Movie · Phase 1

Thor

2011 · 115 min

On the eve of his coronation, Thor's arrogance restarts a war with Jotunheim and gets him stripped of Mjolnir and banished to New Mexico. Powerless, he is run over twice by an astrophysicist's van…

The Infinity SagaDisney+77%Released
Thor (2011) poster — Marvel movie

The story

On the eve of his coronation, Thor's arrogance restarts a war with Jotunheim and gets him stripped of Mjolnir and banished to New Mexico. Powerless, he is run over twice by an astrophysicist's van and spends the film learning humility from a woman who thinks he is a lunatic with excellent shoulders.

The better half of the story is Loki's, who discovers he is an adopted Frost Giant and improvises an entire coup out of that wound. Branagh plays the whole thing as court tragedy: two brothers, one throne, and a father who lied to both of them.

Key facts

Release date
6 May 2011
Status
Released
Phase
Phase 1
Saga
The Infinity Saga
Runtime
115 min
Certificate
PG-13
Director
Kenneth Branagh
Writers
Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Don Payne
Streaming
Disney+
Timeline placement
2011 — days after Iron Man 2's stinger, concurrent with The Incredible Hulk

Cast

ActorRole
Chris HemsworthThor
Tom HiddlestonLoki
Natalie PortmanJane Foster
Anthony HopkinsOdin
Idris ElbaHeimdall
Stellan SkarsgårdErik Selvig

Characters

Easter eggs

  • Jeremy Renner cameos as Clint Barton, perched with a bow on the S.H.I.E.L.D. crater rig — Hawkeye's MCU debut.
  • The Infinity Gauntlet is visible in Odin's Weapons Vault, later retconned by Thor: Ragnarok's Hela as a fake.
  • The post-credits scene reveals the Tesseract in Nick Fury's possession, with Loki's reflection whispering in Selvig's ear.
  • Stan Lee cameos as the pickup driver who tears his truck bed off trying to yank Mjolnir out of the ground.
  • The borrowed clothes Thor wears carry the name tag 'Donald Blake, M.D.' — his original comic secret identity.
  • The Casket of Ancient Winters and the Destroyer armour both sit in the Weapons Vault before the Destroyer is deployed to Earth.
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. designates the crater site with a Project Pegasus reference, the programme that later resurfaces in Captain Marvel.

Trivia

  • Kenneth Branagh was hired specifically to bring a Shakespearean register to the Asgardian family material, and directed the throne-room scenes like Hamlet.
  • Chris Hemsworth's first audition failed; his brother Liam progressed further before Chris was invited back and cast.
  • Tom Hiddleston auditioned for Thor, bulking up for the tests, before Branagh redirected him to Loki.
  • Multiple Mjolnir props were built at different weights, with the heaviest reserved for close-ups so the strain would read.
  • Asgard's architecture was drawn directly from Jack Kirby's 1960s Journey into Mystery panels, and the Bifrost was rationalised on screen as an Einstein-Rosen bridge.
  • Hemsworth put on roughly 20 pounds of muscle and later said he lost most of it again for the reshoot schedule.
  • Idris Elba's casting as Heimdall drew a small organised boycott campaign, which Elba publicly dismissed.

Box office

Budget
$150 million
Worldwide
$449.3 million
Domestic
$181.0 million

Reviews

Critics

77%

A pre-summer surprise, Thor offers up beautifully realised worlds and a strong central performance from Chris Hemsworth.

The MarvelGossips verdict

The Asgard half is a proper Branagh tragedy and the Earth half is a small-town rom-com with a hammer in it, and the seams show badly. What saves it is casting: Hemsworth arrives fully formed, and Hiddleston walks off with the entire Infinity Saga's best villain in one film. The Destroyer fight is where the MCU first learned that a hero losing can be the climax.

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Frequently asked

Is the Infinity Gauntlet in Odin's vault real?
No. Thor: Ragnarok explicitly shows Hela dismissing the vault's gauntlet as a fake while she tours Odin's trophies. Marvel used the retcon to reconcile the cameo with Thanos forging the real gauntlet on Nidavellir.
Who is Donald Blake?
In the comics, Donald Blake is the disabled physician Thor was bound to by Odin as a humility lesson. The MCU reduces him to a joke: the name on the borrowed clothing tag Jane's ex left behind.
Is Hawkeye in Thor?
Yes, briefly. Jeremy Renner appears uncredited as a S.H.I.E.L.D. archer ordered to cover Thor during the crater infiltration, a year before The Avengers.
Why is Loki's skin blue at the end of the vault scene?
Touching the Casket of Ancient Winters reveals his true Frost Giant physiology. Odin took him as an infant from Laufey after the Jotunheim war and used magic to disguise him as Asgardian.