1989 in film

The top 10 films released in 1989 by worldwide gross are as follows:[1]

• Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million. Basinger would lose the town to her partner in the deal, the pension fund of Chicago-based Ameritech Corp., in 1993 after being forced to file for bankruptcy when a California judge ordered her to pay $7.4 million for refusing to honor a verbal contract to star in the film Boxing Helena.
• A director's cut of Lawrence of Arabia is released with a 227-minute length. The restoration was undertaken by Robert A. Harris under the supervision of director David Lean.
• April 23 – Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, and Burt Lancaster, is released.
• May 24 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is released. It is the third installment of the Indiana Jones series.
• June 13 – The James Bond film Licence to Kill is released. It would be followed by years of legal wrangling over the future of the popular series. The next Bond film, GoldenEye, is not released until 1995.
• June 16 – Ghostbusters II is released.
• June 23
  • Batman is released, going on to gross more than $410 million worldwide, and establishing the public and critical attention of director Tim Burton.
  • Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is released and marks the directorial debut of visual effects supervisor Joe Johnston, who later went on to direct The Rocketeer, Jumanji, October Sky, Jurassic Park III, and Captain America: The First Avenger.
• June 30 - Do the Right Thing released. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1999.
• July 7 – Lethal Weapon 2 is released and becomes the highest-grossing film in the franchise. As well as the highest grossing R-rated film of the year at the domestic box office.
• July 11 – Screen, stage, and Shakespearian legend Laurence Olivier died peacefully in his home in England, after appearing in his last filmed role as an old soldier in War Requiem.
• August 2 – Ron Howard's family comedy Parenthood, starring Steve Martin, Tom Hulce, and Rick Moranis, is released.
• September 28 – Sony announce its intention to buy Columbia Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures. The deal is completed in November for a total cost of nearly $5 billion. They appoint Peter Guber and Jon Peters as co-chairman, in a further deal that cost up to $1 billion, after settling a lawsuit with Warner Bros.
• November 7 - Andrew G. Vajna agrees to sell his stake in Carolco Pictures to his co-chairman and co-founder Mario Kassar for $106 million.
• November 17 – The Little Mermaid becomes a critical and commercial success and brings new life to Walt Disney Feature Animation. The Little Mermaid also reinvigorated public and critical interest in The Walt Disney Company, which would become one of the most prestigious corporations of the 1990s.
• November 22 – Back to the Future Part II is released.

United States unless stated