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The History of American Cinema: 2005

19/1 -

A court rules in favour of Stan Lee's lawsuit claim for 10% of the profits earned by Marvel from the two Spider-Man movies. [ADD]

20/1 -

The Sundance Film Festival opens, and for the first time entries from international films are permitted.  Foreign films to be screened include Britain's On a Clear Day, South Korea's Green Chair, Finland's The 3 Rooms of Melancholia and Australia's Dhakiyarr vs. The King. [ADD]

22/1 -

The Producers Guild of America names Martin Scorsese's The Aviator best film of 2004. [ADD]

29/1 -

The Directors Guild of America names Clint Eastwood best director for his boxing drama Million Dollar Baby. [ADD]

30/1 -

Ira Sachs' Forty Shades of Blue, starring Rip Torn, wins the American Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.   The Audience Award goes to Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow. [ADD]

11/2 -

Hitch, in which Will Smith stars as a male matchmaker, is released. [ADD]

11/2 -

The Los Angeles Times reports that more Oscar screeners have appeared online this year than last, despite the severe punishment meted out last year to an Academy member whose screeners found their way onto the net. [ADD]

16/2 -

Four Hollywood organisations that represent the interests of stunt men combine to petition the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to create a new Oscar category for best stunt coordinator. [ADD]

28/2 -

Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby wins Best Picture at the 77th Annual Academy Awards, while Jamie Foxx wins best actor for his portrayal of blind blues singer Ray Charles in Ray. [MORE]

11/3 -

2Oth Century-Fox’s animated family film Robots is released. [ADD]

18/3 -

Hideo Nakata’s horror sequel Ring II, starring Naomi Watts, is released to mixed reviews. [ADD]

28/3 -

Sin City, Robert Rodriguez’ stunning visualization of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, is released to lukewarm reviews.   Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Hartnett, Rutger Hauer, Michael Madsen, Brittany Murphy and Elijah Wood star. [ADD]

1/4 -

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bring a lawsuit against a number of companies and individuals for selling non-transferable tickets to the Awards ceremony at prices reaching $30,000 a pair. [ADD]

9/4 -

MGM is sold to a consortium headed by Sony Corp. of America.   While the studio will operate as an independently owned motion picture, television and home video company, Sony will take over the distribution of its films and TV episodes as well as its home video library. [ADD]

18/4 -

At the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Los Angeles, Sony Pictures Entertainment announces that it will convert its entire library of movies and television shows to the digital format. [ADD]

22/4 -

Sidney Pollack’s The Interpreter, starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, is released to mixed reviews. [ADD]

28/4 -

The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) becomes law.   Part of the act makes ‘camcorder piracy’ a criminal offence punishable by three years imprisonment.   Another part protects innovators of technology designed to mute offensive language or jump sexual scenes. [ADD]

Apr -

Congress renews the National Film Preservation Act for four more years. [ADD]

2/5 -

Chinese director Li Shaohong's Stolen Film, which has been banned in China, receives the Founders Award at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival in New York. [ADD]

6/5 -

Crash, Paul Haggis’s directorial debut ensemble piece, is released.   Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Ludacris, and Brendan Fraser star. [ADD]

13/5 -

67-year-old Jane Fonda returns to the screen for the first time in 15 years in Robert Luketic’s Monster-in-Law, opposite Jennifer Lopez. [ADD]

19/5 -

George Lucas’s concluding episode of the Star Wars saga, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, is released. [ADD]

2/6 -

On its 17^th day of release, George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith becomes the fastest movie ever to cross the $300-million mark [ADD]

3/6 -

Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, in which Russell Crowe plays former heavyweight boxing champion Jim Braddock, is released.   The film draws criticism for its unsympathetic portrayal of former heavyweight champion Max Baer. [ADD]

6/6 -

Anne Bancroft dies from uterine cancer in New York at the age of 73. [ADD]

10/6 -

Brad Pitt and Angela Jolie’s action/romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs Smith is released. [ADD]

15/6 -

Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s version of the comic-book hero’s story, is released at one minute past midnight.   Christian Bale stars as the masked crusader.   Gary Oldman also stars. [ADD]

16/6 -

65 stuntmen stage a protest outside the offices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to demand that their work be recognized with an Oscar for best stunt co-ordinator. [ADD]

22/6 -

Rhett Butler's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind is listed as the top movie quote by the American Film Institute.  Others in the top 5 were: 2. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse," from The Godfather. 3. "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am," from On the Waterfront. 4. "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," from The Wizard of Oz. 5. "Here's looking at you, kid," from Casablanca. [ADD]

29/6 -

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise is released. [ADD]

2/7 -

Ernest Lehman, writer of such classic screenplays as Sweet Smell of Success, North by Northwest, West Side Story, The Sound of Music and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? dies in Los Angeles at the age of 89. [ADD]

8/7 -

The Fantastic Four, the latest in a long line of comic-book adaptations, is released to scathing reviews. [ADD]

8/7 -

Walter Salles' Dark Water, the US version of a Japanese horror film, is released.   Jennifer Connelly stars as a single mum who moves into a sinister apartment block. [ADD]

15/7 -

Tim Burton’s remake of the Roald Dahl tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with Johnny Depp playing the role of Willy Wonka previously taken by Gene Wilder, is released. [ADD]

15/7 -

The comedy film Wedding Crashers, in which Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play a couple of men who crash wedding receptions in search of unattached women, is released. [ADD]

5/8 -

The film version of hit 80s TV show The Dukes of Hazzard is released to poor reviews. [ADD]

8/8 -

Character actress Babara Bel Geddes, who became famous late in life as Miss Ellie in the TV show Dallas, dies at the age of 82.   Bel Geddes’ promising career stalled in 1951 when director Elia Kazan named her as a fellow member of the Communist Party. [ADD]

12/8 -

John Singleton’s Four Brothers, in which two white men and two black seek the killer of their murdered foster mother, is released.   Mark Wahlberg stars. [ADD]

12/8 -

Iain Softley’s horror film The Skeleton Key is released.   Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard and John Hurt star. [ADD]

19/8 -

Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin, co-written by and starring Steve Carell is released.   Carrell plays the titular character, who decides it’s time to sell the Star Wars toy collection and find a girlfriend. [ADD] 

26/8 -

Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, is released. [ADD]

31/8 -

Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of John le Carré's The Constant Gardener is released.   Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz star. [ADD]

14/9 -

Robert Wise dies of heart failure in Los Angeles at the age of 91.   The former editor turned director and producer won four Oscars in a career spanning more than 50 years, for his work on West Side Story and The Sound of Music. [ADD]

15/9 -

Guy Green, British Oscar-winning cinematographer of David Lean’s Great Expectations (1946) dies of heart and kidney failure at his Beverly Hills home at the age of 91. [ADD]

27/9 -

The documentary March of the Penguins falls out of the box-office top ten after a run of 10 weeks.   Its total gross of $72,846,145 makes it the second-highest earning documentary of all time. [ADD]

30/9 -

David Cronenberg’s dark thriller A History of Violence, in which Viggo Mortensen stars as a happily married small-town café owner whose past catches up with him, is released. [ADD]

30/9 -

Capote, Bennett Miller’s account of Truman Capote’s writing of In Cold Blood, the true story about two men who broke into a farmhouse in 1959 and killed the family inside, is released.   Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as the writer, with support from Catherine Keener (as Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird), Chris Cooper and Bob Balaban. [ADD]

7/10 -

Goodnight and Good Luck, directed, co-written (with producer Grant Heslov) and starring George Clooney, is released.   The film tells the story of CBS broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow’s stand against Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witchhunt in the 50s on his CBS news show See It Now.   David Strathairn stars as Murrow, with Clooney as producer Fred Friendly and Frank Langella as network boss Bill Paley. [ADD]

18/10 -

Peter Jackson jettison’s Howard Shore’s score for his forthcoming King Kong, which is due for release in ten weeks, in favour of a new one by James Newton Howard. [ADD]

21/10 -

Niki Caro’s North Country, in which Charlize Theron plays one of the first Minnesota female mine workers following a consent decree in the 1970s that forced mining companies to hire women, is released. [ADD]

21/10 -

Shopgirl, Anand Tucker’s adaptation of actor Steve Martin’s novella, is released.   Martin stars with Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzman. [ADD]

21/10 -

Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, starring Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan, is released. [ADD]

27/10 -

Universal executives agree to the release of a 187-minute cut of Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong after seeing a screening of it at Jackson’s New Zealand studios last month.   They had originally demanded that it be cut to under two-and-a-half hours. [ADD]

3/11 -

Boston becomes only the second U.S. city ever to screen the controversial 1972 documentary Winter Soldier, in which Vietnam veterans claim that they witnessed or participated in atrocities during the War. [ADD]

6/12 -

Peter Jackson’s epic version of the classic monster movie King Kong is released. [ADD]

9/12 -

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Andrew Adamson’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s chidren’s fantasy tale, is released.   Tilda Swinton plays Jadis the White Witch. [ADD]

11/12 -

The Los Angeles Critics Association vote gay cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain the Best Picture of 2005. [ADD]

12/12 -

DreamWorks SKG, the film, TV and music empire established by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in 1994, is sold to Paramount Pictures for $1.6 billion. [ADD]

12/12 -

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain wins three of the top four awards from the New York Film Critics Circle – best film, best director and best actor (Heath Ledger). [ADD]

12/12 -

The American Film Institute’s top ten films of 2005 are announced.   They are (in alphabetical order) Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Good Night, and Good Luck, A History of Violence, King Kong, Munich, The Squid and the Whale and Syriana. [ADD]

15/12 -

Peter Jackson's King Kong takes an unspectacular $9.8 million domestic on its first day of release, putting it at No. 21 on the all-time list of best Wednesday debuts. [ADD]

16/12 -

Thomas Bezucha's The Family Stone, starring Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Jessica Parker and Luke Wilson, is released. [ADD]

16/12 -

Susan Stroman’s remake of Mel Brooks’ 60s hit The Producers is released.   Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick take on the Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder roles, while support is provided by Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell, Roger Bart, and Gary Beach. [ADD]

21/12 -

A report by Kagan Research, based in Monterey, California, reveals that the genre of animated films was the most profitable between 2000 and 2004, earning an average of $194.5 million in gross profit each.   Sci-fi/fantasy films were the second most profitable and family films were the third. [ADD]

22/12 -

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones, is released.   The film wins best actor and best screenplay for Jones and Guillermo Arriaga respectively. [ADD]

27/12 -

25 more titles are added to the US Library of Congress National Film Registry.  Among them are Baby Face (1933); Giant (1956); Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). [ADD]

28/12 -

Woody Allen’s London-based drama Match Point, starring Jude Law and Scarlet Johansson is released. [ADD]

30/12 -

Variety reports that, while the top 15 films of 2005 performed as well at the box office as the top 15 films of 2004 every film below the top 15 performed worse.   Admissions dropped 11% on the previous year. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 2005