Douglas Fairbanks makes the first of his swashbuckling adventure movies, The Mark of Zorro

The marriage of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks is a Hollywood sensation after a three-year affair

Italian sex symbol Rudolph Valentino has two sensational hits within the same year, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Sheik

Robert J. Flaherty lives with the Inuit in the Arctic to make his dramatized documentary Nanook of the North

German film director Ernst Lubitsch moves to Hollywood, at the request of Mary Pickford

The Marx Brothers (at this stage Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Gummo) make their Broadway debut with the show I'll Say She Is

Erich von Stroheim completes Greed, his epic silent film of ferociously competitive acquisition in turn-of-the-century San Francisco

Charlie Chaplin makes The Gold Rush, involving his little tramp in the horrors of wintry Alaska

The Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein completes his film about the 1905 revolution, The Battleship Potemkin

Film actress Greta Garbo and her director Maurits Stiller move from Sweden to Hollywood

Don Juan, starring John Barrymore, has a synchronized musical score, making it the earliest example of a film with a sound track

Clara Bow stars in It, the silent film that gives her her famous nickname – the 'It' Girl

Austrian director Fritz Lang creates a wildly ambitious silent film, Metropolis, the commercial failure of which bankrupts its studio

Although not the first film with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson in the title role does much to popularize the 'talkies'

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star together for the first time in the silent film Duck Soup

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali make Un Chien andalou, a surrealist film specifically designed to shock

Mickey Mouse makes his first appearance in Walt Disney's short animated film Steamboat Willie

Hollywood stars Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr marry

Alfred Hitchcock directs Blackmail, the first British talkie, with a climax on the roof of the British Museum

The Marx Brothers (now Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo) make their Hollywood debut with The Cocoanuts

René Clair blends satire and surrealism in his film Sous les Toits de Paris, a dark comedy about a Parisian street singer

Joseph von Sternberg directs Marlene Dietrich in the film The Blue Angel, shot in both German and English, making her an immediate international star

The Hays Code sets exacting standards of public decency in US movies

18-year-old Jean Harlow is a sensation in Hell's Angels, directed by Howard Hughes

French actor Jean Gabin makes his screen debut in Chacun sa Chance