1969 in film - Definition and Overview

Events

• Cannes Film Festival opens, but closes in support of a French general strike without awarding any prizes.
• Last year for the Venice Film Festival until it is revived in 1980.

Top grossing films

North America

1. The Love Bug
2. Funny Girl
3. Bullitt
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman
5. Romeo and Juliet by director Franco Zeffirelli
6. True Grit, starring John Wayne, Robert Duvall, and Dennis Hopper
7. Midnight Cowboy, starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman
8. tie Oliver! and Goodbye, Columbus
9. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
10. Easy Rider
11. I Am Curious (Yellow)
12. Where Eagles Dare
13. The Lion in Winter

Academy Awards

• Best Picture: Midnight Cowboy - Hellman-Schlesinger, United Artists
• Best Director: John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy
• Best Actor: John Wayne- True Grit
• Best Actress: Maggie Smith - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• Best Supporting Actor : Gig Young, They Shoot Horses Don't They
• Best Supporting Actress : Goldie Hawn, Cactus Flower

Births

• February 11 - Jennifer Aniston, American actress.
• April 25 - Renée Zellweger, actress
• August 18 - Edward Norton, actor
• December 21 - Julie Delpy, actress

Deaths

• January 4 - Violet and Daisy Hilton, conjoined twins, actresses, appeared in film Freaks
• February 2 - Boris Karloff, actor
• February 4 - Thelma Ritter, actress
• February 11 - James Lanphier, actor
• February 27 - John Boles, actor
• May 24 - Mitzi Green, actress
• May 27 - Jeffrey Hunter, actor
• June 8 - Robert Taylor, actor
• June 10 - Frank Lawton, actor
• June 13 - Martita Hunt, actress
• June 19 - Natalie Talmadge, silent screen actress
• June 22 – Judy Garland, actress
• July 8 - Gladys Swarthout, actress
• August 9 - Sharon Tate, actress, murdered by Charles Manson Family, wife of director Roman Polanski
• August 14 - Sigrid Gurie, actress
• October 12 - Sonja Henie, actress, former Olympic ice skater
• October 15 - Rod La Roque, silent screen actor

Other movies released

• The Assasination Bureau
• The Wild Bunch
• Take the Money and Run
• A Boy Named Charlie Brown
• Sweet Charity
• The Bridge At Remagen
• Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• Support Your Local Sheriff!
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service
• Hello, Dolly!, starring Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau, and Michael Crawford
• Alice's Restaurant
• Marooned
• Che!
• De Sade
• Yellow Submarine
• Paint Your Wagon
• Z
• Blue Movie by Andy Warhol
• Early Years Golden Bear winner
• if... Palme d'Or winner
• John and Mary
• Oh! What a Lovely War with Laurence Olivier
• Topaz by director Alfred Hitchcock
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
• Ring of Bright Water
• Anne of a Thousand Days