1921 in film

Events

• January 21 – The silent comedy-drama The Kid, written by, produced by, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin – his first full-length film as a director – and featuring Jackie Coogan, is released in the United States. It is the year's second-highest-grossing film.
• March 6 – The silent epic war film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, adapted for the screen by June Mathis, is released in the United States. It is the year's highest-grossing film, propels Rudolph Valentino to stardom and inspires a tango craze and a fashion for gaucho pants.
• August 29 – Broadway's first $1 million theatre, Loew's State opens.
• September 5 – Popular comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle attends a party at the St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, during which actress Virginia Rappe is fatally injured; although he is eventually acquitted of rape and manslaughter, the scandal derails his career.
• October 21 – George Melford's silent film The Sheik, which enhances leading actor Rudolph Valentino's international reputation as a Latin lover, is premiered in Los Angeles. Within the first year of its release, it exceeds $1 million in ticket sales.
• October 26 – The Chicago Theatre, which will be the oldest surviving French-style Baroque Revival grand movie palace, opens.
• The experimental short documentary film Manhatta is shot by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand in New York City.

  Top-grossing films (U.S.)

Notable films released in 1921

• The Ace of Hearts, directed by Wallace Worsley, starring Lon Chaney and Leatrice Joy
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
• Action, directed by John Ford;, starring Hoot Gibson
• The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick, directed by Thomas Bentley, starring Frederick Volpe –
• The Adventures of Tarzan, directed by Robert F. Hill and Scott Sidney, starring Elmo Lincoln
• The Affairs of Anatol, directed by Cecil B. DeMille; starring Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid
• After Midnight, directed by Ralph Ince
• After Your Own Heart, directed by George Marshall, starring Tom Mix
• Among Those Present, starring Harold Lloyd
• L'Atlantide, directed by Jacques Feyder –
• Die Bergkatze, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Victor Janson –
• The Bigamist, starring Guy Newall, Ivy Duke –
• The Blot, directed by Lois Weber; starring Claire Windsor
• The Boat, a Buster Keaton short
• The Bonnie Brier Bush, directed by and starring Donald Crisp –
• Brewster's Millions, directed by Joseph Henabery, starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
• Brownie's Little Venus, starring Baby Peggy
• Bullets or Ballots, the film debut of Mary Astor
• Buried Treasure, directed by George D. Baker; starring Marion Davies and Norman Kerry
• The Call of Youth, starring Mary Glynne
• Camille, starring Alla Nazimova, Rudolph Valentino, Rex Cherryman and Patsy Ruth Miller
• The Conquering Power, directed by Rex Ingram; starring Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry
• Desire, directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Conrad Veidt –
• Destiny, directed by Fritz Lang, starring Lil Dagover, Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Walter Janssen –
• The Devil, directed by James Young, based on Ferenc Molnar's Az Ordog
• Disraeli directed by Henry Kolker, starring George Arliss
• The Dollar-a-Year Man, directed by James Cruze, starring Roscoe Arbuckle
• Dracula's Death, directed by Károly Lajthay –
• El Dorado, directed by Marcel L'Herbier, starring Ève Francis and Jaque Catelain –
• Enchantment, directed by Robert G. Vignola; starring Marion Davies and Forrest Stanley
• Experience, directed by George Fitzmaurice; starring Richard Barthelmess and Lilyan Tashman
• Faust, directed by Frederick A. Todd
• The Fire Eater, directed by B. Reeves Eason, starring Hoot Gibson
• Fool's Paradise, directed by Cecil B. DeMille; starring Conrad Nagel, Mildred Harris, Theodore Kosloff and Baby Peggy
• Forever, directed by George Fitzmaurice, starring Wallace Reid and Elsie Ferguson
• The Four Feathers, directed by René Plaissetty –
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, directed by Rex Ingram; starring Rudolph Valentino
• Get-Rich-Quick Peggy, starring Baby Peggy
• Gevatter Tod directed by Heinz Hanus
• The Goat, a Buster Keaton short
• The Ghost in the Garret, directed by F. Richard Jones, starring Dorothy Gish
• The Golem's Last Adventure, directed by Julius Szomogyl
• Golfing, starring Baby Peggy
• The Gunsaulus Mystery, directed by Oscar Micheaux, starring Evelyn Preer
• Hail the Woman, directed by John Griffith Wray, starring Florence Vidor
• The Haunted Castle, directed by F. W. Murnau, based on the Rudolf Stratz novel –
• The Haunted House, a Buster Keaton short
• The High Sign, directed by Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton
• The Hound of the Baskervilles, directed by Maurice Elvey, starring Ellie Norwood
• Humor Risk, the Marx Brothers debut, never released
• The Idle Class, a Charles Chaplin short
• The Indian Tomb, directed by Joe May, starring Conrad Veidt –
• Jánošík, starring Theodor Pištěk –
• Jim the Penman, directed by Kenneth Webb, starring Lionel Barrymore
• Journey into the Night, directed by F.W. Murnau –
• The Kid, directed by & starring Charlie Chaplin with Edna Purviance and Jackie Coogan
• Land of My Fathers directed by Fred Rains and starring John Stuart and Yvonne Thomas –
• Leaves from Satan's Book, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer –
• Little Lord Fauntleroy, directed by Alfred E. Green and Jack Pickford, starring Mary Pickford
• The Lost Shadow, directed by Rochus Gliese, starring Paul Wegener and Lyda Salmanova
• The Lotus Eater, directed by Marshall Neilan, starring John Barrymore and Colleen Moore
• The Love Light, directed by Frances Marion, starring Mary Pickford
• Lucky Carson, directed by Wilfrid North, starring Earle Williams and Betty Ross Clarke
• The Lucky Dog, starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
• The Man From Beyond, directed by Burton King, starring Harry Houdini and Nita Naldi
• The Man Who Laughs, directed by Julius Herzka, starring Franz Hobling
• The Mechanical Man, directed by Andre Deed –
• A Message From Mars, directed by Maxwell Karger,starring Burt Lytell
• A Midnight Bell, directed by Albert Ray, starring Charles Ray
• Miss Lulu Bett, directed by William C. deMille, starring Lois Wilson and Milton Sills
• A Muddy Bride, starring Baby Peggy
• Never Weaken, a Harold Lloyd short
• The Nut, directed by Theodore Reed, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Marguerite De La Motte
• The Offenders, directed by Fenwick L. Holmes, starring Margery Wilson
• On with the Show, starring Baby Peggy
• Orphans of the Storm, directed by D.W. Griffith; starring Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish
• The Other Person, directed by B. E. Doxat-Pratt, starring Zoe Palmer
• The Painting of Osvaldo Mars, directed by Guido Brignone, starring Mercedes Brignone and Domenico Serra
• The Passion Flower, starring Norma Talmadge
• Peck's Bad Boy, directed by Sam Wood, starring Jackie Coogan
• The Phantom Carriage, directed by & starring Victor Sjöström –
• The Playhouse, a Buster Keaton short
• The Price of Silence, directed by F. L. Granville,
• The Queen of Sheba, directed by J. Gordon Edwards, starring Betty Blythe
• Queen of Spades, directed by Paul Fejos
• The Resident Patient, directed by Maurice Elvey, starring Eille Morwood, based on an Arthur Conan Doyle story
• A Sailor-Made Man, directed by Fred C. Newmeyer, starring Harold Lloyd
• Sentimental Tommy, directed by George Fitzmaurice; starring Gareth Hughes
• Seven Years Bad Luck, directed by and starring Max Linder
• The Sheik, directed by George Melford, starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres
• The Silver Lining, directed by Roland West, starring Coit Albertson and Jewel Carmen
• The Sky Pilot, directed by King Vidor
• A Spectre Haunts Europe, directed by Vladimir R. Gardin, based on an Edgar Allan Poe story
• Squibs directed by George Pearson and starring Betty Balfour –
• Sybil directed by Jack Denton, starring Evelyn Brent –
• Third Class Male, starring Baby Peggy
• The Three Musketeers, directed by Fred Niblo, starring Douglas Fairbanks
• Through the Back Door, directed by Alfred E. Green and Jack Pickford, starring Mary Pickford
• Tol'able David directed by Henry King; starring Richard Barthelmess
• Les Trois Mousquetaires, directed by Henri Diamant-Berger –
• White and Unmarried
• The Witching Hour, directed by William Desmond Taylor, starring Elliott Dexter
• Woman's Place, directed by Victor Fleming, starring Constance Talmadge
• The Wonderful Thing, starring Norma Talmadge
• The Yellow Face, directed by William J. Elliott, starring Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes

  Comedy film series

• Harold Lloyd
• Charlie Chaplin
• Lupino Lane
• Buster Keaton
• Laurel and Hardy

  Animated short film series

• Aesop's Film Fables
• Felix the Cat
• Koko the Clown

  Births

• January 3 – John Russell, actor
• January 27 – Donna Reed, actress
• January 31
• *Carol Channing, musical actress
• *Mario Lanza, singer, actor
• February 1- Peter Sallis, English Actor
• February 8 – Lana Turner, actress
• February 16 – Vera-Ellen, actress, dancer
• February 22 – Giulietta Masina, actress
• February 24 – Abe Vigoda, actor
• February 26 – Betty Hutton, actress
• March 3 – Diana Barrymore, actress
• March 4 – Joan Greenwood, actress
• March 10 - Charlotte Zucker, actress, mother of Jerry Zucker and David Zucker
• March 12 – Gordon MacRae, actor, singer
• March 25
• *Nancy Kelly, actress
• *Simone Signoret, actress
• March 26 – Julie Harris, costume designer
• March 28 – Dirk Bogarde, actor
• April 3 – Jan Sterling, actress
• April 10 – Chuck Connors, actor
• April 16 – Peter Ustinov, actor
• April 23 – Janet Blair, actress
• May 2 – Satyajit Ray, Indian filmmaker
• May 23 – Grigori Chukhrai, Ukrainian film director
• May 31 – Alida Valli, actress
• June 8 – Alexis Smith, actress
• June 19 – Louis Jourdan, actor
• June 21
• *Judy Holliday, born Judith Tuvim, actress
• *Jane Russell, actress
• July 3 – Susan Peters, actress
• July 6 – Nancy Reagan, born Anne Robbins, actress and First Lady of the United States
• July 23 – Robert Brown, actor
• August 3 – Marilyn Maxwell, actress
• August 8 – Esther Williams, actress, swimmer
• August 19 – Gene Roddenberry, American screenwriter and producer
• September 8 – Harry Secombe, actor, singer
• September 27 – Miklós Jancsó, Hungarian director
• September 30 – Deborah Kerr, actress
• October 13 – Yves Montand, singer, actor
• November 3 – Charles Bronson, actor
• November 5 – Moritz Yomtov, screenwriter
• November 22 – Rodney Dangerfield, actor, comedian
• November 23 – Fred Buscaglione, Italian actor and singer
• December 4 – Deanna Durbin, actress
• December 26 – Steve Allen, actor, composer, comedian, author

  Deaths

• February 8 – George Formby Sr, 45, British music hall entertainer who appeared in one film
• May 17 – Karl Mantzius, 61, Danish actor, theatre director, writer
• June 5 – Georges Feydeau, 58, French playwright, many of whose plays were adapted for the screen
• June 20 – George Loane Tucker, 49, American actor, screenwriter and director
• July 9 – Robert Broderick, 56, American stage and film actor
• September 9 – Virginia Rappe, 26 American actress
• September 17 – Van Dyke Brooke, 62, American actor, screenwriter and film director

  Film debuts

• Richard Arlen
• George Arliss
• Billie Dove
• Basil Rathbone
• Carole Lombard in A Perfect Crime
• Fredric March