1913 in film

Events

• January 1 – The British Board of Film Censors is established.
• April 21 – The first full-length Indian feature film Raja Harishchandra has its première.
• May – Mary Pickford signs a contract with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company for $500 per week, becoming the company's first superstar.
• Jesse L. Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and Oscar Apfel founded Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.
• November 24 - Traffic in Souls is an early example of the narrative style of Hollywood film.
• December 29 – Charlie Chaplin signs a contract with Mack Sennett to begin making films at Keystone Studios.
• December 29 – release of The Adventures of Kathlyn, the second American serial film and the first to feature cliffhanger endings that became popular with later serials.
• December 29 – production starts on Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company's The Squaw Man, the first full-length Hollywood feature film.
• D. W. Griffith ends his series of Biograph shorts, begun in 1908, and leaves the Biograph Company in New York City to make full-length motion pictures.
• Georges Méliès' career as a director comes to an end.
• Cines-Palast in Berlin opens as a cinema with Quo Vadis.
• Mitchell and Kenyon shoot their last known films in England.
• Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle signs for Mack Sennett at Keystone Studios and his early films for them feature the first known instances of pie thrown on film.

Notable films

A

• The Adventures of Kathlyn, film serial directed by Francis J. Grandon, starring Kathlyn Williams
• Antony and Cleopatra , directed by Enrico Guazzoni, based on the 17th-century play by William Shakespeare –
• Atlantis, directed by August Blom, starring Olaf Fønss and Ida Orloff, based on the 1912 novel by Gerhart Hauptmann –

B

• The Bangville Police, directed by Henry Lehrman, starring Mabel Normand and the Keystone Cops
• Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life, directed by Mack Sennett, starring Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Barney Oldfield and the Keystone Cops
• The Battle at Elderbush Gulch, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish

C

• Cinderella or the Glass Slipper , directed by Georges Méliès, based on the 1697 fairy tale by Charles Perrault –

D

• David Copperfield, directed by Thomas Bentley, based on the 1850 novel by Charles Dickens –
• The Difficult Couple , directed by Zhang Shichuan and Zheng Zhengqiu –
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by Herbert Brenon, starring King Baggot, based on the 1886 novella by Robert Louis Stevenson

E

• The Evidence of the Film, directed by Lawrence Marston and Edwin Thanhouser

F

• Fantômas, film serial directed by Louis Feuillade, based on the true crime novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain –

G

• The Grasshopper and the Ant , directed by Ladislas Starevich, based on the fable by Aesop –

H

• Hamlet, directed by Hay Plumb, starring Johnston Forbes-Robertson, based on the 17th-century play by William Shakespeare –
• Hinemoa, directed by Gaston Méliès –

I

• Ingeborg Holm, directed by Victor Sjöström –
• Ivanhoe, directed by Herbert Brenon, starring King Baggot, based on the 1819 novel by Walter Scott

L

• The Last Days of Pompeii , directed by Eleuterio Rodolfi –
• Love Everlasting , directed by Mario Caserini, starring Lyda Borelli –

M

• The Mothering Heart, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish

N

• The Night Before Christmas , directed by Ladislas Starevich, starring Ivan Mosjoukine –

P

• The Pit and the Pendulum, directed by Alice Guy-Blaché, based on the 1842 short story by Edgar Allan Poe

Q

• Quo Vadis, directed by Enrico Guazzoni, based on the 1896 novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz –

R

• Raja Harishchandra, directed by Dadasaheb Phalke –

S

• Scrooge, directed by Leedham Bantock, starring Seymour Hicks, based on the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – The Student of Prague , directed by Stellan Rye, starring Paul Wegener, based on the 1839 short story William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe –
• Suspense, directed by Lois Weber

T

• The Telephone Girl and the Lady, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Mae Marsh
• Traffic in Souls, directed by George Loane Tucker
• Twilight of a Woman's Soul , directed by Yevgeni Bauer –

W

• The Werewolf, directed by Henry MacRae

Z

• Zhuangzi Tests His Wife , directed by Li Beihai –

Short film series

• Broncho Billy Anderson
• Harold Lloyd

Births

• January 2 – Anna Lee, actress
• January 6 – Loretta Young, actress
• January 15
• *Lloyd Bridges, actor
• *Patricia Farr, actress
• January 28 - Maurice Gosfield, American stage, film, radio and television actor
• January 29 – Victor Mature, actor
• February 8 – Betty Field, actress
• February 10 – Douglas Slocombe, cinematographer
• February 25
• *Jim Backus, actor
• *Gert Fröbe, actor
• March 2 – Marjorie Weaver, actress
• March 3 - Harold J. Stone, actor died
• March 4 – John Garfield, actor
• March 15 – Macdonald Carey, actor
• March 18 – René Clément, director
• April 16 – Les Tremayne, English-American actor
• May 6 – Stewart Granger, actor
• May 8
• *Sid James, actor and comedian
• *Charles Scorsese, American actor
• May 10 – Maria Dominiani, actress
• May 18 – Mary Howard de Liagre, actress
• May 25 - Benjamin Melniker, American producer
• May 26 – Peter Cushing, actor
• May 27
• *Willie Best, actor
• *Linden Travers, actress
• July 4 – Barbara Weeks, actress
• July 10 – Joan Marsh, actress
• July 18
• *Marvin Miller, American actor
• *Red Skelton, actor, comedian
• July 29 – Gale Page, actress
• August 10 – Noah Beery Jr., actor
• August 11 – Paul Dupuis, actor
• August 13
• *Rita Johnson, actress
• *Felix Nelson, actor
• August 24 – Dorothy Comingore, actress
• September 3 – Alan Ladd, actor
• September 5 - Kathleen Burke, actress
• September 7 – Anthony Quayle, actor
• September 12 – Gerardo de Leon, Filipino director, actor, screenwriter, producer
• September 19 – Frances Farmer, actress
• September 27 - Margery Mason, British actress
• September 29
• *Trevor Howard, British actor
• *Stanley Kramer, producer, director
• September 30 – Bill Walsh, producer, writer
• October 7 – Evelyn Venable, actress
• October 10 – Janis Carter, actress
• October 17 – Robert Lowery, actor
• October 30 - Don Lusk, American animator
• November 2 – Burt Lancaster, American actor
• November 4 – Gig Young, actor
• November 5
• *Guy Green, cinematographer
• *Vivien Leigh, actress
• *John McGiver, actor
• November 13 – Alexander Scourby, American actor
• November 16 - Ellen Albertini Dow, American character actress
• November 20 – Judy Canova, actress
• November 24
• *Howard Duff, actor
• *Geraldine Fitzgerald, actress
• December 1 – Mary Martin, actress
• December 25 – Tony Martin, singer, actor

Deaths

• February - Florence Barker, film actress
• March 15 – John R. Cumpson, stage and film actor
• June 2 – Eleanor Caines, silent film actress
• August 3 – Joseph Graybill, actor with D.W. Griffith

Film debuts

• Luciano Albertini – Spartacus
• Wallace Beery – The Right of Way
• Gladys Brockwell – The Rattlesnake
• Robert Broderick – Arizona
• William Conklin – Arizona
• Nell Craig – The Battle of Shiloh
• Douglass Dumbrille – What 80 Million Women Want
• Aud Egede-Nissen – Stage Children
• Louise Fazenda – The Romance of the Utah Pioneers
• John Gottowt – The Student of Prague
• Charles E. Graham – Arizona
• Gail Kane – Arizona
• Lila Leslie – The Third Degree
• Murdock MacQuarrie – The Count of Monte Cristo
• Rosita Marstini – A Prisoner in the Harem
• Nance O'Neil – The Count of Monte Cristo
• Lyda Salmonova – Evinrude
• Bernard Siegel – The Third Degree
• Paul Wegener – The Student of Prague
• Margaret Yarde – ''A Cigarette-Maker's Romance''