The year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.
Top-grossing films (U.S.)
The top ten 1961 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows:
+ Highest-grossing films of 1961 Rank Title Distributor Domestic rentals 1West Side Story United Artists $19,645,000 2The Guns of Navarone Columbia $13,000,000 3 El Cid Allied Artists $12,000,000 4The Parent TrapBuena Vista $9,300,000"All-time top film grossers", Variety 8 January 1964 p 37. 5 The Absent-Minded Professor $9,000,000 6 King of Kings MGM $8,000,000. 7 Lover Come Back Universal $7,625,000 8 One Hundred and One Dalmatians Buena Vista $6,200,000 9 La Dolce Vita Cineriz / Pathé $6,000,000 10 Come September Universal $5,772,000
Top-grossing films by country The highest-grossing 1961 films from countries outside of North America.
Country Title Studio Gross India Gunga Jumna Mehboob Studio $14,610,000 Soviet Union Striped Trip Lenfilm $12,720,000
Events May 13 – Legendary actor Gary Cooper dies at the age of 60 in Los Angeles from colon and prostate cancer. Best known for his appearances in classic films such as Wings, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Sergeant York, The Pride of the Yankees and High Noon, Cooper was one of the biggest stars of Hollywood's Golden Age and won two Academy Awards for Best Actor. June 28 – Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman sign a multi-picture deal with United Artists to produce a series of films based on the novels of Ian Fleming starting with either Dr. No or Diamonds Are Forever. The series goes on to become the highest-grossing film series of all time. July 17 – Trans World Airlines screens Come September to the press aboard one of its jets to introduce in-flight movies. October 18 – The film version of the musical West Side Story is released. Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins and starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris, it becomes the year's highest-grossing film and goes on to win ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (for Wise and Robbins), Best Supporting Actor (for Chakiris) and Best Supporting Actress (for Moreno).
Awards Category/Organization 19th Golden Globe AwardsMarch 5, 1962 34th Academy AwardsApril 9, 1962 Drama Comedy or Musical Best Film The Guns of Navarone A Majority of One (Comedy) West Side Story (Musical) West Side Story Best Director Stanley KramerJudgment at Nuremberg Robert Wise and Jerome RobbinsWest Side Story Best Actor Maximilian SchellJudgment at Nuremberg Glenn FordPocketful of Miracles Maximilian SchellJudgment at Nuremberg Best Actress Geraldine PageSummer and Smoke Rosalind RussellA Majority of One Sophia LorenTwo Women Best Supporting Actor George ChakirisWest Side Story Best Supporting Actress Rita MorenoWest Side Story Best Original Score Dimitri TiomkinThe Guns of Navarone Henry ManciniBreakfast at Tiffany's (Drama or Comedy)Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin and Irwin KostalWest Side Story (Musical) Best Original Song "Town Without Pity"Town Without Pity "Moon River"Breakfast at Tiffany's Best Foreign Language Film Two Women Through a Glass Darkly
1961 film releases United States unless stated
January–March January 1961 6 January The Marriage-Go-Round 16 January The Girl on the Boat 21 January Pigs and Battleships (Japan) 24 January His and Hers La Notte (Italy/France) 25 January One Hundred and One Dalmatians 26 January The Mark 27 January Jhumroo (India) 28 January A Fever in the Blood A Soldier's Prayer (Japan) February 1961 1 February The Misfits 2 February Garibaldi (Italy) 9 February Girl with a Suitcase (Italy) Mother Joan of the Angels (Poland) No Love for Johnnie 10 February Cry for Happy 15 February The Coachman (South Korea) 16 February The Long and the Short and the Tall 20 February Nude on the Moon Reptilicus 22 February The Great Impostor March 1961 1 March Posse from Hell 2 March The Rebel 3 March Lola (France) 10 March Five Golden Hours (Italy) Go Naked in the World (Italy) 15 March The Terror of the Tongs 16 March The Absent-Minded Professor 20 March Blast of Silence 22 March All in a Night's Work 23 March Carry On Regardless 24 March Town Without Pity (U.S./West Germany/Switzerland) Underworld U.S.A. 26 March The Hoodlum Priest Konga 27 March The Assassin (Italy) 29 March Gorgo Violent Life (Italy) 30 March One-Eyed Jacks
April–June April 1961 2 April The Sins of Rachel Cade 4 April The Greengage Summer Mr. Topaze Two Living, One Dead (U.K./Sweden) 13 April Madison Avenue Nazrana (India) 17 April Master of the World 18 April Sanctuary 19 April Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis (Italy) Please, Not Now! (France) 24 April The Secret Ways 25 April Yojimbo (Japan) 27 April The Guns of Navarone May 1961 2 May The Beast of Yucca Flats 3 May Atlantis, the Lost Continent 4 May Parrish 5 May Return to Peyton Place Teen Kanya (India) 12 May Mad Dog Coll 14 May Angel Baby Goliath Against the Giants (Italy) Viridiana (Mexico/Spain) 17 May The Long Absence (France) Professor Mamlock (East Germany) The Right Approach 21 May A Bomb Was Stolen (Romania) 24 May The Young Savages 26 May Snow White and the Three Stooges 27 May The Last Time I Saw Archie 29 May A Raisin in the Sun June 1961 1 June The Pleasure of His Company 2 June Gidget Goes Hawaiian 5 June Taste of Fear 6 June The Deadly Companions 7 June The Curse of the Werewolf Scarlet Sails 8 June The Last Sunset Romanoff and Juliet Wild in the Country 11 June The Big Bankroll 13 June The Lovemakers (France) 16 June The Colossus of Rhodes (Italy) 21 June The Parent Trap Two Loves 22 June Antigone (Greece) Black Silk (Thailand) Flame in the Streets Magic Boy 25 June Last Year at Marienbad (France) 28 June Fanny Homicidal The Ladies Man The Naked Edge Question 7 (West Germany/U.S.) 29 June Goodbye Again (France/U.S.)
July–September July 1961 3 July The Miracle of Father Malachia (West Germany) 8 July Panda and the Magic Serpent 9 July Armored Command 12 July Francis of Assisi Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea 13 July The Exiles 14 July Alakazam the Great 16 July The Big Gamble 19 July By Love Possessed Invasion of the Neptune Men (Japan) 20 July Whistle Down the Wind 26 July Tammy Tell Me True Two Rode Together 30 July Mothra (Japan) 31 July And Love Has Vanished (Yugoslavia) August 1961 9 August Come September The Frightened City 12 August The Pit and the Pendulum 15 August Marines, Let's Go 23 August The Fascist (Italy) The Honeymoon Machine The Young Doctors 25 August Ada Gunga Jumna (India) 26 August The Houseguest and My Mother (South Korea) 29 August The Black Monocle (France) 30 August Victim 31 August Accattone (Italy) September 1961 4 September Peace to Him Who Enters (USSR) 6 September A Woman Is a Woman (France) 8 September Harry and the Butler (Denmark) Striped Trip (USSR) 15 September A Taste of Honey 16 September Immortal Love (Japan) 20 September Claudelle Inglish Man-Trap Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile (Italy) 21 September The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (Czechoslovakia) 22 September Léon Morin, Priest (France) 25 September The Hustler 26 September Murder, She Said A Thunder of Drums 27 September Paris Blues 30 September Then Nilavu (India)
October–December October 1961 5 October Breakfast at Tiffany's 8 October The Last War (Japan) 10 October Splendor in the Grass 11 October Back Street The Explosive Generation King of Kings 16 October Through a Glass Darkly (Sweden) 17 October Bridge to the Sun What a Whopper 18 October The Devil at 4 O'Clock Mr. Sardonicus West Side Story 21 October Dersu Uzala (USSR) Il Posto (Italy) 23 October Johnny Nobody 26 October The Last Judgment (Italy) 28 October The Mask 29 October The End of Summer (Japan) November 1961 1 November The Comancheros 2 November Bachelor in Paradise 8 November Susan Slade Too Late Blues 9 November Flower Drum Song 16 November Hercules in the Haunted World (Italy) Summer and Smoke 22 November Blue Hawaii The George Raft Story Valley of the Dragons 23 November The Day the Earth Caught Fire 24 November The Innocents 28 November The Errand Boy December 1961 6 December El Cid (U.S./Italy) Tintin and the Golden Fleece (France) 7 December Five Minutes to Live 13 December Paris Belongs to Us The Young Ones 14 December Babes in Toyland Judgment at Nuremberg The Outsider 15 December One, Two, Three 19 December The Children's Hour A Difficult Life (Italy) Pocketful of Miracles When the Trees Were Tall (USSR) 20 December Cash on Demand Divorce Italian Style (Italy) Everything's Ducky Lover Come Back Mysterious Island Sail a Crooked Ship Something Wild 22 December The Second Time Around Two Women(Italy/West Germany) 23 December Barabbas (Italy) 27 December A Majority of One 28 December Flight of the Lost Balloon 30 December The Steamroller and the Violin (USSR)
Notable films released in 1961 US unless stated
A The Absent-Minded Professor, starring Fred MacMurray Accattone, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini – (Italy) Ada, starring Dean Martin and Susan Hayward All in a Night's Work, starring Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine The American Beauty (La Belle Américaine), directed by and starring Robert Dhéry – (France) Ana Wa Banati, starring Salah Zulfikar, Zaki Rostom and Fayza Ahmed – (Egypt) And Love Has Vanished (Dvoje) – (Yugoslavia) Angel Baby, starring Salome Jens and Mercedes McCambridge Antigone, starring Irene Papas – (Greece) Armored Command, starring Howard Keel and Tina Louise The Artillery Sergeant Kalen (Ogniomistrz Kaleń) – (Poland) The Assassin (L'Assassino), starring Marcello Mastroianni – (Italy) Atlantis, the Lost Continent, starring John Dall
B Babes in Toyland, starring Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands, Annette Funicello Bachelor in Paradise, starring Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Janis Paige, Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss Back Street, starring Susan Hayward, John Gavin, Vera Miles Bandits of Orgosolo () – (Italy) Barabbas, starring Anthony Quinn, Silvana Mangano and Jack Palance – (Italy) The Big Bankroll, aka King of the Roaring 20s, starring David Janssen, Mickey Rooney, Diana Dors The Big Gamble, starring Stephen Boyd The Black Monocle (Le monocle noir), directed by Georges Lautner Black Silk (Prae Dum) – (Thailand) Blast of Silence, directed by and starring Allen Baron The Blonde from Buenos Aires (Una Americana en Buenos Aires), starring Mamie Van Doren and Jean-Pierre Aumont – (Argentina/France) Blue Hawaii, starring Elvis Presley (his biggest box-office success), with Joan Blackman and Angela Lansbury Boatmen of Thessaloniki (Солунските Атентатори) – (Yugoslavia) A Bomb Was Stolen (S-a furat o bombă) – (Romania) Moonshiners (Samogonshchiki) – (USSR) Breakfast at Tiffany's, directed by Blake Edwards, starring Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen Bridge to the Sun, starring Carroll Baker and James Shigeta – (France/U.S.) By Love Possessed, starring Lana Turner, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., George Hamilton
C Carry On Regardless, starring Sid James, Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey – (U.K.) Cash on Demand, starring Peter Cushing and André Morell – (U.K.) On The Tiger's Back (A cavallod della tigre ), starring Nino Manfredi – (Italy) The Children's Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner and Miriam Hopkins Chronicle of Flaming Years (Povest plamennykh let) – (USSR) Claudelle Inglish, starring Diane McBain and Arthur Kennedy The Coachman (Mabu) – (South Korea) The Colossus of Rhodes, directed by Sergio Leone, starring Rory Calhoun – (Italy) The Comancheros, starring John Wayne, Stuart Whitman, Lee Marvin and Ina Balin Come September, starring Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin The Connection, directed by Shirley Clarke Cry for Happy, starring Glenn Ford, Miyoshi Umeki and Donald O'Connor The Curse of the Werewolf, starring Clifford Evans and Oliver Reed – (U.K.)
D The Day the Earth Caught Fire, starring Edward Judd – (U.K.)