1909 in film

Events

• Carl Laemmle founds the Independent Moving Pictures Company.
• Selig Polyscope Company establish the first permanent movie studio in Los Angeles in Edendale, Los Angeles.
• The New York Motion Picture Company is founded and also open a movie studio in Edendale. The studio is later used by Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and then Mascot Pictures who become part of Republic Pictures.
• February 4 – The Paris Film Congress begins, an attempt by leading European producers to form a cartel similar to that of the Motion Picture Patents Company in the United States.
• May 12 – Mr. Flip is released and is the first film to feature someone being hit in the face with a pie.
• May 23 – The first news cinema, The Daily Bioscope, opens in London.
• June 17 – In the Sultan's Power is the first film ever completely made in Los Angeles, California. It is filmed by director Francis Boggs.
• October 25 – IMP release their first film, Hiawatha, based on the 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• November 5 - A Nature Movie by Arthur C. Pillsbury using film to explore the wonders of Yosemite. This first showing was for John Muir, a friend, and associate of Pillsbury's. Included was footage of the Hetch Hetchy. This film was then shown for the 1910 season at the Pillsbury Studio in Yosemite, advertised using postcards.
• December 2 – Matsunosuke Onoe, who will become the first superstar of Japanese cinema, appears in his first film, Goban Tadanobu.
• December 20 – James Joyce opens the Volta Cinematograph, the first cinema in Dublin.

  Films released in 1909

J. Stuart Blackton

• Oliver Twist
• The Judgment of Solomon
• The Life of Moses
• The Life of Napoleon
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Charles Kent and J. Stuart Blackton
• Les Misérables, directed by J. Stuart Blackton. A proto-feature film, or many short-films that when combined together can be seen as one feature film.
• Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy

  D. W. Griffith

• At the Altar
• A Corner in Wheat
• The Country Doctor, starring Mary Pickford
• The Curtain Pole, directed by D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett
• The Drive for a Life
• A Drunkard's Reformation
• Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven
• Fools of Fate
• The Golden Louis
• The Hessian Renegades
• Lady Helen's Escapade
• The Lonely Villa
• The Red Man's View
• Resurrection
• The Sealed Room, starring Mary Pickford
• The Suicide Club, directed by D. W. Griffith
• Those Awful Hats
• A Trap for Santa Claus

  Georges Méliès

• The Count's Wooing
• The Diabolical Tenant, directed by George Melies
• The Doctor's Secret, directed by George Melies
• Fortune Favors the Brave, directed by George Melies
• Le papillon fantastique

  Others

• The Adventures of Lieutenant Rose
• The Airship Destroyer, directed by Walter R. Booth
• The Ancient Roman
• Ballad of a Witch, directed by Luigi Maggi
• The Bewitched Manor House
• Bluebeard, directed by J. Searle Dawley for Thomas Edison, starred Charles Ogle
• The Bogey Woman
• The Butcher's Dream
• Capturing the North Pole, features Baron Munchausen
• The Cat That Was Changed Into a Woman, directed by Louis Feuillade
• The Convict Guardian's Nightmare
• The Cowboy Millionaire, directed by Francis Boggs and Otis Turner
• Dance of Fire
• Dante's Inferno, directed by Giuseppe de Liguoro, starring Salvatore Papa ; ran 59 minutes
• The Defeat of Satan
• The Devil adaptation of the play starring George Arliss
• Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by August Blom, starring Alwin Neuss and Oda Alstrup; made in Denmark for Nordisk Films
• Don Juan Tenorio, directed by Enrique Rosas
• Doomed
• The Egyptian Mystery
• Electric Transformations, directed by Percy Stow
• Entrevista de los Presidentes Díaz-Taft, a documentary directed by the Alva Brothers
• Faust, directed by J. Searle Dawley and Edwin S. Porter for Thomas Edison
• The Ferryman's Sweetheart
• The Fitzsimmons-Bill Lang Fight
• The Forbidden Fruit
• Gertie the Dinosaur, animated cartoon by Winsor McKay
• Goddess of the Sea
• The Grey Lady, directed by Viggo Larsen, starring Viggo Larsen as Sherlock Holmes
• Hansel and Gretel
• The Haunted Hotel
• The Haunted Man, introduced the "doppelganger" theme, similar to The Student of Prague
• Her Dolly's Revenge
• Hiawatha, directed by William V. Ranous based on the 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the first film produced by Carl Laemmle's Independent Moving Pictures.
• The Hunchback, directed by Van Dyke Brooke for Vitagraph; unauthorized remake of the 1906 film Esmeralda
• The Imp of the Bottle, based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Invisible Thief, directed by Segundo de Chomon and Ferdinand Zecca ; first adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The Invisible Man
• Les Joyeux Microbes, directed by Émile Cohl
• The Last Look
• Lucrece Borgia
• Lunatics in Power, based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe called The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether
• Macbeth, directed by André Calmettes
• The Man Monkey
• The Man Who Laughs, based on the famous novel by Victor Hugo
• The Marvelous Pearl
• Mephisto and the Maiden, directed by Frank Boggs
• The Mirror of Life
• Miss Faust
• Mr. Flip, directed by Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson
• A Modern Dr. Jekyll;;, produced by William Selig
• The Moonstone, produced by William Selig, based on the novel by Wilkie Collins
• Mother Goose
• The Mummy of the King Ramses directed by Gerard Bourgeois
• Mystery of Edwin Drood, directed by Arthur Gilbert, based on Charles Dickens' novel
• Mystery of the Lama Convent, directed by Viggo Larsen
• Nerone, directed by Luigi Maggi
• The New Jonah
• The Nymphs' Bath
• The Old Shoemaker, based on The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Oriental Mystic
• Papa Gaspard; or, The Ghost of the Rocks
• Phaedra featured a sea monster
• The Phantom Sirens
• The Pit and the Pendulum, directed by Henri Desfontaines, based on the famous story by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Princess and the Fisherman, directed by Louis Feuillade
• Revenge of the Ghosts, animated cartoon directed by Emil Cohl
• Satan's Smithy, directed by Segundo de Chomon
• Shooting in the Haunted Woods, directed by Louis Feuillade
• The Spirit of the Lake
• The Suicide Club, directed by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset
• The Sword and the King
• Talked to Death
• Teddy Roosevelt in Africa, directed by Cherry Kearton
• Tis Now the Very Witching Time of Night, produced by Thomas Edison
• The Ugliest Queen on Earth
• Viy, directed by Vasilii Gonmcharov
• The Wild Ass's Skin based on the story by Balzac
• The Witch
• The Witch's Cavern

  Births

• January 1 – Dana Andrews, actor
• January 3 – Victor Borge, musician, actor
• January 8
• *José Ferrer, actor
• *Willy Millowitsch, actor
• January 15 – Gene Krupa, musician, actor
• January 22 – Ann Sothern, actress
• January 24 – Ann Todd, actress
• February 2 – Frank Albertson, actor
• February 6 – Aino Talvi, Estonian actress
• February 9
• *Carmen Miranda, singer, actress
• *Heather Angel, actress
• February 11
• *Max Baer – boxer, actor
• *Joseph L. Mankiewicz – director, screenwriter, producer
• February 16 – Jeffrey Lynn, actor
• March 19 – Louis Hayward, actor
• March 26 – Chips Rafferty, actor
• April 4 – Bobby Connelly, child actor
• April 29 – Tom Ewell, actor
• May 15 – James Mason, actor
• May 16 – Margaret Sullavan, actress
• May 30 – Benny Goodman, musician, actor
• June 7 – Jessica Tandy, actress
• June 8 – Robert Carson, actor
• June 14 – Burl Ives, actor
• June 20 – Errol Flynn, actor
• July 1 – Madge Evans, actress
• July 12 – Curly Joe DeRita, actor
• July 23 – Helen Martin, American actress
• August 18 – Marcel Carné, director
• August 22 – Lucille Ricksen, actress
• August 25
• *Ruby Keeler, singer, actress
• *Michael Rennie, actor
• September 7 – Elia Kazan, director
• October 6 – Robert Carson, screenwriter
• October 20 – Carla Laemmle, actress
• November 11 – Robert Ryan, actor
• November 26 – Frances Dee, actress
• December 9 – Douglas Fairbanks Jr., actor
• December 12 – Karen Morley, actress
• December 20 – Diane Ellis, actress

  Deaths

• January 27 – Benoît-Constant Coquelin, actor, Cyrano de Bergerac
• September 4 – Clyde Fitch, author & playwright whose works have been adapted into films.

  Film debuts

• Fatty Arbuckle – Ben's Kid
• Ethel Clayton – Justified
• Dolores Costello – A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Helene Costello – Les Miserables
• Marie Dressler – Marie Dressler
• Francis Ford – The Stolen Wireless
• Annette Kellerman – The Bride of Lammermoor: A Tragedy of Bonnie Scotland
• James Kirkwood – The Heart of an Outlaw
• Florence La Badie – The Politician's Love Story
• Tom Mix – The Cowboy Millionaire
• Mary Pickford – Mrs. Jones Entertains
• Billy Quirk – The Heart of an Outlaw
• William A. Russell – Tag Day
• William Stowell – The Cowboy Millionaire
• Blanche Sweet – A Man with Three Wives
• Rose Tapley – The Way of the Cross
• Clara Kimball Young – Washington Under the American Flag