There was never much doubt that the third episode of Peter Jackson’s monumental filming of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy would win 2003’s Best Picture Oscar.   The only real suspense was in guessing what the other nominees would be.

Three of the major precursors, the New York Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the organization behind the Golden Globes) offered no help as they all awarded The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with their Best Picture prizes.  New York did offer some indication of other possibilities with their Best Director award which went to Sophia Coppola for Lost in Translation.

The National Board of Review came up with another alternative with their choice of Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River as Best Picture.  Their choice of Ed Zwick as Best Director for the indifferently received The Last Samurai seemed like one of their less intuitive picks.

The Los Angeles Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics gave hope to the independent hit, American Splendor, which they both named as the year’s Best Picture. However, tThe L.A. group echoed their New York counterparts in naming Peter Jackson as the year’s Best Director for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as did the HFPA despite having given their Golden Globe for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy to Lost in Translation.  The National Society of Film Critics was the only major precursor to choose Clint Eastwood as Best Director for Mystic River.

The Directors Guild nominated Jackson, Coppola and Eastwood along with Peter Weir for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and Gary Ross for Seabiscuit.  Would these be the directors of the five films nominated for the year’s Best Picture Oscar?  Indeed they would be!

As often happens, however, Oscar’s Best Director lineup differed from that of the DGA and, obviously, as well as from its own Best Picture lineup.  City of God’s Fernando Mierelles was nominated instead of Seabiscuit’s Gary Ross.

What then, would the other five nominees have been had Oscar gone to a ten picture slate this year?

The critically acclaimed and rewarded American Splendor received only one Oscar nomination (for its screenplay) but had enough supporters to have made it that rare two nominations candidate.  City of God fared better with Oscar voters, having won four nominations, making it that rare foreign language film that coulda, woulda, shoulda made it.

Jim Sheridan’s In America, which was nominated for three Oscars, would likely have been a nominee as well.

That leaves two slots open for Cold Mountain, which was nominated for seven Oscars and won one and The Last Samurai, which was nominated for four but won none.

Other films of note that may have narrowly missed the ten picture cut-off include 21 Grams; Big Fish and The Station Agent.