1915 in film
The year 1915 in film involved some significant events.
Events
- February 1: Fox Film Corporation founded
- February 8: D.W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation premieres at Clune's Auditorium Los Angeles and breaks both box office and film length records.
- February: Metro Pictures, a forerunner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is founded
- February 22: The Allan Dwan directed film David Harum is released. The film is the first in long line of a successful romantic onscreen pairings of actors May Allison and Harold Lockwood.
- March 15: Universal Studios Hollywood opens.
- June 18: The Motion Picture Directors Association is formed by twenty-six film directors in Los Angeles, California.
- July: Triangle Film Corporation is founded in Culver City, California and attracts filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett
- September 11: A nitrate fire at Famous Players in New York destroys several completed but unreleased silent films which are later remade. Films lost include Mary Pickford's Esmerelda and The Foundling and John Barrymore's The Red Widow.
- October 1: A US court rules in United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co. that the Motion Picture Patents Company trust is monopolistic and orders it to be dissolved.
- November 18: Release of Inspiration, the first mainstream movie in which a leading actress appears nude.
- December 13: Sessue Hayakawa becomes the first Asian actor to become a star in the US after his performance in The Cheat.
- The Duplex Corporation creates a Split Duplex, an early widescreen film format where the film image is rotated 90 degrees and occupies half of a conventional frame.
- Max Fleischer invents the rotoscoping animation process in the US.
- The Kinematograph Renters’ Society of Great Britain and Ireland is formed to represent film distribution companies
Top-grossing films (U.S.)
The top ten 1915 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows:| Rank | Title | Studio | Gross |
| 1 | The Birth of a Nation | Epoch | $10,000,000 |
| 2 | Carmen | Paramount | $147,600 |
| 3 | The Cheat | Paramount | $137,364 |
| 4 | Temptation | Paramount | $102,437 |
| 5 | The Girl of the Golden West | Paramount | $102,224 |
| 6 | The Warrens of Virginia | Paramount | $85,770 |
| 7 | The Golden Chance | Paramount | $83,504 |
| 8 | Chimmie Fadden | Paramount | $78,944 |
| 9 | Chimmie Fadden Out West | Paramount | $72,036 |
| 10 | The Arab | Paramount | $68,526 |
Notable films
Films produced in the United States unless stated otherwiseA
- Alias Jimmy Valentine, directed by Maurice Tourneur, starring Robert Warwick
- Assunta Spina, directed by Gustavo Serena, starring Francesca Bertini –
B
- The Bank, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
- The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish and Henry B. Walthall
- Blackbirds, directed by J. P. McGowan, starring Laura Hope Crews and Thomas Meighan
- A Burlesque on Carmen, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
- By the Sea, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin
C
- The Captive, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Blanche Sweet
- Carmen, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Geraldine Farrar, based on the 1845 novella by Prosper Mérimée
- The Champion, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
- The Cheat, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Fannie Ward and Sessue Hayakawa
- The Coward, directed by Reginald Barker, starring Frank Keenan and Charles Ray
D
- The Dawn of a Tomorrow, directed by James Kirkwood, starring Mary Pickford
- The Devil's Daughter, directed by Frank Powell, starring Theda Bara
- Double Trouble, directed by Christy Cabanne, starring Douglas Fairbanks
E
- Enoch Arden, directed by Christy Cabanne, starring Lillian Gish and D. W. Griffith
F
- Fanchon the Cricket, directed by James Kirkwood, starring Mary Pickford
- Fatty's Tintype Tangle, directed by and starring Fatty Arbuckle
- Filibus, directed by Mario Roncoroni –
- A Fool There Was, directed by Frank Powell, starring Theda Bara
G
- A Gentleman of Leisure, directed by George Melford, starring Wallace Eddinger
- A Girl of Yesterday, directed by Allan Dwan, starring Mary Pickford
- The Golem , directed by Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen –
H
- His New Job, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin
- Hypocrites, directed by Lois Weber
I
- In the Park, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
- The Incorrigible Dukane, directed by James Durkin, starring John Barrymore
- Inspiration, directed by George Foster Platt, starring Audrey Munson
- The Italian, directed by Reginald Barker, starring George Beban
J
- A Jitney Elopement, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
L
- The Lamb, directed by Christy Cabanne, starring Douglas Fairbanks
- Little Pal, directed by James Kirkwood, starring Mary Pickford
M
- Madame Butterfly, directed by Sidney Olcott, starring Mary Pickford
- Martyrs of the Alamo, directed by Christy Cabanne
- Mistress Nell, directed by James Kirkwood, starring Mary Pickford and Owen Moore
N
- A Night in the Show, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
- A Night Out, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin
P
- The Picture of Dorian Gray, directed by Eugene Moore, based on the 1890 novel by Oscar Wilde
- Pool Sharks, directed by Edwin Middleton, starring W. C. Fields
R
- Rapsodia Satanica , directed by Nino Oxilia –
- The Raven, directed by Charles Brabin, starring Henry B. Walthall
- Regeneration, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Rockliffe Fellowes and Anna Q. Nilsson
S
- Shanghaied, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
T
- The Tramp, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
- Trilby, directed by Maurice Tourneur, starring Clara Kimball Young, based on the 1894 novel by George du Maurier
W
- The Wheels of Justice, directed by Theodore Marston
- A Woman, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
- Work, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
Short film series
Births
- January 1 – Maxine Doyle, actress
- January 9
- *Anita Louise, actress
- *Fernando Lamas, actor
- January 11 – Veda Ann Borg, actress
- January 18 – Catherine Craig, actress
- January 26 – William Hopper, actor; son of Hedda Hopper
- January 29 – Bill Peet, Disney author and illustrator
- January 30 – Dorothy Dell, actress
- February 7 – Eddie Bracken, actor
- February 12 – Lorne Greene, actor
- February 18 – Phyllis Calvert, actress
- February 20 – Philip Friend, actor
- February 21 – Ann Sheridan, actress
- February 23 – Jon Hall, actor
- February 28 – Zero Mostel, actor
- March 2 – Lona Andre, actress
- March 17 – Henry Bumstead, art director
- March 19 – Patricia Morison, actress
- April 10 – Harry Morgan, American actor
- April 21 – Anthony Quinn, actor
- May 5
- *Alice Faye, actress,
- *Ben Wright (English actor),
- May 6 – Orson Welles, actor, director
- May 8 – John Archer, American actor
- May 15 – Bill Williams, actor,
- May 19 – Renée Asherson, actress,
- May 31 – Barbara Pepper, actress,
- June 1 - John Randolph (actor), American actor
- June 12 – Priscilla Lane, singer, actress
- June 16 - Anthony Sharp, English actor
- June 20 - Terence Young (director), Irish director and screenwriter
- July 18 – Phyllis Brooks, American actress, model
- August 2 – Gary Merrill, actor
- August 11 – Jean Parker, American actress
- August 15 – Signe Hasso, Swedish actress
- August 29 – Ingrid Bergman, Swedish-born actress
- September 5 – Jack Buetel, actor
- September 10 – Edmond O'Brien, actor
- September 14 – Douglas Kennedy, actor
- September 25 – Betty Box, English producer
- September 29
- *Brenda Marshall, American actress
- *Anne Nagel, American actress
- October 29 – Evi Rauer, Estonian actress
- October 31 - Lennard Pearce, British actor
- December 7 – Eli Wallach, American actor
- December 12 – Frank Sinatra, American singer, actor
- December 13 – Curd Jürgens, German actor
- December 14 – Dan Dailey, American actor
- December 17 – Joan Woodbury, American actress
- December 22 – Barbara Billingsley, American actress
- December 29 – Jo Van Fleet, American actress
Deaths
- January 10 – Marshall Pinckney Wilder, 55, American diminutive stage and screen actor
- April 26 – John Bunny, 51, American silent film comedian, A Strand of Blond Hair, Bunny's Little Brother, Bunny Backslides
- June 5 – John C. Rice, 58, stage and film actor, The Kiss
- June 16 – Elmer Booth, 32, American silent screen actor, brother of film editor Margaret Booth, The Musketeers of Pig Alley, The Narrow Road, An Unseen Enemy
- October 31 – Blanche Walsh, 42, American stage actress appeared in Zukor's 3 reel feature "Resurrection" 1912
Film debuts
- Mary Boland – The Edge of the Abyss
- Laura Hope Crews – The Fighting Hope
- Reginald Denny – Niobe
- Elliott Dexter – Heléne of the North
- Douglas Fairbanks – The Lamb
- Pauline Frederick – The Eternal City
- John Gilbert – Aloha Oe
- Charlotte Greenwood – Jane
- Otto Kruger – A Mother's Confession
- Edmund Lowe – The Wild Olive
- Victor Moore – Snobs
- Esther Ralston – The Deep Purple
- Erich Von Stroheim – The Birth of a Nation
- Charlotte Walker – Kindling
- Fannie Ward – ''The Marriage of Kitty''