'Harry Potter' wins 2011 Golden Tomato award

Today, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2 added another accolade to its growing haul. Rotten Tomatoes gave Potter its coveted Golden Tomato Award, which goes to the film that scores the highest critical approval of the year. Potter topped the list with a 96 percent “fresh” rating. Add that to the recent news that the year’s highest-grossing film also made the cut for the Academy’s Visual Effects category short list and it was a pretty good year for Harry and the Hogwarts crew.

When EW spoke with Tomatoes’ editor-in-chief Matt Atchity back in October, he had no doubts Deathly Hallows, which took in $1.3 billion globally. Today, he noted that it was the first of the franchise to win the wide-release prize (several others have won the Golden Tomato for best sci-fi release) But who else made the list?

Brad Pitt’s Moneyball landed in second placed with 95 percent “fresh” reviews, and The Muppets, which also scored 96 percent, but had only 100 reviews to Potter‘s 273. (Click here for the award’s advanced calculus for determining its winners.) Also riding high on the list were, Bridesmaids, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, and Ryan Gosling’s Drive.

The site also awarded a Golden Tomato for movies in limited release, chimp documentary Project Nim took top honors with a 98 percent rating from 124 reviews, followed by A Separation (100 percent positive from 62 critics) and Oscar front-runner The Artist (97 percent from 145 reviews).

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