1928 in film

Events

• July 31 - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's mascot Leo the Lion roars for the very first time, creating one of the most popular American film logos.
• November 18 - Disney's Steamboat Willie premieres. This animated short was the first film to include a soundtrack, completely created in post production, including sound effects, music, and dialogue.

Top grossing films

1. The Singing Fool
2. Lights of New York
3. Street Angel
4. West of Zanzibar
5. Four Sons
6. Noah's Ark
7. Red Dance
8. The Terror
9. While the City Sleeps
10. Laugh, Clown, Laugh
11. The Road to Ruin
12. The Big City
13. Sadie Thompson
14. A Woman of Affairs
15. The Mysterious Lady
16. The Divine Woman

Academy Awards

• Best Actor: Emil Jannings for The Last Command and the 1927 movie The Way of All Flesh
• Best Actress: Janet Gaynor for Street Angel and the 1927 movies Seventh Heaven and Sunrise

Note: Prior to 1933, awards were not based on calendar years, which is why there is no 'Best Picture' for a 1928 film.

Films released in 1928

• Across to Singapore
• Alraune
• L'Argent
• Beggars of Life
• The Big City, starring Lon Chaney
• The Cameraman, a Buster Keaton film.
• Champagne, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
• The Circus, starring, directed and written by Charles Chaplin.
• The Crowd, directed by King Vidor.
• The Docks of New York, starring George Bancroft, Betty Compson and Olga Baclanova.
• Easy Virtue, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
• The Farmer's Wife, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
• Four Sons, directed by John Ford
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, starring Ruth Taylor and Alice White, subtitles written by Anita Loos
• A Girl in Every Port
• Hangman's House
• In Old Arizona 12/25/28 First 'Outdoor/Western' full length talkie, apparent FIRST sound-on-film (Movietone; Not sep. discs) feature length talkie.
• Ladies of the Mob
• The Last Command, starring Emil Jannings, Evelyn Brent and William Powell.
• Laugh, Clown, Laugh, starring Lon Chaney.
• Lights of New York, 7/28/28 (First true 'talkie'; all sound for full length in feature film. Vitaphone sound, i.e. on separate discs)
• The Man Who Laughs, starring Mary Philbin and Conrad Veidt.
• The Matinee Idol, starring Bessie Love and Johnnie Walker; directed by Frank Capra.
• Mother Machree, directed by John Ford
• The Mysterious Lady, starring Greta Garbo and Conrad Nagel.
• Noah's Ark, starring George O'Brien
• Our Dancing Daughters, starring Joan Crawford.
• The Passion of Joan of Arc, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer.
• The Red Dance
• Red Hair, starring Clara Bow
• Sadie Thompson, starring Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore.
• Sex in Chains, starring and directed by William Dieterle.
• Show People, starring Marion Davies.
• The Singing Fool, starring Al Jolson and Betty Bronson.
• Speedy, starring Harold Lloyd.
• Steamboat Bill Jr., a Buster Keaton film.
• Steamboat Willie, a Walt Disney Mickey Mouse short.
• Storm Over Asia
• Street Angel, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.
• The Terror., starring May McAvoy, Edward Everett Horton, and Louise Fazenda
• The Wedding March, starring Erich von Stroheim and Fay Wray.
• West of Zanzibar, starring Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore.
• West Point, starring William Haines and Joan Crawford.
• The Wind, starring Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson.
• We Faw Down, starring Laurel and Hardy.
• A Woman of Affairs, starring Greta Garbo.

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)
• Aesop's Film Fables (1921-1933)
• Krazy Kat (1925-1940)
• Inkwell Imps (1927-1929)
• Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (1927-1938)
• Newslaffs (1927-1928)
• Mickey Mouse (1928-1953)

Births

• January 7 - William Peter Blatty, screenwriter
• January 26 - Roger Vadim, director, screenwriter, actor
• February 11 - Conrad Janis, actor.
• February 29 - Tempest Storm, burlesque performer, actress
• March 1 - Jacques Rivette, film director
• March 24 - Vanessa Brown (+ 1999)
• April 23 - Shirley Temple, actress
• July 26 - Stanley Kubrick, director
• August 6 - Andy Warhol, artist, director
• August 15 - Nicolas Roeg, director
• August 16 - Ann Blyth, actress
• August 31 - James Coburn, actor
• September 17 - Roddy McDowall, actor
• September 19 - Adam West, actor
• October 1 - George Peppard, actor
• October 2 - George 'Spanky' McFarland, actor
• November 3 - Wanda Hendrix, actress (+1981)

Film Debuts

• Charles Laughton

Deaths

• January 2 - Emily Stevens, stage & film actress, cousin of Minnie Maddern Fiske
• January 26 - Earle Metcalfe, silent film actor (b 1889)
• April 22 - Frank Currier, veteran stage & silent screen actor.
• June 22 - George Siegmann, silent film actor
• June 24 - Holbrook Blinn, American stage & silent film actor.
• August 10 - Rex Cherryman, American actor (b. 1897)
• October 8 - Larry Semon, Silent film comedian
• December 14 - Theodore Roberts, Silent actor
• December 25 - Fred Thomson, silent film cowboy