1925 in film

Events

November 5: The Big Parade holds its Grand Premiere

December 30: Première of Ben-Hur, the most expensive silent film ever made, costing $4–6 million (around $50–80 million when adjusted for inflation)

September 25: Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin rebuilt as Germany's largest cinema reopens.

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 (Star) Film Company in this year.

Notable films released in 1925

U.S.A. unless stated

Are Parents People?, starring Florence Vidor

The Battleship Potemkin (Bronyenosyets Potyomkin), directed by Sergei Eisenstein – (U.S.S.R.)

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 (Die Prinzessin und der Geiger), directed by Graham Cutts – (GB/Germany)

Braveheart, starring Rod La Rocque

Bride of Glomdal (Glomdalsbruden), directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer – (Denmark)

Bulldog Drummond's Third Round, starring Jack Buchanan – (GB)

Chess Fever (Shakhmatnaya goryachka) – (U.S.S.R.)

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

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

The Eagle, starring Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky

Le fantôme du Moulin-Rouge (The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge), directed by René Clair – (France)

The Farmer from Texas, directed by Joe May, starring Lillian Hall-Davis (Germany)

Feu Mathias Pascal (The Late Mathias Pascal), directed by Marcel L'Herbier – (France)

Fifty-Fifty, starring Hope Hampton, Lionel Barrymore and Louise Glaum

The Freshman, starring Harold Lloyd

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

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 (Hussar of the Dead), starring and directed by Pedro Sienna – (Chile)

Isn't Life Terrible, directed by Leo McCarey

Jealousy, directed by Karl Grune (Germany)

Joyless Street (Die freudlose Gasse), directed by G.W. Pabst, starring Greta Garbo – (Germany)

The King on Main Street, directed by Monta Bell; starring Bessie Love & Adolphe Menjou

A Kiss For Cinderella, starring Esther Ralston and Dorothy Cumming

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

Madame Behave, starring Julian Eltinge and Ann Pennington

Madame Sans-Gene, starring Gloria Swanson – (France)

Master of the House (Du skal ære din hustru) (aka Thou Shalt Honour Thy Wife), directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer – (Denmark)

Men and Women, starring Richard Dix

The Merry Widow, directed by Erich von Stroheim, starring Mae Murray and John Gilbert

Les Misérables – (France)

The Monster, starring Lon Chaney

The Mystic, directed by Tod Browning; starring Aileen Pringle

Old Clothes

Orochi – (Japan)

Paris Qui Dort, directed by René Clair – (France)

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 Nita Naldi and Virginia Valli – (GB)

Prem Sanyas (Die Leuchte Asiens | The Light of Asia) – (Germany/India)

Pretty Ladies, directed by Monta Bell

Proud Flesh, directed by King Vidor

Quo Vadis, starring Emil Jannings – (Italy)

The Rag Man, directed by Edward F. Cline, starring Jackie Coogan

The Rat, starring Ivor Novello, Mae Marsh and Isabel Jeans – (GB)

Red Heels (Das Spielzeug von Paris), directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Lili Damita – (Austria)

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 – (GB/Germany)

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 (Stachka), directed by Sergei Eisenstein – (U.S.S.R.)

The Swan directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki; starring Frances Howard, Adolphe Menjou and Ricardo Cortez

The Tailor from Torzhok (Zakroyshchik iz Torzhka) – (U.S.S.R.)

Three Weeks in Paris, starring Matt Moore

Too Many Kisses, directed by Paul Sloane

Tumbleweeds, starring William S. Hart

Under the Crimson Sunset (Akai yuhi ni terasarete) – (Japan)

The Unholy Three, starring Lon Chaney

Visages d'enfants (Faces of Children), directed by Jacques Feyder – (France)

The Whirlpool of Fate (La Fille de l'eau), directed by Jean Renoir – (France)

The White Lily Laments (Shirayuri wa nageku) – (Japan)

Variety (Variete) (Jealousy), starring Emil Jannings – (Germany)

Wizard of Oz, starring Dorothy Dwan

Wolf Blood

Womanhandled, starring Richard Dix and Esther Ralston

A Woman of the World, starring Pola Negri

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

Comedy film series

Charlie Chaplin (1914–1940)

Harold Lloyd (1913–1938)

Lupino Lane (1915–1939)

Buster Keaton (1917–1944)

Laurel and Hardy (1921–1943)

Our Gang (1922–1944)

Harry Langdon (1924–1936)

Animated short film series

Felix the Cat (1919–1936)

Koko the Clown (1919–1963)

Aesop's Film Fables (1921–1934)

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 (1924–1927)

Krazy Kat (1925–1940)

Un-Natural History (1925–1927)

Births

January 6 – Enrique Carreras, Peruvian-born director and producer (died 1995)

January 9 – Lee Van Cleef, American actor (died 1989)

January 13 – Gwen Verdon, actress, dancer (died 2000)

January 26

Joan Leslie, American actress (died 2015)

Paul Newman, American actor (died 2008)

January 30 – Dorothy Malone, American actress

February 2 – Elaine Stritch, American actress (died 2014)

February 8 – Jack Lemmon, American actor (died 2001)

February 11 – Kim Stanley, American actress (died 2001)

February 17 – Hal Holbrook, American actor

February 18 – George Kennedy, American actor (died 2016)

February 20 – Robert Altman, American director (died 2006)

February 21 – Sam Peckinpah, American director (died 1984)

February 25 - Aino Seep, Estonian singer and actress (died 1982)

April 14 – Rod Steiger, American actor (died 2002)

April 19 – Hugh O'Brian, American actor (died 2016)

June 3 – Tony Curtis, American actor (died 2010)

June 7 – John Biddle, American sailor and cinematographer (died 2008)

June 8 – Charles Tyner, American actor

June 16 – Otto Muehl, Austrian experimental director (died 2013)

June 21 – Maureen Stapleton, American actress (died 2006)

June 25 – June Lockhart, American actress

June 29 – Cara Williams, American actress

July 1 – Farley Granger, American actor (died 2011)

July 20 – Lola Albright, American actress

July 23 – Gloria DeHaven, American actress (died 2016)

August 11 – Arlene Dahl, American actress

August 15 – Mike Connors, American actor (died 2017)

August 23 – Robert Mulligan, American director (died 2008)

August 25 – Honor Blackman, English actress

September 8 – Peter Sellers, English comedian, actor (died 1980)

September 12 – Dickie Moore, American actor (died 2015)

October 3 – Gore Vidal, American writer, actor (died 2012)

October 5 – Gail Davis, American actress (died 1997)

October 16 – Angela Lansbury, English-American actress

November 4 – Doris Roberts, American actress (died 2016)

November 10 – Richard Burton, Welsh actor (died 1984)

November 17 – Rock Hudson, American actor (died 1985)

November 25 – June Whitfield, English actress

December 2 – Julie Harris, American Broadway and film actress (died 2013)

December 3 - Kaljo Kiisk, Estonian actor and director (died 2007)

December 8 – Sammy Davis Jr., American singer, dancer, musician, actor (died 1990)

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 (died 2002)

Deaths

February 7 - Edward Jobson, American actor (b.1860)

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 31 – Max Linder, French actor

November 1 – Lester Cuneo American actor

November 3 – Lucile McVey, American actress

December 8 – Marguerite Marsh, American actress

December 21 – Lottie Lyell, Australian director/producer

December 22 – Mary Thurman, American actress

December 31 – J. Gordon Edwards American director

Film debuts

Gary Cooper

Joan Crawford

Myrna Loy

Tyrone Power

Dolores del Río