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Years in film
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The year 1961 in film involved some significant events.

Events

• Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad) released

Top grossing films (U.S.)

(*) After theatrical re-issue(s)

Awards

Academy Awards:

Best Picture: West Side Story - Mirisch-B&P Enterprises, United Artists

Best Director: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins - West Side Story

Best Actor: Maximilian Schell - Judgment at Nuremberg

Best Actress: Sophia Loren - Two Women

Best Supporting Actor: George Chakiris - West Side Story

Best Supporting Actress: Rita Moreno - West Side Story

Best Foreign Language Film: Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel), directed by Ingmar Bergman, Sweden

Golden Globe Awards:

Drama:

Best Picture: The Guns of Navarone

Best Actor: Maximilian Schell - Judgement at Nuremberg

Best Actress: Geraldine Page - Summer and Smoke

Musical or comedy:

Best Picture (tie): A Majority of One

Best Picture (tie): West Side Story

Best Actor: Glenn Ford - Pocketful of Miracles

Best Actress: Rosalind Russell - A Majority of One

Other

Best Director: Stanley Kramer - Judgment at Nuremberg

Palme d'Or (Cannes Film Festival):

The Long Absence (Une aussi longue absence), directed by Henri Colpi, France

Viridiana, directed by Luis Buñuel, Spain

Golden Lion (Venice Film Festival):

Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad), directed by Alain Resnais, France

Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival):

La Notte (The Night), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy

Films released in 1961

• The Absent-Minded Professor
• Atlantis, the Lost Continent
• Babes in Toyland
• Bachelor in Paradise, starring Bob Hope and Lana Turner
• Back Street, starring Susan Hayward, John Gavin and Vera Miles
• Barabbas
• The Blonde from Buenos Aires, starring Mamie Van Doren
• Blue Hawaii starring Elvis Presley (his biggest box-office success)
• Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard
• Bridge to the Sun
• Carry On Regardless
• The Children's Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner and Miriam Hopkins who also starred in the original film These Three
• The Comancheros
• Come September
• The Devil at 4 O'Clock, starring Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy, and Gregoire Aslan
• El Cid, starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren
• The Errand Boy, starring Jerry Lewis
• Fanny, starring Charles Boyer and Leslie Caron
• Flower Drum Song, starring Nancy Kwan
• The Fruit Is Ripe (Les Filles sèment le vent)
• The George Raft Story, starring Jayne Mansfield and Ray Danton
• Gidget Goes Hawaiian
• Goodbye Again
• Gorgo
• The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn
• Hoodlum Priest
• The Hustler, starring Paul Newman with Piper Laurie, George C. Scott and Jackie Gleason
• Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell with Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift
• King of Kings
• Khovanshchina
• La dolce vita (U.S. release)
• La Notte Golden Bear winner
• The Ladies Man, starring Jerry Lewis
• The Last Sunset, starring Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas and Dorothy Malone
• The Last Time I Saw Archie
• Last Year at Marienbad, Golden Lion winner
• The Long Absence (Une aussi longue absence) - Palme d'Or winner
• Lover Come Back, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson
• A Majority of One
• The Mark
• The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable in both their last screen roles.
• Mothra
• Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile
• One-Eyed Jacks, directed by and starring Marlon Brando
• One Hundred and One Dalmatians
• One, Two, Three', starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, and Arlene Francis
• The Outsider, a biography starring Tony Curtis as famous WWII marine, Ira Hayes
• The Parent Trap
• Paris Blues
• Parrish
• The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price
• Please, Not Now!, starring Brigitte Bardot
• Pocketful of Miracles, starring Bette Davis, Glenn Ford and Hope Lange
• Il Posto
• Question 7
• A Raisin in the Sun
• Return to Peyton Place (film mentioned in article)
• The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, starring Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty
• Sennin Buraku
• Scarlet Sails (Алые Паруса)
• The Sins of Rachel Cade, starring Angie Dickinson
• Splendor in the Grass, starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty
• Summer and Smoke, starring Geraldine Page and Laurence Harvey
• Teen Kanya
• Through a Glass Darkly - (Såsom i en spegel)
• Town Without Pity
• Two Rode Together, starring James Stewart and Richard Widmark
• Victim
• Viridiana - Palme d'Or winner
• West Side Story, starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn with Rita Moreno and George Chakiris
• Wild in the Country starring Elvis Presley with Hope Lange, Tuesday Weld and Millie Perkins
• Two Women (U.S. release)
• Yojimbo

Short Film Series

• Looney Tunes (1930-1969)
• Terrytoons (1930-1964)
• Merrie Melodies (1931-1969)
• Bugs Bunny (1940-1962)
• Yosemite Sam (1945-1963)
• Speedy Gonzales (1953-1968)
• Goofy (1961)

Births

• January 13 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus, actress
• February 11 - Carey Lowell, actress
• February 21 - Christopher Atkins, actor (The Blue Lagoon)
• April 3 - Eddie Murphy, African-american actor and comedian
• April 6 - Gene Eugene, actor, lead singer of Adam Again
• May 6 - George Clooney American actor, writer, director, producer
• June 9 - Michael J. Fox, actor (Back to the Future)
• July 15 - Forest Whitaker, actor
• July 18 - Elizabeth McGovern, actress
• October 31 - Peter Jackson, director
• November 14 - D. B. Sweeney, actor
• November 19 - Meg Ryan, actress

Deaths

• February 2 - Anna May Wong, 56, American actress
• February 17 - Nita Naldi, 63, American actress
• March 6 - George Formby, 56, British actor, entertainer
• March 12 - Belinda Lee, 25, British actress
• May 4 - Anita Stewart, 66, American actress
• May 13 - Gary Cooper, 60, American actor
• May 22 - Joan Davis, 53, American actress
• June 17 - Jeff Chandler, 42, American actor
• August 4 - Maurice Tourneur, 88, French film director
• August 27 - Gail Russell, 36, American actress
• August 30 - Charles Coburn, 84, American actor
• September 10 - Leo Carrillo, 81, American actor
• September 22 - Marion Davies, 64, American actress
• October 11 - Chico Marx, 74, American actor, member of the Marx Brothers
• October 13 - Maya Deren, 44, American experimental filmmaker
• October 18 - Tsuru Aoki, 69, Japanese-born American actress
• October 22 - Joseph Schenck, 82, Russian-born American pioneer motion picture executive
• November 15 - Elsie Ferguson, 78, American stage and film actress
• November 24 - Ruth Chatterton, 67, American actress

Film Debuts

• Warren Beatty