1920 in film

Top-grossing films (U.S.)

Events

• March 28 – "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford and "Everybody's Hero" Douglas Fairbanks marry, becoming the first supercouple of Hollywood.
• August – Jack Cohn, Joe Brandt and Harry Cohn form C. B. C. Film Sales Corporation which would later become Columbia Pictures.
• August 2 – Filming a nighttime spin before a large crowd at DeMille Field in Los Angeles for the movie The Skywayman, stunt pilot and film actor Ormer Locklear and his flying partner Milton "Skeets" Elliot are killed when their Curtiss JN-4 fails to come out of the spin and crashes into the sludge pool of an oil well, igniting a massive explosion and fire.
• August 15 – Robert J. Flaherty arrives in northern Canada to begin filming Nanook of the North.
• November 27 – The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks, opens.

  Notable films released in 1920

Austria

• Anita, directed by Luise Kolm and Jakob Fleck; an obscure adaptation of George Du Maurier's novel Trilby
• Boccaccio, directed by Michael Curtiz.
• The Prince and the Pauper directed by Alexander Korda.
• The Scourge of God directed by Michael Curtiz.
• The Star of Damascus directed by Michael Curtiz.

  France

• Barrabas, a 12-chapter serial/ crime drama directed by Louis Feuillade
• The Man Who Sold His Soul to the Devil, directed by Pierre Caron
• Les Morts qui parlent/ The Dead Who Speak, directed by Pierre Marodon
• Narayana, directed by Leon Poirier, starring Laurence Myrga and Edmon Van Daele; based on the 1831 novel "Le Peau de Chagrin" by Honore de Balzac, with some story elements lifted from Wilkie Collins' novel The Moonstone
• The Silence, ghost film directed by Louis Delluc, starring Gabriel Signoret and Eve Francis

  Germany

• Algol: Tragedy of Power, science fiction film directed by Hans Werckmeister, starring Emil Jannings
• Anna Boleyn directed by Ernst Lubitsch
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari directed by Robert Wiene; starring Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt and Lil Dagover
• Cagliostro, directed by Reinhold Schuenzel, starred Schuenzel and Conrad Veidt
• The Devil Worshippers/ Die Teufelsanbeter, A 6-part serial directed by Marie Louise Droop, starring Carl de Vogt and Bela Lugosi, based on the novel by Carl May
• Evening – Night – Morning directed by F. W. Murnau
• Genuine: A Tale of a Vampire, directed by Robert Wiene, starring Fern Andra; only a 43-minute condensation of the much longer original film exists
• The Golem: How He Came into the World, directed by and starring Paul Wegener based on the old Jewish folktale, photographed by Karl Freund
• The Head of Janus, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Conrad Veidt and Bela Lugosi, photographed by Karl Freund; based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Hound of the Baskervilles, directed by Willy Zehn, released in two parts ; Willy Keyser-Heyl played Sherlock Holmes
• The House Without Windows, directed by Friedrich Feher, not to be confused with the above Hound of the Baskervilles
• The Hunchback and the Dancer, directed by F. W. Murnau, photographed by Karl Freund
• Kohlhiesels Töchter directed by Ernst Lubitsch
• Kurfurstendamm, a horror-comedy written and directed by Richard Oswald, starring Conrad Veidt as The Devil, photographed by Carl Hoffmann
• The Last of the Mohicans, starring Bela Lugosi
• Nachtgestalten, directed by Richard Oswald, starring Conrad Veidt and Paul Wegener, photographed by Carl Hoffmann, based on the Karl Hans Strobl short story Eleagable Kuperus
• Satan directed by F. W. Murnau, starred Conrad Veidt, filmed in 1919
• Sumurun directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Paul Wegener and Pola Negri
• Die Todeskarawane, starring Dora Gerson and Bela Lugosi
• Torgus, the Coffin Maker, directed by Hans Kobe

  Hungary

• Lord Arthur Saville's Crime, written and directed by Paul Fejos, starring Margit Lux, based on the 1891 story by Oscar Wilde

  Ireland

• Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn, directed by John MacDonagh, featuring Brian Magowan and Frances Alexander, based on the 1855 novel Willy Reilly and his dear Colleen Bawn by William Carleton

  Italy

• The Last of the Borgias, directed by Armando Carbone
• Monella Street, directed by Umberto Fracchia and starring Carmen Boni
• The Power of the Borgias, directed by Luigi Caramba for Medusa Film, starring Irene Saffo-Nomo and Enrico Piacentini
• Spiritism, starring Francesca Bettina

  Japan

• Akakabe Myojin/ The Red Wall God, a ghost-cat film directed by Jiro Yoshino for Kokkatsu Films, starring Shirogoro Sawamura
• Arima no neko/ The Cat in Arima, a ghost-cat film directed by Shozo Makino for Nikkatsu Films, starring Matsumosuke Onoe and Sentaro Nakamura

  Philippines

• La Mariposa Negra directed by Jose Nepomuceno

  Sweden

• Erotikon directed by Mauritz Stiller
• Herr och fru Stockholm, starring Greta Garbo
• Karin Daughter of Ingmar directed by & starring Victor Sjöström
• The Monastery of Sendomir directed by Victor Sjöström
• The Parson's Widow directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer

  United Kingdom

• At the Villa Rose, directed by Maurice Elvey, based on the 1910 novel by A.E.W. Mason
• The Barton Mystery, directed by Harry Roberts, starred Lyn Harding; based on the 1917 stage play by Walter Hackett
• Bleak House directed by Maurice Elvey
• Build Thy House directed by Fred Goodwins, starring Henry Ainley
• Colonel Newcome directed by Fred Goodwins' starring Milton Rosmer, Joyce Carey
• Desire directed by George Edwardes-Hall, starring Dennis Neilson-Terry, based on the 1831 novel Le Peau de Chagrin by Honore de Balzac
• Ernest Maltravers directed by Jack Denton; starring Lillian Hall-Davis
• The Ever Open Door directed by Fred Goodwins; starring Hayford Hobbs
• The Face at the Window, directed by Wilfred Noy, starring C. Aubrey Smith and Gladys Jennings, based on the stage play by F. Brooke Warren
• The Fordington Twins directed by W.P. Kellino
• General Post directed by Thomas Bentley; starring Douglas Munro, Lilian Braithwaite
• The Great London Mystery, a 12-chapter serial directed by Charles Raymond for T&P Films, starring David Devant and Lady Doris Stapleton; features a Yellow Peril menace called Ching Ling Fu.
• The Lure of Crooning Water directed by Arthur Rooke; starring Guy Newall and Ivy Duke
• Mr. Gilfil's Love Story directed by A.V. Bramble; starring Mary Odette
• The Price of Silence, directed by Fred Leroy Granville, starring Peggy Hyland and Campbell Gullan
• A Son of David directed by Hay Plumb; starring Ronald Colman
• Trent's Last Case directed by Richard Garrick; starring Gregory Scott, Pauline Peters and Clive Brook
• The Twelve Pound Look directed by Jack Denton; starring Milton Rosmer
• The Yellow Claw, directed by Rene Plaisetty, starring Arthur Cullin and Cyril Percival; based on the 1915 novel by Sax Rohmer featuring a criminal Asian menace named Mr. King.

  United States

A

• Along the Moonbeam Trail, contained animated dinosaur sequences by Willis O'Brien
• April Folly, directed by Robert Z. Leonard, starring Marion Davies and Conway Tearle

  B

• Black Shadows, directed by Howard M. Mitchell

  C

• The Copperhead, directed by Charles Maigne, starring Lionel Barrymore

  D

• The Dark Mirror, directed by Charles Giblyn, starring Dorothy Dalton, based on the story by Louis Joseph Vance
• The Devil's Pass Key, directed by Erich von Stroheim, starring Mae Busch
• The Devil to Pay, directed by Ernest C. Warde, based on a 1917 novel by Frances Nimmo Greene
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by John S. Robertson, starring John Barrymore
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by J. Charles Haydon, starring Sheldon Lewis
• The Dream Cheater, directed by Ernest C. Warde, starring J. Warren Kerrigan, based on the 1831 novel La Peau de chagrin by Honoré de Balzac

  F

• The Flapper, directed by Alan Crosland, starring Olive Thomas

  G

• The Girl in Number 29, directed by John Ford, starring Frank Mayo
• Go and Get It, directed by Marshall Neilan and Henry Roberts Symonds

  H

• Haunted Spooks, directed by Alfred J. Goulding and Hal Roach, starring Harold Lloyd
• His Brother's Keeper, directed by Wilfred North
• The House of the Tolling Bell, directed by J. Stuart Blackton, starring May McAvoy and Bruce Gordon, based on the novel by Edith Sessions Tupper
• The House of Whispers, directed by Ernest C. Warde, starring J. Warren Kerrigan, based on the 1918 novel by William Andrew Johnston
• Huckleberry Finn, directed by William Desmond Taylor, starring Lewis Sargent