A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Directed by Ron Howard

Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Christopher Plummer, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Josh Lucas, Anthony Rapp, Jason Gray-Stanford, Judd Hirsch, and Austin Pendleton

A very entertaining story about mental illness that features touching performances from Crowe as John Nash, the brilliant mathematician with paranoid delusions, and Connelly as his nurturing wife. Harris and Bettany are also interesting as the people Nash discovers too late are figments of his imagination. Howard brings his trademark sentimentality to the piece, but here, it works. The story is interesting, if historically innacurate, and this is the kind of movie the Academy eats up. Moulin Rouge! was a particularly interesting musical, but the Oscars would wait a year, with 2002's Chicago, to award a musical with its top prize.

Other nominees: Gosford Park (Robert Altman), In the Bedroom (Todd Field), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson), and Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann)