2000’s MovieAcademy Awards

2000

Best Picture- GladiatorBest Actor- Russell Crowe in

GladiatorBest 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 & E- coverup and use of the a polluting chemical that contaminated the water supply

Cast Away- Tom HanksSole 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 artist-painter 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 MindBest Animated Feature Film-

ShrekBest 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 yearBased on best selling novels of

J.R.R. Tolkien

Moulin Rouge- fantasy musical romance- set in late 19th century Paris

Gosford Park- 1930’s Britain at a country estate, 23 lead characters

In the Bedroom- family drama

Training Day- corrupt 13 year veteran cop of a narcotics squad

Black Hawk DownPearl HarborAmelie 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- ChicagoAnimated Feature Film- Spirited

AwayBest 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- MonsterSupporting Actor- Tim Robbins in

Mystic RiverSupporting Actress- Renee

Zellweger in Cold MountainDirector- 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 Film- Finding 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 BabyAnimated Feature Film- The

IncrediblesBest Actor- Jamie Foxx in RayBest 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- CrashBest Animated Feature Film-

Wallace & 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 Luck- black 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 events- followed 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