1911 in film

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The year 1911 in film involved some significant events.

Events

• March 23: D. W. Griffith shows the first major close-up shot on film with the successful release of The Lonedale Operator proving his ever growing mastery of how to utilise film.
• October 27: David Horsley's Nestor Motion Picture Company opens the first motion picture studio in Hollywood.
• Defence of Sevastopol premiers at the palace of Tsar Nicholas II and becomes the first feature-length film made in the Russian Empire and one of the first in the world.
• The Kalem Company of New York pays the estate of author Lew Wallace $25,000 in legal settlement for having adapted Ben Hur (1907 film) from his novel without securing prior rights.

Films released in 1911

• Aerial Anarchists
• Alkali Ike's Auto
• Les Aventures de baron de Munchhausen, directed by Georges Melies
• Baseball and Bloomers
• The Battle, directed by D. W. Griffith
• The Black Arrow
• Brown of Harvard
• The Buddhist Priestess
• Cally's Comet
• The Coffin Ship
• The Colonel and the King
• Courting Across the Court
• The Cowboy and the Lady
• David Copperfield
• Defence of Sevastopol
• The Diabolical Church Window, directed by Georges Melies
• The Dream, directed by Thomas H. Ince, starring Mary Pickford
• Enoch Arden, directed by D. W. Griffith
• The Fall Of Troy, directed by Giovanni Pastrone
• First Indy 500 (First year footage from the auto race. Filmed on May 30, 1911.)
• Flames and Fortune
• For Her Sake
• His Trust, directed by D. W. Griffith
• His Trust Fulfilled, directed by D. W. Griffith. The sequel to Griffith's earlier 1911 short film "His Trust"
• Her Crowning Glory
• The Inferno (L'Inferno), adapted from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. First blockbuster feature film in cinema. First feature-length horror film.
• Little Nemo
• The Higher Law
• The Lonedale Operator, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Blanche Sweet
• The Miser's Heart, directed by D. W. Griffith
• Der Müller und sein Kind
• The Pasha's Daughter
• Princess Clementina
• The Railroad Builder
• The Scarlet Letter
• The Smuggler
• Sweet Memories
• Swords and Hearts, directed by D. W. Griffith
• A Tale of Two Cities
• That's Happiness
• What Shall We Do with Our Old?
• Windsor McCay And His Animated Pictures
• Won by Wireless

Births

• January 5 - Jean-Pierre Aumont, actor (died 2001)
• January 7 - Butterfly McQueen, actress (died 1995)
• January 22 - Mary Hayley Bell, actress, writer and dramatist, wife of Sir John Mills (d 2005)
• February 6 - Ronald Reagan, actor, United States President (died 2004)
• February 9 - Gypsy Rose Lee, actress and burlesque dancer (died 1970)
• February 14 - Florence Rice, actress (died 1974)
• February 19 - Merle Oberon, actress (died 1979)
• February 28 - Ishiro Honda, director (died 1993)
• March 3 - Jean Harlow, actress (died 1937)
• March 18 - Smiley Burnette, actor, musician (died 1967)
• May 11 - Phil Silvers, actor (died 1985)
• May 17 - Maureen O'Sullivan, actress (died 1998)
• May 18 - Sigrid Gurie, actress (died 1969)
• May 27 - Vincent Price, actor (died 1993)
• June 3 - Ellen Corby, actress (died 1999)
• June 20 - Gail Patrick (died 1980)
• June 29 - Bernard Hermann, composer (died 1975)
• July 6 - Laverne Andrews, singer, actress, member of Andrews Sisters (died 1967)
• July 14 - Terry-Thomas, actor (died 1990)
• July 16 - Ginger Rogers, actress, dancer (died 1995)
• July 18 - Hume Cronyn, actor (died 2003)
• August 5 - Robert Taylor, actor (died 1969)
• August 6 - Lucille Ball, actress (died 1989)
• August 7 - Nicholas Ray, director (died 1979)
• August 12 - Cantinflas, actor (died 1993)
• September 2 - Erwin Hillier, cinematographer (died 2005)
• October 13 - Ashok Kumar, actor, India (died 2001)
• October 20 - Will Rogers, Jr., actor (died 1993)
• October 27 - Leif Erickson, actor (died 1986)
• November 5 - Roy Rogers, singer, actor (died 1998)
• November 10 - Harry Andrews, actor (died 1989)
• December 8 - Lee J. Cobb, actor (died 1976)
• December 30 - Jeanette Nolan, actress (died 1998)

Deaths

• January 18 - Arthur Marvin, cinematographer, (born 1859)
• May 29 - W. S. Gilbert, producer of musicals, half of the team of Gilbert and Sullivan, (born 1836)
• July 18 - Genevieve Lantelme, actress, (born 1883)
• August 11 - Verner Clarges, actor, (born 1846)
• October 27 - Francis Boggs, director, (born 1870)
• November 2 - Kyrle Bellew, actor, (born 1855)
• December 22 - Wright Lorimer, stage actor, screenwriter, (born 1874)
• Unknown - Woodville Latham, producer and exhibitor whose desire to shoot an entire boxing match on a single reel of film led to the invention of the Latham loop (born 1837)

Debuts

• Francis X. Bushman - His Friend's Wife (short)
• Paul Kelly - Jimmie's Job (short)
• Ann Little - The Indian Maiden's Lesson (short)
• Harold Lockwood - The White Red Man (short)
• Anna Q. Nilsson - Molly Pitcher (short)
• Lillian Russell - La Tosca (short)
• Anita Stewart - A Tale of Two Cities as Anna Stewart
• Lenore Ulric - The First Man (1911 short)
• Lois Weber - director, actress, A Heroine of '76 (short); writer, On the Brink (short)