Winners
Best Picture
1. American Splendor
2. Mystic River
3. Lost in Translation
American Splendor is a 2003 American biographical comedy-drama film about Harvey Pekar, the author of the American Splendor comic book series. The film is also in part an adaptation of the comics, which dramatize Pekar's life. The film was written and directed by documentarians Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini.
Mystic River is a 2003 American mystery crime thriller drama film directed and scored by Clint Eastwood. It stars Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laura Linney. The screenplay, written by Brian Helgeland, was based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. The film was produced by Robert Lorenz, Judie G. Hoyt, and Eastwood. It is the first film on which Eastwood was credited as composer of the score.
Lost in Translation is a 2003 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. It stars Bill Murray as aging actor Bob Harris, who befriends college graduate Charlotte in a Tokyo hotel.
Best Director
1. Clint Eastwood – Mystic River
2. Peter Jackson – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
3. Sofia Coppola – Lost in Translation
Clinton Eastwood Jr. is an American actor, filmmaker, musician, and political figure. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, he rose to international fame with his role as the Man with No Name in Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the 1960s, and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.
Sir Peter Robert Jackson is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–03) and the Hobbit trilogy (2012–14), both of which are adapted from the novels of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien. Other films include the critically lauded drama Heavenly Creatures (1994), the mockumentary film Forgotten Silver (1995), the horror comedy The Frighteners (1996), the epic monster remake film King Kong (2005), the supernatural drama film The Lovely Bones (2009), and the World War I documentary film They Shall Not Grow Old (2018). He produced District 9 (2009), The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011), West of Memphis (2012), and Mortal Engines (2018).
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 epic fantasy adventure film co-produced, co-written, and directed by Peter Jackson based on the second and third volumes of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It is the last instalment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, following The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Two Towers (2002), preceding The Hobbit film trilogy (2012–14).
Best Actor
1. Bill Murray – Lost in Translation
2. Sean Penn – Mystic River
3. Paul Giamatti – American Splendor
William James Murray is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He first gained exposure on Saturday Night Live, a series of performances that earned him his first Emmy Award, and later starred in comedy films—including Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Tootsie (1982), Ghostbusters (1984), Scrooged (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), What About Bob? (1991), and Groundhog Day (1993). He also co-directed Quick Change (1990).
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor and filmmaker. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama Mystic River (2003) and the biopic Milk (2008).
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor, comedian, and producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in Private Parts (1997) as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, which led to him playing more supporting roles such as Sergeant Hill in Saving Private Ryan (1998), Bob Zmuda in Man on the Moon (1999) and John Maxwell in Big Momma's House (2000).
Best Actress
1. Charlize Theron – Monster
2. Hope Davis – American Splendor and The Secret Lives of Dentists
3. Naomi Watts – 21 Grams
Charlize Theron is a South African and American actress and film producer. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the Silver Bear for Best Actress.
Monster is a 2003 biographical crime drama film written and directed by Patty Jenkins. The film is about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a former prostitute who was executed in Florida in 2002 for killing six men in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Wuornos was played by Charlize Theron; her semi-fictionalized lover, Selby Wall, was played by Christina Ricci.
Hope Davis is an American actress. She has starred in films such as About Schmidt (2002) and American Splendor (2003). For her role in the original Broadway production of God of Carnage in 2009, she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. She has also received two Emmy Award nominations, for her 2009 television roles in the series In Treatment and in the film The Special Relationship. In 2016, she appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Captain America: Civil War as Tony Stark's mother Maria Stark.
Best Supporting Actor
1. Peter Sarsgaard – Shattered Glass
2. Tim Robbins – Mystic River
3. Alec Baldwin – The Cooler
John Peter Sarsgaard is an American actor. His first feature role was in Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), playing Raoul, the ill-fated son of Athos. Sarsgaard later achieved critical recognition when he was cast in Boys Don't Cry (1999) as John Lotter. He landed his first leading role in the 2001 film The Center of the World. The following year, he played supporting roles in Empire, The Salton Sea, and K-19: The Widowmaker.
Shattered Glass is a 2003 biographical crime drama film written and directed by Billy Ray. The screenplay is based on a September 1998 Vanity Fair article by H. G. Bissinger. In it he chronicled the rapid rise of Stephen Glass's journalistic career at The New Republic during the mid-1990s and his steep fall when his widespread journalistic fraud was exposed.
Timothy Francis Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, and musician. He is well known for his portrayal of Andy Dufresne in the prison drama film The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
Best Supporting Actress
1. Patricia Clarkson – Pieces of April and The Station Agent
2. Maria Bello – The Cooler
3. Shohreh Aghdashloo – House of Sand and Fog
Best Screenplay
1. Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini – American Splendor
2. Brian Helgeland – Mystic River
3. Craig Lucas – The Secret Lives of Dentists
Best Cinematography
1. Russell Boyd – Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
2. Lance Acord – Lost in Translation
3. Harris Savides – Elephant
Best Foreign Language Film
1. The Man Without a Past (Mies vailla menneisyyttä)
2. The Triplets of Belleville (Les triplettes de Belleville)
3. Unknown Pleasures (Rèn xiāo yáo)
Best Non-Fiction Film
1. To Be and to Have (Être et avoir)
2. The Fog of War
3. Spellbound
Film Heritage Awards
- Kino on Video for its excellent DVD collections of F. W. Murnau, Erich von Stroheim, and the American Film Theatre Series
- Milestone Film & Video for its exemplary theatrical and/or DVD presentations of Michael Powell's The Edge of the World , Rupert Julian's The Phantom of the Opera , E. A. Dupont's Piccadilly , André Antoine's La Terre , and Mad Love, the films of Yevgeni Bauer.