Events

• November 15 - The film Love Me Tender starring Elvis Presley (his first film) opens.

Top grossing films

North America

1. Guys and Dolls
2. The King and I
3. Trapeze
4. tie High Society and I'll Cry Tomorrow
5. Picnic
6. War and Peace
7. The Eddy Duchin Story
8. Moby Dick - directed by John Huston, starring Gregory Peck
9. The Searchers with John Wayne
10. tie The Conqueror with John Wayne as Genghis Khan and Rebel without a Cause with James Dean

Academy Awards

• Best Picture: Around the World in Eighty Days - Todd, United Artists
• Best Actor: Yul Brynner - The King and I
• Best Actress: Ingrid Bergman - Anastasia

Births

• January 3 - Mel Gibson, actor and director
• January 7 - David Caruso, actor
• January 21 - Geena Davis,actress.
• January 27 - Mimi Rogers, actress.
• February 11 - Kathleen Beller , actress.
• July 9 - Tom Hanks, actor

Deaths

• December 12 - Ewald André Dupont, German director
• December 16 - Nina Hamnett, artist

Other movies released

• Anastasia
• Around the World in Eighty Days
• Carousel
• Forbidden Planet
• Gervaise
• Giant with James Dean
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• La Srada by Federico Fellini
• Love Me Tender
• Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh and Anthony Quinn
• Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, starring James Stewart
• The Man with the Golden Arm
• Night and Fog
• Pather Panchali
• Rock Around the Clock
• Seven Wonders of the World
• The Silent World by Jacques Cousteau, Palm d'Or winner
• Smiles of a Summer Night by Ingmar Bergman
• A Town Like Alice
• Unkown Soldier
• X the Unknown