1974 in film - Definition and Overview

Events

• February 7 - Blazing Saddles is released in USA
• May 1 - George Lucas creates the first draft of what would eventually become Star Wars.
• August 7 - Peter Wolf, lead singer of the J. Geils Band marries actress Faye Dunaway
• November 1 - Technicolor ceases its legendary dye-transfer printing process.
• Robert Redford has three films in the Top Ten at the North American box office, the first actor to do so since Bing Crosby in 1946.

Top grossing films

North America

1. The Sting
2. The Exorcist
3. Papillon
4. Magnum Force
5. Herbie Rides Again
6. Blazing Saddles, directed by Mel Brooks, starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn and Harvey Korman
7. The Trial of Billy Jack
8. The Great Gatsby
9. Serpico
10. Death Wish

Academy Awards

• Best Picture: The Godfather, Part II - Coppola Company, Paramount
• Best Director: Francis Ford Coppola - The Godfather, Part II
• Best Actor: Art Carney - Harry and Tonto
• Best Actress: Ellen Burstyn - Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
• Best Supporting Actor: Robert De Niro - The Godfather, Part II
• Best Supporting Actress: Ingrid Bergman - Murder on the Orient Express

Births

• January 5 - Daisy Bates, actress
• March 24 - Alyson Hannigan, actress
• April 28 - Penelope Cruz, actress
• May 21 - Fairuza Balk, actress
• June 25 - Karisma Kapoor, Indian actress
• August 15 - Natasha Henstridge, Canadian actress
• August 23 - Ray Park, British actor
• September 19 - Victoria Silvstedt, Swedish actress and model
• November 11 - Leonardo DiCaprio, actor
• ? - Tricia Helfer, Canadian actress

Deaths

• January 31 - Samuel Goldwyn, film producer
• February 7 - Arline Judge, actress
• February 11 - Anna Q Nilsson, actress
• February 23 - Florence Rice, actress
• February 28 - Carole Lesley, actress
• March 5 - Billy De Wolfe, actress
• March 7 - Alberto Rabagliati, Italian singer and actor
• March 19 - Edward Platt, actor
• April 2 – Douglass Dumbrille, actor
• April 10 - Patricia Collinge, actress
• April 24 - Bud Abbott, actor, best known as straight man to Lou Costello
• April 30 - Agnes Moorehead, actress
• May 25 - Donald Crisp, actor
• August 20 - Ilona Massey, actress
• September 6 - Olga Baclanova, actress
• September 18 - Edna Best, actress
• September 21 - Walter Brennan, actor
• September 21 - Jacqueline Susann, former actress, author of Valley Of The Dolls
• October 13 - Ed Sullivan, television host, actor
• November 13 - Vittorio De Sica, Italian director
• November 14 - Johnny Mack Brown, actor
• December 15 - Anatole Litvak, director
• December 21 - Richard Long, actor
• December 26 - Jack Benny, actor

Other movies released

• Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
• Chinatown
• The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola, Palme d'Or winner
• Death Wish
• The Apprenticeship of Dudley Kravitz, Golden Bear winner
• Son of Dracula
• Dreams and Nightmares - (Abe Osheroff)
• Lovin' Molly
• Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too (short subject)
• The Towering Inferno, starring Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, and Fred Astaire
• Young Frankenstein, directed by Mel Brooks, starring Gene Wilder, Teri Garr, and Madeline Kahn.
• Andy Warhol's Frankenstein
• Earthquake
• The Godfather: Part II
• Black Christmas
• Benji
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
• The Man with the Golden Gun
• Airport 1975
• The Longest Yard
• That's Entertainment
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Amarcord
• Scenes from a Marriage by Ingmar Bergman
• The Last Detail
• Thieves Like Us
• Sugarland Express
• Where the Lilies Bloom
• Lacombe, Lucien