2000’s Movie
Academy Awards
2000
 Best
Picture- Gladiator
 Best Actor- Russell Crowe in
Gladiator
 Best Actress- Julia Roberts in
Erin Brockovich
 Supporting
Actor- Benicio Del
Toro in Traffic
 Supporting Actress- Marcia Gay
Harden in Pollock
 Best Director- Steven Soderbergh
for Traffic
 Gladiator-
Roman Empire epic
set in 180 A.D.
 Roman general seeking
vengeance for betrayal and his
family’s death
 12 nominations, 5 awards
 This
year also Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
 Biggest earning foreign film of all
time
 Two fellow warriors in feudal China
in pursuit of stolen magical jade
sword and a fugitive
 Traffic-
multi layered story line
depicting America’s losing fight
against the drug trade
 Erin
Brockovich- true story about
the title character- working class
California woman battling
corporate malfeasane at PG & Ecoverup and use of the a
polluting chemical that
contaminated the water supply
 Cast
Away- Tom Hanks
 Sole Fed Express plane survivor,
stranded for four years on a
Pacific Island with a volleyball
named Wilson
 Pollock-
Ed Harris played the
drinking, brawling American
abstract expressionist artistpainter Jackson Pollock
 Chocolat-
about a single mother
who is the mysterious and
beautiful owner of a sinfully rich
chocolate/pastry shop who
charms a small and conservative
French town in the later 1950’s
 The
Contender- about a first
female vice presidential
appointee who comes under
political scrutiny by Republican
congressmen for alleged sexual
misconduct during her college
days
 Almost
Famous- Kate Hudson
plays a free spirited curly haired
“band aid” 70’s rock groupie
Penny Lane for a band named
Stillwater
2001
 Best
Picture- Beautiful Mind
 Best Animated Feature FilmShrek
 Best Actor-Denzel Washington in
Training Day
 Best Actress-
Halle Berry in
Monster’s Ball
 Best Supporting Actor- Jim
Broadbent in Iris
 Supporting Actress- Jennifer
Connelly in A Beautiful Mind
 Best Director- Ron Howard- A
Beautiful Mind
 A Beautiful
Mind- 8 nominations,
4 wins
 Courageous Princeton University
math genius experiencing a
harrowing struggle with mental
illness (schizophrenia)
 The
Lord of the Rings: The
Fellowship of the Ring
 Most nominations (13) this year
 Based on best selling novels of
J.R.R. Tolkien
 Moulin
Rouge- fantasy musical
romance- set in late 19th century
Paris
Park- 1930’s Britain at a
country estate, 23 lead
characters
 Gosford
 In
the Bedroom- family drama
 Training
Day- corrupt 13 year
veteran cop of a narcotics squad
 Black
Hawk Down
 Pearl Harbor
 Amelie
 Monsters, Inc
 I Am
Sam- developmentally
disabled father who works in a
coffee shop and seeks the
custody of his 7 year old
daughter Lucy (Sean Penn and
Dakota Fanning costar)
 Monster’s
Ball- Halle Berry was
African American Leticia
Musgrove- an executed killer’s
grief stricken widow in a town
poisoned with Southern racism
2002 Academy Awards
 Best
Picture- Chicago
 Animated Feature Film- Spirited
Away
 Best Actor- Adrien Brody in The
Pianist
 Best Actress-
Nicole Kidman in
The Hours
 Best Supporting Actor- Chris
Cooper in Adaptation
 Supporting Actress- Catherine
Zeta-Jones
 Best
Director- Roman Polanski
for The Pianist
 Chicago-
sexy musical
extravaganza, based on a 1926
play by Chicago Tribune reporter
Maurine Dallas Watkins told a tale
of mid 1920’s murderous passion
involving two cold blooded, cell
block chorus girls who became
rivals for tabloid celebrity status
and fame
 The
Pianist- story of a gifted
Jewish piano player in Poland
who survives the Holocaust
 The
Hours- AIDS stricken gay
patient and poet
 Road to Perdition- Paul Newman
plays an aging, Depression era
Irish gangster godfather/boss
John Rooney
 Unfaithful-
Diane Lane plays
Richard Gere’s cheating and
anguished suburban housewife
Connie Sumner
 Charlize
Theron- Monster
 Supporting Actor- Tim Robbins in
Mystic River
 Supporting Actress- Renee
Zellweger in Cold Mountain
 Director- Peter Jackson- Lord of
the Rings
 The
Lord of the Rings: The
Return of the King
 First fantasy film to ever win the
top Oscar prize
 Won every award they were
nominated for- 11 wins
2003
 Best
Picture- The Lord of the
Rings, The Return of the King
 Best Animated Feature FilmFinding Nemo
 Best Actor- Sean Penn in Mystic
River
 Mystic
River- tragic, somber murder
mystery thriller
 Clint Eastwood film, Sean Penn, Tim
Robbins
 Penn plays reformed exhoodlum and
working class Boston father who
seeks revenge over his teenage
daughter’s murder
 Pirates
of the Caribbean: The
Curse of the Black Pearl
 Johnny Depp, sly tipsy buccaneer
scoundrel and ship captain Jack
Sparrow
 Monster-
Theron plays
emotionally damaged and
abused real life prostitute turned
serial killer Aileen Wuornos
 Whale
Rider- 13 year old Keisha
Castle Hughes plays Paikea, a
mystical, adventurous, and strong
willed New Zealand pre teen girls
who buck indigenous tribal
tradition and her grandfather to
become leader of her Maori tribe
 Something’s
Gotta Give- Diane
Keaton plays Erica Barry, a
successful Broadway playwright
unexpectedly romanced by two
men (30ish doctor Julian Mercer,
played by Keanu Reeves and
swinging 50’s exec Harry Langer
played by Jack Nicholson
 Cold
Mountain- Zellweger plays
Ruby, a chubby faced, feisty,
tough, and salty Confederate
handywoman farm girl who
befriends neighbor Ada (Nicole
Kidman)
2004
 Best
Picture- Million Dollar Baby
 Animated Feature Film- The
Incredibles
 Best Actor- Jamie Foxx in Ray
 Best Actress- Hilary Swank
 Supporting
Actor- Morgan
Freeman in Million Dollar Baby
 Supporting Actress- Cate
Blanchett in The Aviator
 Director- Clint Eastwood for
Million Dollar Baby
 Million
Dollar Baby- tearjerking
drama about an ex boxer who
reluctantly trains a waitress
(Swank) to become a
professional boxer
 Sideways-
light, ensemble
comedy, quirky romance,
character study about the
adventures of two middle aged
emotionally constricted buddies in
California’s wine country for a
week of wine tasting
 Ray-
Foxx plays legendary blues
singer and pianist Ray Charles
 Set record for being the first black to
debut as a nominee in two
categories in the same year for lead
and supporting (Ray and Collateral)
 Hotel
Rwanda- Don Cheadle
played Paul Rusesabagina, a
heroic Hutu hotel manager who
saves the lives of over 1000 Tutsi
and Hutu Rwandan refugees
from ethnic cleansing/genocide in
1994
 The
Incredibles- crimson suited
family with superheroic powers
 Shark Tale- hip urban underwater
retelling of Jack the Giant Killer
 Shrek 2- sequel to 2001 winner
2005
 Best
Picture- Crash
 Best Animated Feature FilmWallace & Gromit in the Curse of
the Were-Rabbit
 Best Actor- Philip Seymour
Hoffman
 Best Actress-
Reese Witherspoon
in Walk the Line
 Best Supporting Actor- George
Clooney in Syriana
 Best Supporting Actress- Rachel
Weisz in The Constant Gardener
 Crash-
ensemble film about
racism involving whites, blacks,
Latinos, Koreans, and Iranians
that was centered around a killing
in Los Angeles which might have
been racially motivated
 Brokeback
Mountain- melodrama
about two young cowboys who
had an unexpected tryst while
shepherding in 1963, and how it
affected their married lives in the
following three decades
 Capote-
biopic about gay author
Truman Capote’s journalistic
relationship with troubled serial
killer Perry Smith while
researching his 1966 non fiction
book In Cold Blood and how the
situation ruined his mental health,
leading to an early death at the
age of 59
 Good
Night, and Good Luckblack and white biopic about
legendary radio and CBS
television news reporter Edward
R. Murrow, focusing on his
challenging attack in the mid 50;s
on redbaiting Senator Joseph R.
McCarthy and McCarthyism
 Munich-
political thriller/morality
play inspired by real eventsfollowed 1972 massacre of Israeli
athletes at the Olympic Games in
Munich, involving a secret Israeli
squad assigned by prime minister
Golda Meir to kill those who
perpetrated the attack
 Wallace
& Gromit in The Curse of
the Were Rabbit- eccentric
cheese loving inventor Wallace
and his faithful mute dog
assistant Gromit
 claymation
 March
of the Penguins- highest
grossing nature documentary
($77.4 million)
 Mating rituals and breeding
cycles of flightless Emperor
penguins in Antarctica
 Walk
the Line- Joaquin Phoenix
played black clad, troubled
country singer Johnny Cash
 Reese Witherspoon played June
Carter
 North
Country- Charlize Theron
played singer mother miner
Josey Aimes (loosely based on
Lois Jenson) who successfully
sued her mining company for
sexual harassment
 Transamerica-
Desperate
Housewives star Felicity Huffman
 Gender bending role as Bree, a
pre-operative transgendered
woman (or male to female
transsexual) with the given name
of Stanley
 He
discovered she/he had
fathered a surly drug abusing 17
year old gay hustler named Toby