7. Chicago - 2002
Oh boy, I had a lot of problems with the Academy during this particular ceremony. I always felt the sheer scope and ambition of Gangs Of New York was enough to win Scorsese his first directing Oscar but it instead went to Polanski for The Pianist. That one was tough though, The Pianist was a very, VERY good movie. The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, looking back, was arguably the best film of Peter Jackson's triumphant trilogy and that was also left by the wayside. So, to recap, Roman Polanski's harrowing Holocaust era tale, The Pianist, is a no. Martin Scorsese's wildly ambitious immigration opus, Gangs Of New York, is a no. Peter Jackson's beautifully moving, heroic, The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, is also a no. The Academy instead saw fit to honor Rob Marshall's entertaining, albeit silly, musical, Chicago. It could've been worse. They could've honored Stephen Daldry's morose, (overwrought? melodramatic? seriously, pick your own adjective) The Hours.