1926 in film

Events

• August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film.
• Theodore W. Case and E. I. Sponable demonstrate their sound-on-film experiments to William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation. The Fox-Case Corp. was formed in an effort to exploit the system, which was given the name Movietone. Fox began to create Movietone News newsreels at this time. One of the first newsreels was Charles Lindbergh's takeoff for Paris.
• Al Jolson films A Plantation Act one of the first unreleased talkies and a test film for The Jazz Singer
• The oldest surviving animated feature film is released in the Weimar Republic, directed by Lotte Reiniger. It is called The Adventures of Prince Achmed.

Top grossing films

1. Aloma of the South Seas
2. What Price Glory?
3. The Great K and A Train Robbery
4. Beau Geste (1926 film)
5. Flesh and the Devil
6. Sparrows
7. For Heaven's Sake
8. My Yankee Senor
9. Don Juan
10. The Sea Beast
11. La Boheme
12. The Temptress
13. Torrent

Films released in 1926

• The Adventures of Prince Achmed, directed by Lotte Reiniger.
• Aloma of the South Seas, starring Gilda Gray
• Battling Butler, directed by and starring Buster Keaton
• Beau Geste, directed by Herbert Brenon, starring Ronald Colman and Alice Joyce
• The Bells, directed by James Young, starring Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff
• La Bohème, directed by King Vidor, starring Lillian Gish, John Gilbert and Renée Adorée
• The Black Pirate, directed by Albert Parker, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Billie Dove
• Brown of Harvard starring William Haines, Jack Pickford and Mary Brian
• Cruise of the Jasper B, starring Rod La Rocque, Mildred Harris and Snitz Edwards
• Don Juan, directed by Alan Crosland, starring John Barrymore''
• Faust, directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Gösta Ekman and Emil Jannings
• Flesh and the Devil, starring John Gilbert and Greta Garbo.
• For Heaven's Sake, directed by Sam Taylor, starring Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston
• Fool's Luck, directed by Fatty Arbukle, starring Lupino Lane and George Davis
• The Great K and A Train Robbery, starring Tom Mix
• Madame Mystery, directed by Richard Wallace and Stan Laurel, starring Theda Bara.
• Mare Nostrum, directed by Rex Ingram, starring Antonio Moreno and Alice Terry
• Mother, directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin
• My Yankee Senor, starring Tom Mix
• The Scarlet Letter, starring Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson
• The Sea Beast, starring John Barrymore, Dolores Costello and George O'Hara
• The Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky
• Sparrows, directed by William Beaudine, starring Mary Pickford
• Storm of Passion (Aiyoku no arashi)
• The Student of Prague, starring Fritz Alberti, Agnes Esterhazy, Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss
• The Temptress, starring Greta Garbo and Antonio Moreno.
• Torrent, starring Ricardo Cortez and Greta Garbo
• What Price Glory?, starring Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen and Dolores del Rio

Short film series

• Buster Keaton (1917–1941)
• Our Gang (1922-1944)
• Laurel and Hardy (1921-1943)

Animated short film series

• Felix the Cat (1919-1930)
• Koko the Clown (1919-1934)
• Alice Comedies (1923-1927)
• Koko's Song Car Tunes (1924-1927)
• Krazy Kat (1925-1940)
• Un-Natural History (1925-1927)
• Pete the Pup (1926-1927)

Births

• January 5 - Maria Schell, actress(d.2005)
• January 14 - Tom Tryon, actor, novelist († 1991)
• January 17 - Moira Shearer, actress, dancer (d. 2006)
• January 19 - Fritz Weaver, actor
• January 20 - Patricia Neal, actress
• February 11 - Leslie Nielsen, actor, comedian
• February 16 - John Schlesinger, director († 2003)
• March 6 - Andrzej Wajda, director
• March 16 - Jerry Lewis, actor
• May 8 - Don Rickles, comedian and actor
• June 1 - Andy Griffith, actor
• June 1 - Marilyn Monroe, actress († 1962)
• June 28 - Mel Brooks, entertainer
• July 14 - Harry Dean Stanton, actor
• July 21 - Norman Jewison, director
• October 17 - Beverly Garland, actress
• October 18 - Klaus Kinski, actor (d. 1991)
• November 30 - Richard Crenna, actor (d. 2003)

Deaths

• January 30 - Barbara La Marr, actress
• February 6 - Carrie Clark Ward, actor
• April 20 - Billy Quirk, actor
• July 22 - Willard Louis, actor
• August 23 - Rudolph Valentino, actor
• September 11 - Matsunosuke Onoe, actor
• November 1 - Lester Cuneo, actor
• November 2 - James K Hackett, stage & silent film actor
• November 7 - Tom Forman, silent film actor & director

Film debuts

• John Wayne