1951 in film

Events

• Sweden – May Britt is scouted by Italian film-makers Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati

Top grossing films

North America

1. David and Bathsheba
2. Show Boat
3. tie The Great Caruso and An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron
4. A Streetcar named Desire
5. Born Yesterday

Academy Awards

• Best Picture: An American in Paris – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Best Actor: Humphrey Bogart – The African Queen
• Best Actress: Vivien Leigh – A Streetcar Named Desire

Other movies released

• The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn
• Calamity Jane
• Flying Leathernecks starring John Wayne
• The Thing From Another World
• No Highway
• Alice in Wonderland
• On the Riviera with Danny Kaye
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• When Worlds Collide
• Bedtime for Bonzo
• Miss Julie
• Strangers on a Train, Alfred Hitchcock
• Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa
• Miracle in Milan
• The Lavender Hill Mob
• An American in Paris
• Death of a Salesman
• Gerald McBoing-Boing

Births

• March 14 – Season Hubley, actress
• July 24  – Lynda Carter, actress
• August 6 – Catherine Hicks, US actress

Deaths

• January 11 – Charles W. Goddard, playwright and screenwriter
• March 25 – Oscar Micheaux, pioneer African American filmmaker & author
• April 4 – Al Christie, early Hollywood director/producer
• July 23 – Robert J. Flaherty, pioneer documentary filmmaker
• September 7 – Maria Montez, actress