United Artists

The United Artists Corporation (aka United Artists Associated, United Artists Pictures, and United Artists Films) was formed on February 5, 1919 by five of the leading figures in early Hollywood, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, William S. Hart and D. W. Griffith. They were motivated in part by a desire to control their own pictures, as well as their futures. When he heard of this plan, Richard Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, said, "The inmates are taking over the asylum." The five friends, with advice from former Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo (son-in-law of then-President Woodrow Wilson), formed their distribution company, with Hiram Abrams as its first managing director.

Memorable releases

1920s and 1930s

• Way Down East (1920)
• Orphans of the Storm (1922)
• The Thief of Baghdad (1924, starring Douglas Fairbanks))
• The Gold Rush (1925)
• My Best Girl (1927)
• Taming of the Shrew (1929)
• Hell's Angels (1930)
• City Lights (1931)
• Scarface (1932)
• Modern Times (1936)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
• Nothing Sacred (1937)
• Stella Dallas (1937)
• Stagecoach (1939)

1940s

• Rebecca (1940)
• The Thief of Baghdad (1940, Korda's version)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• Spellbound (1945)
• Red River (1948)

1950s

• The African Queen (1951)
• Moulin Rouge (1952)
• Vera Cruz (1954)
• Marty (1955)
• Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
• The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
• Some Like It Hot (1959)

1960s

• The Apartment (1960)
• The Magnigicent Seven (1960)
• The Misfits (1961)
• West Side Story (1961)
• Dr. No (1962)
• From Russia With Love (1963)
• Tom Jones (1963)
• The Pink Panther (1964)
• Goldfinger (1964)
• In The Heat Of The Night (1967)
• Midnight Cowboy (1968)

1970s

• Sleeper (1972)
• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
• Rocky (1976)
• Carrie (1976)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Apocalypse Now (1979)

1980s

• The Secret of NIMH (1982)
• Rain Man (1988)
• Child's Play (1988)
• All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

1990s

• GoldenEye (1995)
• Rob Roy (1995)
• The Birdcage (1996)
• Ronin (1998)