The following is an overview of the events of 2011 in film, including the highest-grossing films, film festivals, award ceremonies and a list of films released and notable deaths. More film sequels were released in 2011 than any other year before it, with 27 sequels released.
Evaluation of the year
Richard Brody of The New Yorker observed that the best films of 2011 "exalt the metaphysical, the fantastical, the transformative, the fourth-wall-breaking, or simply the impossible, andâÂÂremarkablyâÂÂdo so ... These films depart from 'reality' ... not in order to forget the irrefutable but in order to face it, to think about it, to act on it more freely". Film critic and filmmaker Scout Tafoya of RogerEbert.com considers the year of 2011 as the best year for cinema, countering the notion of 1939 being film's best year overall, citing examples such as Drive, The Tree of Life, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Keyhole, Contagion, The Adventures of Tintin, and '. He stated that "2011 housed not just some of the greatest art films of our age, but a revolution in the language of blockbuster filmmaking. One big-budget action film after another used digital cameras to show the world behind explosions in starker, stranger light, while constructing a backbone of classical ideas and images."
Highest-grossing films
The top 10 films released in 2011 by worldwide gross are as follows:
Box office records
2011 was the first year to have three films cross the billion-dollar milestone, surpassing the previous year's record of two films and also the first time when at least 10 films grossed more than $500 million worldwide (in 11th and 12th place, Puss in Boots and ' also earned over $500 million making it twelve films to do so)
- ' grossed $1,045,713,802, becoming the second film in the franchise to have grossed over $1 billion, and the 37th-highest-grossing film of all time.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows â Part 2 grossed $1,342,511,219, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of all time during its theatrical run, the highest-grossing film in the Harry Potter franchise, the highest grossing Warner Bros film and the highest grossing book adaptation and the highest of 2011 worldwide.
- In the US and Canada, it set single-day and opening-weekend records, with $91,071,119 and $169,189,427, respectively. In addition, the film set a worldwide opening-weekend record with $483,189,427.
- ' grossed $1,123,794,079 and is currently the highest-grossing in the franchise. It also held the record as the highest-grossing film worldwide ever distributed only by Paramount for 11 years until it was surpassed by ' in 2022.
- Pirates of the Caribbean became the first franchise to have more than one film gross over $1 billion, with ' joining 2006's '.
- On Stranger Tides also became the fifth film of the decade to surpass the billion-dollar milestone, breaking the previous record of four films (' in 2003, ' in 2006, The Dark Knight in 2008, and Avatar in 2009) during the 2000s.
- The Shrek franchise became the first animated film series to gross more than $3 billion with the release of Puss in Boots.
- The Smurfs surpassed ' as the highest-grossing live-action/animated film of all time with $563.7 million.
Events
Awards
Palme d'Or (64th Cannes Film Festival):
The Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick, United States
Golden Lion (68th Venice International Film Festival):
Faust (äðÃÂÃÂÃÂ), directed by Alexander Sokurov, Russia
Golden Bear (61st Berlin International Film Festival):
A Separation (ìïçÃÂàÃÂçïñ çò óÃÂÃÂ
ÃÂÃÂ), directed by Asghar Farhadi, Iran
2011 films
By country/region
By genre/medium
Births
Deaths
Film debuts
References
External links