. This decision represents a number of firsts for Cannes -- Campion is the first woman director to have won the top prize, and the two films were the first productions from either Australia or Hong Kong to gain this accolade. (Although set and shot in Beijing, Concubine was financed from Hong Kong.) The American Holly Hunter won the best actress prize for her role in The Piano as a mysteriously mute 19th-century Scottish woman sent by her father to New Zealand with her young daughter, to marry a man she has never seen (Sam Neill). It is only through playing the piano (and an inevitable affair with Harvey Keitel) that she can find her voice and liberation. Another English-language film that did particularly well was the cruelly comic Naked for which Mike Leigh won the best director award and David Thewlis was voted best actor.
 - New York, 28 May: Cliffhanger marks a comeback of sorts for action hero Sylvester Stallone, returning from a string of comic flops, this time thanks to director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) and some spectacularly rugged and vertigo-inducing high-mountain terrain. The opening sequence alone delivers what the title promises, and there's a doozy of an airplane stunt. Stallone, looking as tough and craggy as the mountains themselves, is a rescue climber who finds himself going after a gang of crooks (headed by John Lithgow in his bad-guy mode) who've hijacked a U.S. Treasury plane and crash landed in the Rockies (played by the Italian Dolomites) with millions of bucks. What follows is a series of outrageous action-packed, snow-packed, and scenery-packed chase sequences.
- New York, 7 June: After a long series of acrimonious court hearings, the custody battle between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow has come to an end. The judge has decided in Farrow's favor: Dylan, Moses and Satchel will remain with their mother.
- New York, 11 June:
 Steven Spielberg's uncanny insight into what the public, especially the young, will flock to has continued unabated with Jurassic Park, which looks like it will top even his earlier commercial triumphs. The tale of an entrepreneur who develops genetically-produced dinosaurs to place in the world's most fantastic amusement park lends itself to animatronic and special effects wizardry. The excitement builds when the Tyranosaurus Rex and other prehistoric monsters run amok, terrorizing some visiting scientists and the owner's two grandkids. Though it might frighten younger children in the audience, older ones and adults will thrill to the extraordinarily lifelike critters, created by the Matsushita workshops. Rather less lifelike is the human cast, including Sam Neill (both William Hurt and Tim Robbins turned down the role) and Laura Dern as paleontologists who, along with theoretical mathematician Jeff Goldblum, head for an obscure Central American island where tycoon Richard Attenborough and his gene-splicing geniuses have re-created the Age of Giants. But no amount of uninspired acting can lessen the impact of this movie. It's a great ride.
 - New York, 12 June: Mexico has made news with Alfonso Arau's Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), adapted from his wife Laura Esquivel's international bestseller. The film is hot property, breaking out of the art house circuit to become the highest-grossing Latin American movie ever. A captivating tragi-comic tale of romance, revolution and recipies, it recounts the fate of three sisters in audacious "magic realism" style, and Lumi Cavazos as a radiant culinary heroine.
- Seattle, 25 June:
 Writer Nora Ephron makes her directing debut with Sleepless in Seattle, starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in their first pairing since Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). This out-and-out romantic fantasy is of the gloriously old-fashioned school that has given us Working Girl, Pretty Woman and When Harry Met Sally... (written by Ephron). It's unusual in that the couple don't meet until the final frame; it's also witty, very sentimental, and rich in deliberate iconic references to a Hollywood cinematic past in its soundtrack and, especially, its use of An Affair to Remember from which it self-consciously borrows. Welcome, too, to a refreshingly uncutesy and attractive child, Ross Malinger.
 - New York, 9 July: Clint Eastwood follows his triumph in Unforgiven with a straight acting job in Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire, gracing it with a great performance. Amid slick, pacy suspense, Eastwood's aging, tired, soon-to-retire Secret Service agent, haunted by his inability to have saved John F. Kennedy, finds himself engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with John Malkovich's cunning psycho, a rogue who taunts the bodyguard with his plans to assassinate the incumbent President. The latest computer techniques put the actors into real news footage from the Clinton and Bush campaigns for credible tension. Roundly entertaining, with that something extra, a real Star.
- Hollywood, 19 July: Despite the growing anxiety in the industry about dwindling profits, six major studios (Fox, Inc., Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Universal) are spending $1 billion to turn their studios into high-tech production palaces of the future in the biggest Hollwyood building boom since the advent of sound.
- New York, 16 August: Costume designer Irene Sharaff has died, aged 83. During her 50-year career, she designed costumes for dozens of top screen and stage stars including Elizabeth Taylor for her roles in Cleopatra (1963) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Sharaff was nominated for 15 Oscars®, winning 8 times.
- San Francisco, 8 September:
 Amy Tan has adapted her novel, The Joy Luck Club, and director Wayne Wang skillfully interweaves the tale's dramatic pasts in pre-Revolutionary China with funny, tearful psychodrama in contemporary America. An unconventional epic of women's lives and family relationships across generations, it is superbly acted by a large ensemble and directed with clarity and affection by Wang, making his biggest-budget venture to date.
- Paris, 10 September: The French box-office sensation for the year is Jean-Marie Poiré's time-travel comedy Les Visiteurs. Already France's highest grosser, with a total take of $65 million (unadjusted for inflation), the movie has moved into the French all-time top 10, with over 10.74 million viewers.
 - Venice, 11 September: The jury at the 50th Venice Film Festival diplomatically divided the Golden Lion between the USA and Europe, with Robert Altman's Short Cuts and Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue sharing the top prize. Altman's impressive three-hour movie expertly interweaves nine of John Carver's minimalist short stories and a narrative poem, and 22 disparate characters, whose lives occasionally cross. Short Cuts also received a merited special prize for the entire cast.
 Kieslowski's film is the first part of a Red, White and Blue trilogy, dealing with freedom, fraternity and equality. Blue is the freedom story, about how a woman (Juliette Binoche, best actress winner) tries to adapt to life after her husband, a celebrated composer, is suddenly killed in a car crash. It is an intricate and brilliantly shot film, though rather overloaded with symbols. A film from Tadjikhistan, Kosh ba kosh, won the Silver Lion.
 - New York, 17 September: The film version of Edith Wharton's 19th-century novel of New York manners, The Age of Innocence, has opened to enthusiastic acclaim. Wharton nailed her characters to the cross of convention and hypocrisy that dictated the behavior of the rich and fashionable, and which prevents her protagonist, Newland Archer, from following his heart to the Countess Ellen Olenska, an enigmatic woman with a "past." The film is wonderfully lavish, with loving attention to period detail -- the credits even boast a food consultant -- and the cast is superb. Daniel Day-Lewis is Archer, Michelle Pfeiffer Ellen, and Winona Ryder (her best performance) is the "suitable" girl Archer marries. But it is Martin Scorsese's achievement that gives most cause for comment. The industry was agog with the news that he would direct the film, but he has conclusively revealed that his gifts go deeper than streetwise.
- Paris, 29 November:
 Claude Berri's Germinal cost 175 million francs, thus becoming the most expensive movie ever made by a European company in Europe. The monumental set took seven months to build on location near Valenciennes. Zola's novel is a literary beacon casting its light on the dark social and economic conditions of the coal miners in the north of France in the 19th century. Berri has risen splendidly to the challenge of transporting this bleak tale to the screen. The film does not idealize working people, among whom Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou and the singer Renaud give towering performances; neither has it ignored the fact that Zola sometimes stretches the physical to the point of nausea.
 - New York, 29 September: with his New York-based TriBeca company having already been home to several directors (Martin Scorsese, Barry Primus, Irwin Winkler, and Michael Apted), actor Robert De Niro joins their ranks, proving with his directing debut that he paid attention when working with Scorsese. Adapted by Chazz Palminteri (who plays the local hood) from his one-man show about a boy's torn loyalties and transition to manhood in the 1960s, A Bronx Tale has De Niro as a poor but honest bus driver, struggling for his son's respect when the boy (teenage De Niro look-alike Lillo Brancato taking over from child Francis Capra) witnesses a shooting and falls prey to the hood's blandishments. Both tough and sentimental, this father-son tale is gutsy and engaging.
- Los Angeles, 8 October:
 Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes make a dynamite team as, respectively, the titular destructive cop, Demolition Man, and his nemesis, a bleached blond maniac with one blue eye and a fiendish way with a one-liner. This spiffy futuristic action caper may not be the most memorably intelligent movie ever made, but it has panache and humor, and proves that Snipes' continuing rise in the echelons of black actors is no accident. Debut director Marco Brambilla has Stallone delightfully spoofing his own personality as he comes up against Snipes in the 21st century when they both thaw out, having been cryogenically frozen for "attitude adjustment."
 - New York, 15 October: Banned in its native China, Kaige Chen's beguiling Ba wang bie ji (Farewell My Concubine), having changed its country of origin to Hong Kong, is now showing successfully in the USA. Kaige's fifth film is a sumptuously detailed panorama of Chinese history seen through the eyes of two dedicated star actors in the Peking Opera. Dieyi Cheng and Xialou Duan are inextricably linked from 1925, a time of warlords' rule, to the Japanese invasion, the rise of communism and the Cultural Revolution. The unrequited love that Dieyi has for Xialou is mirrored in their nightly performance of a traditional opera that gives the film its title, with Xialou as the King and Dieyi as the self-sacrificing concubine. When Xialou marries his real-life concubine, tragedy ensues. Fengyi Zhang and Leslie Cheung perform their roles as Xialou and Dieyi with skill and conviction. Kaige uses the relationship to develop themes rarely explored in Chinese cinema such as homosexuality, and the individual's plight in a society given over to the masses.
- Washington, DC, 17 October: Actress Jane Alexander, Broadway star and four-time Oscar® nominee (for The Great White Hope, All the President's Men, Kramer vs. Kramer and Testament) was sworn in today as chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts under the Clinton administration. Alexander will be in charge of the government arts subsidy, and is the first performing artist ever to hold his challenging and prestigious position.
- Los Angeles, 22 October: Disney Pictures has released an edited version of The Program. The costly cuts were made after a teenager was killed and two others critically injured while imitating a scene in which a group of drunken college footballers lie down on a busy roadway to prove their toughness.
- New York, 26 October: The new Warner Bros. Fifth Avenue store opened today. The store, complete with multiple movie screens and a 15-foot wingspan Bat Jet that descends from the ceiling to engage in laser-beamed battle with videotaped bad guys, sells items from a $1.50 key ring to $10,000 individual motion picture cels produced by Warner cartoon artists.
 - Rome, 1 November:
Federico Fellini died of a heart attack yesterday, following a stroke last August. Life -- the women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII -- inspired Fellini's dreams. Life and dreams were the raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina ("the Devil herself," said the priests who ran his school), and the Gambettola farmhouse of his paternal grandmother would be remembered in several films. His traveling salesman father Urbano Fellini showed up in La Dolce vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). His mother Ida Barbiani was from Rome and accompanied him there in 1939. He enrolled in the University of Rome. Intrigued by the image of reporters in American films, he tried out the real life role of journalist and caught the attention of several editors with his caricatures and cartoons and then started submitting articles. Several articles were recycled into a radio series about newlyweds "Cico and Pallina". Pallina was played by acting student Giulietta Masina, who became his real life wife from October 30, 1943, until his death half a century later. The young Fellini loved vaudeville and was befriended in 1940 by leading comedian Aldo Fabrizi. Roberto Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pietro in Roma, città aperta (1946) and made the contact through Fellini. Fellini worked on that film's script and is on the credits for Rosselini's Paisà (1946). On that film he wandered into the editing room, started observing how Italian films were made (a lot like the old silent films with an emphasis on visual effects, dialogue dubbed in later). Fellini in his mid-20s had found his life's work. -- Dale O'Connor, IMDb
- Los Angeles, 1 November:
 River Phoenix died yesterday after collapsing on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub owned by his friend Johnny Depp. He had been drinking heavily while on drugs. His brother Leaf, who was with him, called an ambulance, but it was too late. What shocked and surprised fans most was that the actor was known to be a vegetarian teetotaller. Although he was only 22, he seemed much younger, as if he were strongly resisting the coming of manhood. He had little of the show business ambition of his contemporaries. This might have had something to do with his unconventional upbringing, which his curious name reflected. He was born in a log cabin in Oregon, the son of nature- and peace-loving hippie parents. His two best performances reflected his early peripatetic existence: in Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty and Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho. In the latter, there was a gravity and fragility in his role as a gay hustler that made audiences feel protective of him. Phoenix will be remembered as an actor of looks and talent who endured the rites of passage without being able to enjoy the rewards that seemed certain to come his way.
- Los Angeles, 4 November: Producer Sherry Lansing, appointed to the newly created position of chariman of the Motion Picture Group of Paramount Pictures, becomes the highest-ranking woman in the film industry. Lansing, aged 48, has signed a five-year contract, and she intends to push through projects already in development including The Coneheads, The Firm and Indecent Proposal.
 - London, 12 November: The latest Merchant-Ivory offering, The Remains of the Day, was adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from Anglo-Japanese writer Kazui Ishigara's prizewinning novel about an English butler and his ambiguous relationships with his employer and housekeeper. The film carries all the hallmarks audiences expect from James Ivory: an elegiac camera, period detail and atmosphere, an authoritative cast, and finely balanced emotion. Ivory's technique, however, has seldom been put to better use. Anthony Hopkins is impeccable as the butler whose personal happiness is subsumed to the notion of service and, with Hannibal Lecter behind him and C. S. Lewis' Shadowlands to come, proves himself the outstanding actor of our time in his age range. Emma Thompson's housekeeper is almost a match for him, and James Fox perfect as the effete, politically suspect landowner. There is little doubt that English audiences will echo the enthusiastic American response.
- New York, 12 November: American Multi-Cinema, part of the AMC and Sony-owned Loew's Theaters, are launching a 20-theater chain to exhibit "cinematic games," interactive feature films from Inter Film Inc.
- New York, 1 December: Vincent Canby has stepped down after nearly 25 years as the New York Times' leading film critic. Janet Maslin takes over his column.
- Los Angeles, 5 December: President Clinton set aside his prepared speech at a Democratic party fund-raiser here last night and made an impassioned plea to the 500 entertainment industry guests to be more sensitive to the impact of popular culture on young peolpe growing up without jobs or a stable family life.
- New York, 15 December: Vivien Leigh's Oscar® for Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind was auctioned at Sotheby's today and fetched a massive $510,000 from an anonymous telephone bidder.
- New York, 15 December: The U.S. and Europe have agreed to put aside their unresolved differences in a number of key areas, including freer access to films and TV, so as to pave the way for a new and far-reaching GATT agreement, aimed at lowering tariffs and reducing other restrictions on world trade. This decision is a victory for the French in particular, who feel very strongly about maintaining their system of domestic subsidies and taxes designed to encourage French and European production, while restricting outside (mainly U.S.) access to French markets. They have recently rallied to support Claude Berri's new film version of Germinal, an example of the kind of film that would not have been made without generous government assistance, though it is hardly typical of French production with its $25 million making it one of the most expensive French films ever.
 - New York, 16 December:
 Steven Spielberg has made a radical departure from popular escapist entertainment, putting himself on the line with Schindler's List. Himself a Jew, a personal concern with his people's history and a desire to help ensure that the Holocaust is never forgotten, resulted in the film. There were some problems at the start, when the World Jewish Congress forbade him to shoot inside the Auschwitz death camp, though they allowed him to build a replica outside the main gates. The 185-minute film is based on Thomas Keneally's novel about Oskar Schindler, the real-life German businessman who rescued more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers by employing them in his munitions factory. Schindler, a member of the Nazi Party, learned how to manipulate the corrupt and cruel system to his own purposes. With an intellegent script (by Steven Zaillian), a superb cast (headed by Irish actor Liam Neeson taking the title role), and telling black-and-white images (photographed by Janusz Kaminski), Spielberg pays an unforgettable homage to survival, re-creating history with power and restraint. Perhaps the most moving sequence in the film is the epilogue, featuring actual survivors and their families, as well as Schindler's widow, filing past this complex man's grave in Israel. The film sees the culmination of its maker's 10-year-long ambition.
- London, 17 December: Charlie Chaplin's legendary hat and cane were sold for £55,000 at Christie's today. The sale ranged from silent movie memorabilia to a piece of "Kryptonite" from the 1978 production of Superman.
- Hollywood, 22 December:
 Director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner, basing their story on a true case, have made Philadelphia, Hollywood's first mainstream movie concerning AIDS. Tom Hanks, in a truthful performance commendably devoid of histrionic flourishes, is Andy Becker, high-flying lawyer and favorite of boss Jason Robards, until it is learned that he is gay and has AIDS. Fired, he decides to sue, defended by an intially reluctant and conventionally prejudiced Denzel Washington. Gay rights groups are complaining that the film is sanitized; this is to miss the point that it is an unashamedly commercial movie and is thus able to get across its message about discrimination and groundless fear. Well-acted, thought-provoking and poignant, it deserves both audiences and respect.
- Hollywood, 30 December: The legendary 5' 2" agent Irving 'Swifty' Lazar has died, aged 86. With a client list that stretched from Cole Porter and Noël Coward to Joan Collins and Madonna, Lazar was one of the most powerful "super-agents" in the industry. He also was famous for his "after the Oscar®" parties at Spago.
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15 January - Los Angeles, CA, 
