1913 in film

Events

• January 1 – The British Board of Film Censors is established.
• April 21 – The first full-length Indian feature film Raja Harishchandra has its première.
• May – Mary Pickford signs a contract with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company for $500 per week, becoming the company's first superstar.
• Jesse L. Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and Oscar Apfel found Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.
• November 24 - Traffic in Souls is an early example of the narrative style of Hollywood film.
• December 29 – Charlie Chaplin signs a contract with Mack Sennett to begin making films at Keystone Studios.
• December 29 – release of The Adventures of Kathlyn, the second American serial film and the first to feature cliffhanger endings that became popular with later serials.
• December 29 – production starts on Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company's The Squaw Man, the first full-length Hollywood feature film.
• D. W. Griffith ends his series of Biograph shorts, begun in 1908, and leaves the Biograph Company in New York City to make full-length motion pictures.
• Georges Méliès' career as a director comes to an end.
• Cines-Palast in Berlin opens as a cinema with Quo Vadis.
• Mitchell and Kenyon shoot their last known films in England.
• Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle signs for Mack Sennett at Keystone Studios and his early films for them feature the first known instances of pie thrown on film.

  Top-grossing films (U.S.)

Films released in 1913

• Addio giovinezza!
• The Adventures of Kathlyn,, starring Kathlyn Williams
• American Born
• Article 47, L'
• Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Enrico Guazzoni
• Arizona
• At Midnight
• Atlantis, directed by August Blom, a second assistant to the director Michael Curtiz; the first Danish feature film.
• The Bangville Police, starring Mabel Normand and The Keystone Cops
• Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life, starring Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Ford Sterling, The Keystone Cops, and American race car driver Barney Oldfield.
• The Bartered Bride
• The Battle at Elderbush Gulch, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish
• Beautiful Bismark
• Breaking into the Big League
• The Caged Bird
• Calamity Anne's Beauty
• Calamity Anne's Dream
• The Battle of Gettysburg
• Calamity Anne's Inheritance
• Calamity Anne's Vanity
• Calamity Anne, Heroine
• Caprice
• The Cub Reporter's Temptation
• David Copperfield
• David Garrick
• Death's Marathon, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Blanche Sweet and Lionel Barrymore
• A Desperate Chance
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Eighty Million Women Want -?
• L'Enfant de Paris
• Evidence of the Film
• The Face at the Window
• Fantômas, a film serial :
• The Fire Coward
• The Flirt and the Bandit
• For Her Boy's Sake
• For the Crown
• For the Flag
• For the Peace of Bear Valley
• A Forest Romance
• The Game Warden
• The Girl and the Greaser
• The Grasshopper and the Ant
• The Greater Love
• The Gusher, directed by Mack Sennett, starring Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Charles Inslee, and The Keystone Cops
• Hamlet
• The Haunted House
• The Heart of a Fool
• Her Big Story
• Her Gallant Knights
• Hinemoa
• His Neighbor's Wife
• His Wife's Child
• The House in the Tree
• The House of Darkness, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore
• The Idol of Bonanza Camp
• In the Bishop's Carriage
• In the Firelight
• In the Mountains of Virginia
• The Influence of a Child
• Ingeborg Holm, once described as the first "realistic" feature film
• Ivanhoe
• Justice of the Wild
• A Lady of Quality
• The Lady Killer
• The Last Days of Pompeii, directed by Mario Caserini and Eleuterio Rodolfi
• Mabel's Awful Mistakes, starring Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett
• Mabel's Dramatic Career, starring Mack Sennett, Ford Sterling, and The Keystone Cops; contains early usage of film-within-a-film
• Mabel's New Hero, directed by Mack Sennett, starring Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle, and The Keystone Cops
• The Mirror
• A Mix-Up in Pedigrees
• Moondyne
• The Mothering Heart, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish
• Mrs. Carter's Campaign
• The New Conductor
• The Night Before Christmas
• Nursery Favorites
• The Oath of Pierre
• The Other
• The Oath of Tsuru San
• Our Wives
• Personal Magnetism
• The Proof of the Man
• The Pursuit of the Smugglers
• Quicksands
• Quo Vadis?, directed by Enrico Guazzoni
• Raja Harishchandra, often listed as the first Indian feature film
• The Reformers, or the Lost Art of Minding One's Own Business, directed by D. W. Griffith
• Rick's Redemption
• The Rose of San Juan
• Sapho
• A Sawmill Hazard
• Scrooge
• The Sea Wolf, based on the novel by Jack London
• The Scimitar of the Prophet
• The Shoemaker and the Doll
• The Shriner's Daughter
• Il sire di Vincigliata
• Some Fools There Were
• The Speed Kings, starring Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling and American race car drivers Teddy Tetzlaff, Earl Cooper and Barney Oldfield.
• The Speed Queen, starring Mabel Normand
• The Spender
• The Student of Prague, starring Paul Wegener
• Suspense, directed by Lois Weber; contains early usage of split-screen
• The Tale of the Ticker
• Through the Neighbor's Window
• Through the Sluice Gates
• Traffic in Souls, directed by George Loane Tucker
• Transported
• Trapped in a Forest Fire
• Truth in the Wilderness
• Twilight of a Woman's Soul
• Unto the Third Generation
• The Unwelcome Guest
• Wamba A Child of the Jungle
• The Werewolf
• When Lincoln Paid
• While There's Life
• Woman's Honor
• Zhuangzi Tests His Wife, the earliest feature film of Hong Kong cinema

  Short film series

• Broncho Billy Anderson
• Harold Lloyd

  Births

• January 2 – Anna Lee, actress
• January 6 – Loretta Young, actress
• January 15 – Lloyd Bridges, actor
• January 29 – Victor Mature, actor
• February 8 – Betty Field, actress
• February 10 – Douglas Slocombe, cinematographer
• February 25
• *Jim Backus, actor
• *Gert Fröbe, actor
• March 3 – Charlotte Henry, actress
• March 4 – John Garfield, actor
• March 15 – Macdonald Carey, actor
• March 18 – René Clément, director
• April 16 – Les Tremayne, English-American actor
• May 6 – Stewart Granger, actor
• May 8 – Sid James, actor and comedian
• May 26 – Peter Cushing, actor
• May 27 – Linden Travers, actress
• July 10 – Joan Marsh, actress
• July 18
• *Marvin Miller, American actor
• *Red Skelton, actor, comedian
• July 29 – Gale Page, actress
• August 10 – Noah Beery Jr., actor
• August 13 – Rita Johnson, actress
• August 24 – Dorothy Comingore, actress
• September 3 – Alan Ladd, actor
• September 6 – Julie Gibson, actress
• September 7 – Anthony Quayle, actor
• September 19 – Frances Farmer, actress
• September 29
• *Trevor Howard, actor
• *Stanley Kramer, producer, director
• September 30 – Bill Walsh, producer, writer
• November 2 – Burt Lancaster, actor
• November 4 – Gig Young, actor
• November 5
• *Guy Green, cinematographer
• *Vivien Leigh, actress
• November 13 – Alexander Scourby, American actor
• November 20 – Judy Canova, actress
• November 24
• *Howard Duff, actor
• *Geraldine Fitzgerald, actress
• December 1 – Mary Martin, actress
• December 14 – Dan Dailey, actor
• December 18 – Lynn Bari, actress
• December 25 – Tony Martin, singer, actor

  Deaths

• March 15 – John R. Cumpson, stage and film actor
• June 2 – Eleanor Caines, silent film actress
• August 3 – Joseph Graybill, actor with D.W. Griffith

  Film debuts

• Wallace Beery – His Athletic Wife
• Gladys Brockwell – His Blind Power
• Lon Chaney – Poor Jake's Demise
• Minnie Maddern Fiske – Tess of the d'Urbervilles
• Al St. John – A Noise from the Deep
• Lillie Langtry – His Neighbor's Wife
• Harold Lloyd – The Old Monk's Tale
• Cissie Loftus – A Lady of Quality
• Eugene Pallette – The Fugitive
• Paul Wegener – Der Verfuhrte