Claim: Tom Felton was in a movie with another actor.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a 2009 British-American fantasy film directed by David Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. . Pictures . It is based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling . The film , which is the sixth instalment in the Harry Potter film series , was written by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman and David Barron . The story follows Harry Potter 's sixth year at Hogwarts as he becomes obsessed with a mysterious textbook , falls in love , and attempts to retrieve a memory that holds the key to Lord Voldemort 's downfall .   The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter , alongside Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry 's best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger . It is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and is followed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1 . Filming began on 24 September 2007 , leading to the film 's worldwide cinematic release on 15 July 2009 , one day short of the fourth anniversary of the corresponding novel 's release . The film was simultaneously released in regular cinemas and IMAX 3D everywhere except North America , where its IMAX release was delayed for two weeks .   Half-Blood Prince opened to positive reviews along with immediate commercial success , breaking the record for the biggest single-day worldwide gross . In five days the film made $ 394 million , breaking the record for highest five-day worldwide gross . With a total gross of $ 934 million , it became the 8th-highest-grossing film of all time and the second-highest-grossing film of 2009 -LRB- behind Avatar -RRB- . It is currently the 39th-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide unadjusted for inflation . It is the fifth-highest-grossing film in the franchise .   The film was nominated at the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and the 63rd British Academy Film Awards for Best Special Visual Effects and Best Production Design . Half-Blood Prince remains one of the most positively reviewed films in the series among film critics ; at the time of its release , it became the third-highest-rated Harry Potter film on review aggregators Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic . Critics praised the film 's `` emotionally satisfying '' story , Yates ' direction , cinematography , performances from Radcliffe , Watson , Grint , Gambon and Broadbent , the visuals , and Nicholas Hooper 's musical score .