---
title: "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1"
year: 2011
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1"
fi1m_id: "the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1"
imdb_id: "tt1324999"
tmdb_id: 50619
wikidata_id: "Q60506"
fi1m_score: 47
critics_score: 41
critics_reviews: 21
published: "2026-10-05T12:05:35.199581+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-05T12:05:35.620119+00:00"
region: "BG"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)

Directed by Bill Condon · 1h 57m · BG C · Adventure, Fantasy, Romance

## Identity

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1
- **IMDb ID:** tt1324999
- **TMDB ID:** 50619
- **Wikidata ID:** Q60506
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324999/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/50619, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60506

**Fi1m score: 47** · Critics 41 from 21 reviews

*In a sentence:* Two hours of beautiful people fretting over a baby while the wolves hold a telepathic committee meeting

> Bill Condon stages the wedding with real care and then finds a body-horror film inside a teen romance, which the 12A certificate will not let him make. Fans will get what they came for; everyone else gets a long honeymoon and some talking wolves.

## Synopsis

Forks, Washington. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) marries Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) in the garden of the Cullen house, her father Charlie (Billy Burke) walking her down an aisle hung with white blossom. Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) arrives uninvited at the reception and loses his temper when he learns she means to stay human for the honeymoon. Bella wants Edward to turn her into a vampire; Edward wants her to have a human life first, and the couple fly to an island the Cullens own off the Brazilian coast to begin it. Within a fortnight she is pregnant with something that should not be possible, and they return to Forks, where Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli) and Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed) disagree about what to do, and the wolf pack starts to take an interest.

## Review

Melissa Rosenberg’s screenplay takes the first half of Stephenie Meyer’s final novel and makes 117 minutes of it, and what those minutes contain is a wedding, a honeymoon and a pregnancy. That is the whole of the plot. Bill Condon, whose earlier films include [*Gods and Monsters*](https://film.one/film/gods-and-monsters) (1998) and [*Dreamgirls*](https://film.one/film/dreamgirls) (2006), is not an obvious hire for a franchise about chaste vampires, and the interesting thing about this one is that you can see him looking for the film he would rather be making. He finds it about an hour in, and the certificate will not let him have it.

The wedding is the best stretch, and most critics have said so, so we are not alone. Richard Sherman dresses the Cullens’ garden in white blossom and hanging moss, Guillermo Navarro lights it as a late afternoon going gold, and Michael Wilkinson’s dress for Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is cut plain enough to be believed. Carter Burwell’s piano does the work the dialogue cannot. Billy Burke, as her father Charlie, gets the one scene of ordinary feeling in the picture, a man straightening his tie and trying not to look at his daughter, and Anna Kendrick’s Jessica gives a toast at the reception that is the only joke anyone was allowed to write down.

Then the honeymoon, on an island the Cullens own off the Brazilian coast, and the film’s first problem. Three films have been building towards Bella and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) going to bed, and when it comes Condon cuts to a broken headboard and a room full of feathers and leaves the rest to the audience. It is a tasteful choice and a timid one, and the games of chess that follow are not an acceptable substitute. Virginia Katz cuts these scenes at the pace of a wedding video. The couple are beautiful and the sea is blue and we were restless by the second morning.

Then Bella is pregnant, and the film becomes something else. The thing growing in her is breaking her from the inside, and Condon shoots it as horror: Navarro drains the colour from the Cullen house until it is all grey wood and wet windows, and the make-up hollows Stewart’s face and thins her arms until she looks like a patient in a hospice. We were horrified, more than we expected a 12A to manage, and the reason is Stewart. She stops doing the lip-biting that has been her whole method across three films and simply lies there, grey and stubborn, and lets us look. It is the best acting in the series and it is nearly wasted, because the film keeps cutting away from her to the wolves.

The wolves. Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) spends the film torn between his pack and the Cullens, and the film cannot stage this without a scene in which a dozen computer-generated animals growl at one another in a forest while the actors’ voices boom over the top as thoughts. It is the worst scene in the film and one of the worst in the series: the animals have no weight, their eyes are wrong, and the lines are written in capital letters. Lautner, who is fine as a man standing in the rain, is given nothing to play as a man and less as a dog. Peter Facinelli’s Carlisle and Nikki Reed’s Rosalie get an argument about the baby that is the one piece of adult drama in the second half, and it is over in two minutes. Michael Sheen is sixth in the cast list and in the film for about as long as it takes to read it.

Rosenberg’s script is the most grown-up of the four, about a marriage, a body and a choice nobody around Bella wants her to make, and the franchise will not let it finish the thought. Splitting the novel in two gives us two hours in which one thing happens, and the last shot is the moment a different film would have started.

If you have seen the first three, you will see this one and nothing we say will change that; you will get a wedding worth the ticket and a second half braver than you were told. If you have not, there is no way in. The film assumes you know everyone and never introduces anyone.

*Fi1m score 47, published 5 October 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics are unimpressed, and the lean is heavily negative: fifteen of the twenty-one reviews are unfavourable. Where praise lands, it lands on the wedding, which several reviewers single out as the one sequence that is elegant and properly staged, and on Bill Condon, credited by a few with giving the material a graver, creepier mood than the earlier instalments. Kristen Stewart’s work through Bella’s pregnancy is also picked out more than once as the best performance in the film.

The complaints cluster around pace and the digital wolves. Slow is the recurring word, along with bloated, funereal and slog. The CGI wolves are called distracting and uncanny, the pregnancy plot grotesque, and a handful of reviews say the film barely stands up on its own. The dissent is small but clear: The New Yorker calls it the best Twilight film so far, and HeyUGuys finds it a satisfying, more mature entry for fans. The AV Club is warm on similar terms.

## Straight answers

**Is The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 worth watching?**

*The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1* is worth watching only if you have seen the first three films, and we scored it 47. The wedding is staged with real care and Kristen Stewart's pregnancy scenes are the best acting in the series, but the honeymoon drags and the talking wolves are dreadful. Newcomers will find no way in.

**How long is The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, and what is it rated?**

*The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1* runs 1h 57m and is rated C by the BG in Bulgaria. It is an adventure and fantasy film.

**Where can I watch The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 in Bulgaria?**

*The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1* is streaming on HBO Max in Bulgaria. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, and is it suitable for children?**

*The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1* is a 12A, and its second half is more frightening than that certificate usually allows. Bella's pregnancy is shot as horror, with make-up that hollows her face until she looks like a hospice patient, and we were horrified. The sex is cut to a broken headboard and feathers; younger children may still find the wasting unsettling.

**How does The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 compare to Rosemary's Baby?**

*The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1* reaches for the same idea as [*Rosemary's Baby*](https://film.one/film/rosemarys-baby), a pregnancy that is quietly destroying the woman carrying it, and Polanski's film does it properly. The earlier picture is the better one by some distance, frightening without wolves or a franchise to serve. Twilight fans should see this one; anyone else should see Rosemary.

**Is The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 based on a true story or a book?**

*The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1* is based on the first half of Stephenie Meyer's final Twilight novel, not on a true story. Melissa Rosenberg's script stretches a wedding, a honeymoon and a pregnancy across 117 minutes, so one thing happens. Knowing the books is almost required, since the film never introduces anyone.

**What should I watch after The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1?**

After *The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1*, try [*Rosemary's Baby*](https://film.one/film/rosemarys-baby) (1968, Fi1m 92): The pregnancy-as-horror idea this film reaches for, done properly and without wolves. Then [*Let the Right One In*](https://film.one/film/let-the-right-one-in) (2008, Fi1m 88): A teenage vampire romance from Sweden that is quiet, cold and unafraid of blood; and [*Only Lovers Left Alive*](https://film.one/film/only-lovers-left-alive) (2013, Fi1m 81): Jarmusch’s centuries-old couple mooch around Detroit and Tangier; the marriage, not the fangs, is the point.

### Reviews we read (21)

- **The New Yorker** (75/100, inferred): The critic calls it the best Twilight film so far, praising its languorous, romantic mood and increasingly disturbing turn toward horror. Bill Condon’s grave direction is singled out for making the supernatural drama more effective. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawnpart-1-2)
- **The AV Club**, Alison Willmore (B-): Willmore calls the film an engaging, wildly over-the-top spectacle, especially for existing fans. She praises its warm human moments but criticizes the pregnancy storyline as grotesque and unconvincing. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-1798170539)
- **Screen Daily**, Brent Simon (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a review, but its verdict is hidden behind a paywall. The accessible text does not reveal what the critic singled out for praise or complaint. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1/5034574.article)
- **The New York Times** (64/100, inferred): The URL identifies this as a New York Times review of the 2011 film. The page content was inaccessible, so the critic’s verdict and specific praise or criticism cannot be determined. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/movies/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-i-review.html)
- **Time Out**, Anna Smith (3/5): The review gives the film a three-out-of-five rating. The available page text does not reveal what the critic praises or criticizes. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-one-1)
- **Total Film**, Emma Dibdin (2/5): The critic finds the film grim, incoherent and joyless, and says it leaves a bad taste as a love story. She praises the wedding festivities as surprisingly good fun but singles out the dull werewolf scenes as the film’s worst. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-review/)
- **IndieWire**, Jeff Otto (D): The critic calls it the weakest entry in the franchise and says it barely works as a standalone movie. He particularly faults the wooden performances and the poor-looking wolf effects. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/culture/review-lackluster-twilight-breaking-dawn-part-1-is-barely-12-a-movie-115110/)
- **Variety**, Justin Chang (35/100, inferred): Chang finds the film disappointing overall, faulting its lack of darkness and dramatic tension despite its promising premise. He praises the wedding and honeymoon romance, especially the emotional payoff of Bella and Edward’s relationship. [Read](https://variety.com/2011/film/reviews/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-1117946558/)
- **Empire**, Helen O'Hara (30/100, inferred): O'Hara finds the film starts strongly but becomes overwrought and often ludicrous. She singles out the pregnancy storyline and weak effects as major problems, while noting the acting is better than before. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-review/)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (30/100, inferred): Bradshaw finds the film’s romantic melodrama tiresome and the franchise seemingly endless. He singles out the repetitive wolves-versus-vampires conflict and Jacob’s loyalty dilemma as especially wearisome. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/15/twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-review)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Betsy Sharkey (25/100, inferred): Sharkey finds the film lifeless and disappointing, calling it broken compared with the earlier entries. She praises the wedding sequence as elegant and superbly executed, but faults the script for failing to explore the story’s dramatic potential. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-nov-18-la-et-twilight-breaking-dawn-20111118-story.html)
- **Slant Magazine**, R. Kurt Osenlund (1/4): Osenlund condemns the film as a joyless, inept installment that fails to make its supposedly momentous events compelling. He especially criticizes Kristen Stewart’s performance, saying her limited mannerisms undermine Bella’s character. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1/)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (25/100, inferred): McCarthy judges the film a bloated, slow, and disappointing first half of the finale. He particularly criticizes the honeymoon scenes for withholding the emotional payoff the series had been building toward. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-2-260687/)
- **Evening Standard**, The Standard (10/100, inferred): The critic dismisses the film as a mortifying bore and a poor continuation of the series. They particularly fault its funereal pacing and the leads’ unconvincing performances. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-review-7427666.html)
- **HeyUGuys**, Laura Hills (4/5): Hills finds the film a satisfying, more mature installment that should please Twilight fans despite some cringe-worthy moments and questionable CGI. She particularly praises Kristen Stewart’s performance during Bella’s pregnancy. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-review/)
- **Den of Geek**, Catherine Howard (2/5): Howard finds the film a monotonous slog, with only occasional enjoyable moments for casual viewers. She singles out the uncanny-looking CGI wolves as a major distraction. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/twilight-breaking-dawn-part-1-review/)
- **Paste**, Jonathan W. Hickman (3.0): Hickman calls the film bad and boring, with little lasting impression for viewers outside the franchise’s devoted fanbase. He singles out Kristen Stewart’s portrayal of Bella’s physical and emotional deterioration as the strongest performance, though the surrounding melodrama fails to convince. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1)
- **The Wrap**, Alonso Duralde (35/100, inferred): The critic finds the film’s material ludicrous and its performances blank, though Condon makes it stylish and creepy. The wedding sequence and Navarro’s lush cinematography stand out as effective craft. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/more-pouting-more-snarling-breaking-dawn-part-1-32864/)
- **NME**, Owen Nicholls (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film mostly dull, though its bizarre climax makes for an unexpectedly entertaining experience. They single out the drawn-out wedding buildup as deathly boring before the shocking childbirth sequence. [Read](https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-one-film-review-760532)
- **Digital Spy**, Simon Reynolds (20/100, inferred): Reynolds finds the film sluggish and unsatisfying, with its dramatic build-ups repeatedly falling flat. He criticizes the awkward shifts between romance and body horror, which prevent the story from becoming a coherent whole. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a351464/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1-review/)
- **The Playlist** (20/100, inferred): The headline indicates a strongly negative verdict. It singles out the film as feeling barely like a complete movie. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-lackluster-twilight-breaking-dawn-part-1-is-barely-12-a-movie-20111117/)

## Details

- **Director:** Bill Condon
- **Director:** Bill Condon
- **Screenplay:** Melissa Rosenberg
- **Novel:** Stephenie Meyer
- **Cinematography:** Guillermo Navarro
- **Editor:** Virginia Katz
- **Music:** Carter Burwell
- **Production design:** Richard Sherman
- **Costume design:** Michael Wilkinson
- **Producer:** Stephenie Meyer, Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt
- **Cast:** Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan; Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen; Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black; Billy Burke as Charlie Swan; Peter Facinelli as Dr. Carlisle Cullen; Michael Sheen as Aro; Elizabeth Reaser as Esme Cullen; Kellan Lutz as Emmett Cullen
- **Runtime:** 1h 57m
- **Certificate (BG):** C
- **Release (Bulgaria):** 18 November 2011
- **Genres:** Adventure, Fantasy, Romance
- **Budget:** $110 million
- **Box office:** $712 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQNLfo-SOR4

## Where to watch in Bulgaria

- HBO Max: streaming

*Checked 2026-10-05.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IN, IS, IT, JP, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Rosemary's Baby* (1968), Fi1m 92: The pregnancy-as-horror idea this film reaches for, done properly and without wolves. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/rosemarys-baby.md)
- *Let the Right One In* (2008), Fi1m 88: A teenage vampire romance from Sweden that is quiet, cold and unafraid of blood. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/let-the-right-one-in.md)
- *Thirst* (2009): Park Chan-wook’s vampire love story, where desire actually costs the people who feel it.
- *Byzantium* (2012): Neil Jordan’s mother-and-daughter vampires in an English seaside town; small, sad and well made.
- *Only Lovers Left Alive* (2013), Fi1m 81: Jarmusch’s centuries-old couple mooch around Detroit and Tangier; the marriage, not the fangs, is the point. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/only-lovers-left-alive.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-1