20th century

===Film, television and theatre===
[[File:Chaplin_The_Kid_edit.jpg|thumb|[[Charlie Chaplin]] in his 1921 film ''[[The Kid (1921 film)|The Kid]]'', with [[Jackie Coogan]].]]
{{see also|History of film}}
Film as an artistic medium was created in the 20th century. The first modern movie theatre was established in [[Pittsburgh]] in 1905.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/movies/2005/06/19/You-saw-it-here-first-Pittsburgh-s-Nickelodeon-introduced-the-moving-picture-theater-to-the-masses-in-1905/stories/200506190169|title=You saw it here first: Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon introduced the moving picture theater to the masses in 1905|newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|date=18 June 2005|access-date=11 February 2018}}</ref> [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]] developed as the center of American film production. While the first films were in black and white, [[technicolor]] was developed in the 1920s to allow for color films. [[Sound film]]s were developed, with the first full-length feature film, ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'', released in 1927. The [[Academy Awards]] were established in 1929. Animation was also developed in the 1920s, with the first full-length [[cel animated]] feature film ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs]]'', released in 1937. [[Computer-generated imagery]] was developed in the 1980s, with the first full-length [[computer animation|CGI-animated]] film ''[[Toy Story]]'' released in 1995.
* [[Julie Andrews]], [[Harry Belafonte]], [[Humphrey Bogart]], [[Marlon Brando]], [[James Cagney]], [[Charlie Chaplin]], [[Sean Connery]], [[Tom Cruise]], [[James Dean]], [[Robert De Niro]], [[Harrison Ford]], [[Clark Gable]], [[Cary Grant]], [[Audrey Hepburn]], [[Katharine Hepburn]], [[Bruce Lee]], [[Marilyn Monroe]], [[Paul Newman]], [[Jack Nicholson]], [[Al Pacino]], [[Sidney Poitier]], [[Meryl Streep]], [[Elizabeth Taylor]], [[James Stewart]], [[Jane Fonda]] and [[John Wayne]] are among the most popular [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] stars of the 20th century.
* [[Madhubala]], [[Jean-Paul Belmondo]], [[Karel Roden]], [[Sean Connery]], [[Marcello Mastroianni]], [[Salah Zulfikar]], [[Marlene Dietrich]], [[Brigitte Bardot]], [[Omar Sharif]], [[Catherine Deneuve]], [[Alain Delon]], [[Soad Hosny]], [[Fernanda Montenegro]], [[Sophie Marceau]], [[Fatima Rushdi]], [[Amitabh Bachchan]], [[Jean Gabin]], [[Toshiro Mifune]], [[Shoukry Sarhan]], [[Lars Mikkelsen]], [[Sophia Loren]], [[Youssef Wahbi]], [[Claudia Cardinale]], [[Klaus Kinski]], [[Gérard Depardieu]], [[Max von Sydow]], [[Faten Hamama]], [[Rutger Hauer]] and [[Toni Servillo]] are among the most popular movie stars of the 20th century. 
* [[Sergei Eisenstein]], [[D. W. Griffith]], [[Cecil B. DeMille]], [[Frank Capra]], [[Howard Hawks]], [[John Ford]], [[Orson Welles]], [[Martin Scorsese]], [[John Huston]], [[Alfred Hitchcock]], [[Akira Kurosawa]], [[Spike Lee]], [[Ingmar Bergman]], [[Federico Fellini]], [[Walt Disney]], [[Stanley Kubrick]], [[Steven Spielberg]], [[Ridley Scott]], [[Woody Allen]], [[Quentin Tarantino]], [[James Cameron]], [[William Friedkin]], [[Ezz El-Dine Zulficar]] and [[George Lucas]] are among the most important and popular filmmakers of the 20th century.
* In theater, sometimes referred to as [[Broadway theater|Broadway]] in New York City, playwrights such as [[Eugene O'Neill]], [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Edward Albee]], [[Arthur Miller]] and [[Tennessee Williams]] introduced innovative language and ideas to the idiom. In musical theater, figures such as [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]], [[Lerner and Loewe]], [[Mohammed Karim]], and [[Irving Berlin]] had an enormous impact on both film and the culture in general.
* [[Modern dance]] is born in America as a 'rebellion' against centuries-old European ballet. [[Dancers]] and choreographers [[Alvin Ailey]], [[Isadora Duncan]], [[Vaslav Nijinsky]], [[Ruth St. Denis]], [[Mahmoud Reda]], [[Martha Graham]], [[José Limón]], [[Doris Humphrey]], [[Merce Cunningham]], and [[Paul Taylor (choreographer)|Paul Taylor]] re-defined movement, struggling to bring it back to its 'natural' roots and along with Jazz, created a solely American art form. Alvin Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th-century concert dance. His company gained the nickname "Cultural Ambassador to the World" because of its extensive international touring. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is believed to be the best known and most often seen modern dance performance.

{{see also|History of Television}}