December 19, 1909: The first use of freeze frame for dramatic effect is employed by D.W. Griffith for the film A Corner in Wheat.
December 14, 1939: Seventy-five years after General Sherman set it ablaze, the city of Atlanta is lit up again– for the world premiere of Gone with the Wind.
December 19, 1940: The comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello brings their vaudeville banter to the screen in One Night in the Tropics.
December 15, 1966: The most famous name in family entertainment, Walt Disney–animator, producer and multi-Oscar-winner–dies of a heart attack at age 65.
December 18, 1966: In defiance of the Production Code’s demands to excise certain scenes, MGM releases Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Blowup without a seal of approval.
December 15, 1967: The film version of Jacqueline Susann’s potboiler Valley of the Dolls, starring Patty Duke and Sharon Tate, opens and becomes an instant camp classic.
December 20, 1967: Thirty-year-old stage actor Dustin Hoffman performs a star-making turn in Mike Nichols‘ The Graduate, which premieres today.
December 15, 1968: Brian de Palma‘s Greetings, starring Robert De Niro, opens with an X-rating, the first film to do so under the MPAA’s new rating system.
December 19, 1971: Stanley Kubrick draws attention with the U.S. release of the X-Rated A Clockwork Orange, which, incidentally, is the first to use the Dolby sound system.
December 15, 1978: The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino‘s Vietnam epic, opens, stunning audiences and eliciting controversy for its “Russian roulette” sequences.
December 19, 1986: Platoon, Oliver Stone‘s powerful war chronicle spurred by his service as a grunt in Vietnam, opens in limited release.
December 20, 1996: The “teen slasher” genre gets a hip revamping with director Wes Craven‘s surprise horror hit Scream.
December 19, 1997: Director James Cameron‘s Titanic opens, going on to win 11 Academy Awards and pass Star Wars as the all-time box office champ.