The year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.

List of years in film
In television
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
...

Top-grossing films (U.S.)

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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
1 West Side Story United Artists $19,645,000[1]
2 The Guns of Navarone Columbia $13,000,000[2]
3 El Cid Allied Artists $12,000,000[2]
4 The Parent Trap Buena Vista $9,300,000[3]
5 The Absent-Minded Professor $9,000,000[3]
6 King of Kings MGM $8,000,000[4]
7 Lover Come Back Universal $7,625,000[5]
8 One Hundred and One Dalmatians Buena Vista $6,200,000[6]
9 La Dolce Vita Cineriz / Pathé $6,000,000[3]
10 Come September Universal $5,772,000[5]

Top-grossing films by country

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The highest-grossing 1961 films from countries outside of North America.

Country Title Studio Gross
India Gunga Jumna Mehboob Studio $14,610,000[n 2]
Soviet Union Striped Trip Lenfilm[citation needed] $12,720,000[n 3]

Events

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Awards

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Category/Organization 19th Golden Globe Awards
March 5, 1962
34th Academy Awards
April 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 Kramer
Judgment at Nuremberg
Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins
West Side Story
Best Actor Maximilian Schell
Judgment at Nuremberg
Glenn Ford
Pocketful of Miracles
Maximilian Schell
Judgment at Nuremberg
Best Actress Geraldine Page
Summer and Smoke
Rosalind Russell
A Majority of One
Sophia Loren
Two Women
Best Supporting Actor George Chakiris
West Side Story
Best Supporting Actress Rita Moreno
West Side Story
Best Original Score Dimitri Tiomkin
The Guns of Navarone
Henry Mancini
Breakfast at Tiffany's (Drama or Comedy)
Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal
West 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

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United States unless stated

January–March

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April–June

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July–September

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October–December

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Notable films released in 1961

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US unless stated

Short film series

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Births

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Deaths

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Film debuts

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Notes

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  1. ^ 4.79 Indian rupees per US dollar from 1948 to 1966[8]
  2. ^ 7 crore[7] (US$14.61 million)[n 1]
  3. ^ 11.45 million Rbls (45.8 million tickets sold,[9] average ticket price of 25 kopecks),[10] 0.9 Rbl per US dollar from 1961 to 1971[11]

References

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  1. ^ Pirie, David (1981). Anatomy of the Movies. Macmillan Publishing Co, Inc. p. 254. ISBN 0-02-597540-4.
  2. ^ a b Finler, Joel Waldo (2003). The Hollywood Story. Wallflower Press. pp. 358–359. ISBN 978-1-903364-66-6.
  3. ^ a b c "All-time top film grossers", Variety 8 January 1964 p 37.
  4. ^ The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  5. ^ a b Cohn, Lawrence (October 15, 1990). "All-Time Film Rental Champs". Variety. p. M140-M196.
  6. ^ Gabler, Neal (2006). Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Vintage Books. p. 586. ISBN 978-0679757474.
  7. ^ "Box Office 1961". Box Office India. Archived from the original on 2012-09-22. Retrieved 2011-12-21.
  8. ^ "Rupee's journey since Independence: Down by 65 times against dollar", The Economic Times, 24 August 2013
  9. ^ Sergey Kudryavtsev. "Отечественные фильмы в советском кинопрокате".
  10. ^ Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War, page 48, Cornell University Press, 2011
  11. ^ Archive of Bank of Russia http://cbr.ru/currency_base/OldDataFiles/USD.xls
  12. ^ "Cubby Broccoli, Saltzman Close Deal With UA". Daily Variety. June 29, 1961. p. 1.
  13. ^ "Screening 'September' Tonite On TWA Jet". Daily Variety. July 17, 1961. p. 3.
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