1925 in film

Top-grossing films (U.S.)

Events

• June 26: Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush premieres. It is voted the best film of the year by critics in The Film Daily annual poll
• September 25: Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin rebuilt as Germany's largest cinema reopens.
• November 5: The Big Parade holds its Grand Premiere.
• December 30: Première of Ben-Hur, the most expensive silent film ever made, costing $4 million
• Hong Shen publishes the film script Mrs. Shentu in the Shanghai magazine Eastern Miscellany. It is never filmed, but is considered a milestone in film history for being the first published film script in China. Hong also directs his first film, Young Master Feng, at Mingxing Film Company in this year.

  Notable films released in 1925

A

• Are Parents People?, starring Florence Vidor
• The Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein –

  B

• Ben-Hur, directed by Fred Niblo, starring Ramón Novarro, Francis X. Bushman and May McAvoy
• The Big Parade, directed by King Vidor; starring John Gilbert and Renée Adorée
• The Blackguard, directed by Graham Cutts –
• Braveheart, starring Rod La Rocque
• Bride of Glomdal, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer –
• Bulldog Drummond's Third Round, starring Jack Buchanan –

  C

• Chess Fever –
• The Circle, directed by Frank Borzage; starring Eleanor Boardman
• Cobra, starring Rudolph Valentino and Nita Naldi
• Corazón Aymara, directed by Pedro Sambarino; first Bolivian fiction feature film
• Curses!, starring Fatty Arbuckle

  D

• The Dark Angel, directed by George Fitzmaurice; starring Vilma Bánky and Ronald Colman
• Don Q, Son of Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Astor and Donald Crisp

  E

• The Eagle, starring Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky
• Le fantôme du Moulin-Rouge, directed by René Clair –

  F

• The Farmer from Texas, directed by Joe May, starring Lillian Hall-Davis
• Feu Mathias Pascal, directed by Marcel L'Herbier –
• Fifty-Fifty, starring Hope Hampton, Lionel Barrymore and Louise Glaum
• The Freshman, starring Harold Lloyd

  G

• Go West, starring Buster Keaton
• The Gold Rush, a Charlie Chaplin film
• The Goose Woman, directed by Clarence Brown; starring Louise Dresser
• Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life, directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack

  H

• The Heart Breaker
• His People, starring Rudolph Schildkraut
• His Supreme Moment directed by Marshall Neilan; starring his wife Blanche Sweet with Ronald Colman
• El Húsar de la muerte, starring and directed by Pedro Sienna –

  I

• Isn't Life Terrible, directed by Leo McCarey

  J

• Jealousy, directed by Karl Grune
• Joyless Street, directed by G.W. Pabst, starring Greta Garbo –

  K

• The King on Main Street, directed by Monta Bell; starring Bessie Love & Adolphe Menjou
• A Kiss For Cinderella, starring Esther Ralston and Dorothy Cumming

  L

• The Lady, starring Norma Talmadge
• Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Ronald Colman and May McAvoy
• Lights of Old Broadway, directed by Monta Bell; starring Marion Davies and Conrad Nagel
• Little Annie Rooney, starring Mary Pickford
• The Lost World, starring Bessie Love and Wallace Beery
• The Lucky Horseshoe, starring Tom Mix and Billie Dove

  M

• Madame Behave, starring Julian Eltinge and Ann Pennington
• Madame Sans-Gene, starring Gloria Swanson –
• Master of the House , directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer –
• Men and Women, starring Richard Dix
• The Merry Widow, directed by Erich von Stroheim, starring Mae Murray and John Gilbert
• Les Misérables –
• The Monster, starring Lon Chaney
• The Mystic, directed by Tod Browning; starring Aileen Pringle

  O

• Old Clothes
• Orochi –

  P

• Paris Qui Dort, directed by René Clair –
• Pampered Youth, directed by David Smith
• Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry
• The Plastic Age – directed by Wesley Ruggles, starring Clara Bow and Gilbert Roland; Clark Gable was also in this film
• The Pleasure Garden, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Virginia Valli and Carmelita Geraghty –
• Prem Sanyas –
• Pretty Ladies, directed by Monta Bell
• Proud Flesh, directed by King Vidor

  Q

• Quo Vadis, starring Emil Jannings –

  R

• The Rag Man, directed by Edward F. Cline, starring Jackie Coogan
• The Rat, starring Ivor Novello, Mae Marsh and Isabel Jeans –

  S

• Red Heels, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Lili Damita –
• Sally, Irene and Mary directed by Edmund Goulding; starring Constance Bennett, Joan Crawford & Sally O'Neil
• Sally of the Sawdust, directed by D.W. Griffith; starring Carol Dempster and W. C. Fields
• Seven Chances, a Buster Keaton film
• She, starring Betty Blythe –
• Smouldering Fires directed by Clarence Brown; starring Pauline Frederick and Laura La Plante
• Stella Dallas, starring Ronald Colman and Belle Bennett
• The Street of Forgotten Men
• Strike, directed by Sergei Eisenstein –
• The Swan directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki; starring Frances Howard, Adolphe Menjou and Ricardo Cortez

  T

• The Tailor from Torzhok –
• Three Weeks in Paris, starring Matt Moore
• Too Many Kisses, directed by Paul Sloane
• Tumbleweeds, starring William S. Hart
• Under the Crimson Sunset'' –

  U

• The Unholy Three, starring Lon Chaney

  V

• Visages d'enfants, directed by Jacques Feyder –
• The Whirlpool of Fate, directed by Jean Renoir –
• The White Lily Laments –
• Variety , starring Emil Jannings –

  W

• Wizard of Oz, starring Dorothy Dwan
• Wolf Blood
• Womanhandled, starring Richard Dix and Esther Ralston
• A Woman of the World, starring Pola Negri

  Z

• Zander the Great, directed by George W. Hill; starring Marion Davies and Harrison Edward Ford

  Comedy film series

• Charlie Chaplin
• Harold Lloyd
• Lupino Lane
• Buster Keaton
• Laurel and Hardy
• Our Gang
• Harry Langdon

  Animated short film series

• Felix the Cat
• Koko the Clown
• Aesop's Film Fables
• Alice Comedies
• * Alice Cans the Cannibals
• * Alice the Toreador
• * Alice Gets Stung
• * Alice Solves the Puzzle
• * Alice's Egg Plant
• * Alice Loses Out
• * Alice is Stage Struck
• * Alice Wins the Derby
• * Alice Picks the Champ
• * Alice's Tin Pony
• * Alice Chops the Suey
• * Alice the Jail Bird
• * Alice Plays Cupid
• * Alice Rattled by Rats
• * Alice in the Jungle
• Koko's Song Car Tunes
• Krazy Kat
• Un-Natural History

  Births

• January 6 – Enrique Carreras, Peruvian-born director and producer
• January 9 – Lee Van Cleef, American actor
• January 13 – Gwen Verdon, American actress and dancer
• January 26
• *Joan Leslie, American actress
• *Paul Newman, American actor
• January 30 – Dorothy Malone, American actress
• February 2 – Elaine Stritch, American actress
• February 8 – Jack Lemmon, American actor
• February 11 – Kim Stanley, American actress
• February 17
• *Ron Goodwin, English film composer
• *Hal Holbrook, American actor
• February 18 – George Kennedy, American actor
• February 20 – Robert Altman, American director
• February 21 – Sam Peckinpah, American director
• February 25 – Aino Seep, Estonian singer and actress
• April 14 – Rod Steiger, American actor
• April 18 – Bob Hastings, American actor
• April 19 – Hugh O'Brian, American actor
• May 2 – John Neville, English-Canadian actor
• May 25 – Jeanne Crain, American actress
• May 26 – Alec McCowen, English actor
• June 3 – Tony Curtis, American actor
• June 7 – John Biddle, American yachting cinematographer
• June 8 – Charles Tyner, American actor
• June 16 – Otto Muehl, Austrian experimental director
• June 21 – Maureen Stapleton, American actress
• June 25 – June Lockhart, American actress
• June 29 – Cara Williams, American actress
• July 1 – Farley Granger, American actor
• July 6 – Ruth Cracknell, Australian actress
• July 13 – Huang Zongying, Chinese actress and scriptwriter
• July 15 – D. A. Pennebaker, American documentary filmmaker
• July 23 – Gloria DeHaven, American actress
• August 11 – Arlene Dahl, American actress
• August 15 – Mike Connors, American actor
• August 22 – Honor Blackman, English actress
• August 23 – Robert Mulligan, American director
• September 8 – Peter Sellers, English comedian and actor
• September 12 – Dickie Moore, American actor
• September 21 – Noor Jehan, Indian actress
• October 3 – Gore Vidal, American writer and actor
• October 5 – Gail Davis, American actress
• October 11 – Nancy Guild, American actress
• October 16
• *Angela Lansbury, English-American actress
• *Lenka Peterson, American actress
• October 29 – Robert Hardy, English actor
• November 4 – Doris Roberts, American actress
• November 10 – Richard Burton, Welsh actor
• November 17 – Rock Hudson, American actor
• November 25 – June Whitfield, English comic actress
• December 2 – Julie Harris, American Broadway and film actress
• December 3 – Kaljo Kiisk, Estonian actor and director
• December 8 – Sammy Davis Jr., American singer, dancer, musician and actor
• December 12 – Anne V. Coates, English film editor
• December 13 – Dick Van Dyke, American actor
• December 18 – Peggy Cummins, Welsh-born Irish actress
• December 28 – Hildegard Knef, German actress, singer and writer

  Deaths

• January 24 - Wilton Taylor, American actor,
• February 7 – Edward Jobson, American actor
• February 25 – Louis Feuillade, French director
• March 13 – Lucille Ricksen, American actress
• April 8 – Thecla Åhlander, Swedish actress
• April 13 – Frederik Buch, Danish actor
• April 16 – David Powell, Scottish actor
• July 29 – Mark Fenton, American actor
• September 28 – Paul Vermoyal, French actor
• October 21 – Orme Caldara, American stage and film actor
• October 31 – Max Linder, French actor
• November 1 – Lester Cuneo American actor
• November 3 – Lucile McVey, American actress
• December 8 – Marguerite Marsh, American actress
• December 9 – Harry Rattenberry, American actor
• December 21 – Lottie Lyell, Australian director/producer
• December 22 – Mary Thurman, American actress
• December 24 - James O. Barrows, American stage and screen actor,
• December 31 – J. Gordon Edwards American director

  Film debuts

• Walter Brennan – Webs of Steel
• Gary Cooper – Dick Turpin
• Joan Crawford – Lady of the Night
• Stepin Fetchit – The Mysterious Stranger
• Phillips Holmes – Her Market Value
• Myrna Loy – What Price Beauty?
• Tim McCoy – The Thundering Herd
• Anita Page – A Kiss for Cinderella
• Dolores del Río – Joanna
• Gilbert Roland – The Plastic Age