Events

Top grossing films

1. Sergeant York
2. Buck Privates , starring Abbott and Costello
3. Tobacco Road

Academy Awards

• Best Picture: How Green Was My Valley - 20th Century-Fox
• Best Actor: Gary Cooper - Sergeant York
• Best Actress: Joan Fontaine - Suspicion

Births

• January 3 - Van Dyke Parks, musician, composer
• January 4 - Henri Bergson, writer
• January 5 - Miyazaki Hayao, Japanese film maker
• January 8 - Graham Chapman, comedian
• January 14 - Faye Dunaway, actress
• February 11 - Glenn Randall Jr , stuntman
• June 25 - Denys Arcand, screenwriter, film director
• June 27 - Krzysztof Kieslowski, film director
• October 4 - Anne Rice, horror/fantasy writer

Deaths

• January 10 - Joe Penner, comedian, actor

Other movies released

• Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion
• Bowery Blitzkrieg
• Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner
• Dumbo
• Flying Wild
• Hit the Road
• Mob Town
• Pride of the Bowery
• Sea Radiers
• Spooks Run Wild
• The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart