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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 2021 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
| Event and Significance | |
| Acclaimed actor Hal Halbrook died at the age of 95 on January 23, 2021. His most honored character role was playing Mark Twain in a one-man stage show - a signature performance. Films he starred in included All the President's Men (1976) as Deep Throat, and Into the Wild (2007). | |
| Cloris Leachman died at the age of 94 on January 27, 2021. She had a memorable Best Supporting Actress role as Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show (1971), and also starred in Young Frankenstein (1974) as Frau Blücher. She also had a bit role in the opening of the classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly (1955). | |
| Canadian actor Christopher Plummer died at the age of 91 on February 5, 2021. His most well-remembered and notable performance was opposite Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965). Plummer also had roles in The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Insider (1999), and The Last Station (2009), among others. He had two notable Academy Award-related honors. At the age of 82, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Beginners (2010), becoming the oldest person to win an acting award. At the age of 88, he also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for the crime-thriller All the Money in the World (2017), making him the oldest person to be nominated in an acting category. | |
| The 93rd Academy Awards were scheduled about two months later than usual, broadcast on April 25, 2021, to allow for a longer eligibility period for films (from January 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021), due to the COVID-pandemic. Nominations were scheduled for March 15, 2021. | |
| Due to the unpredictable pandemic, release dates for films were still being revised and adjusted. Some release dates for films to be traditionally shown in theatres changed, while some movies were being released to streaming services (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu and Disney +, for example). With almost 65% of US movie cinema houses closed in the early part of the year (while markets in LA and NYC remained locked down), it was difficult to justify a theatre-release for many films. Most of the major blockbuster releases were scheduled for the summer of 2021. Some films were released as hybrids - simultaneously on a subscription streaming service and in movie-houses. | |
| MGM's next Bond film, No Time to Die (2021), the 25th, has been rescheduled multiple times - first it was pushed from April 2020 to November 2020, and then rescheduled for the spring of 2021 (on April 2, 2021), although its ultimate play date remained fluid. |
