There was something for everyone in 2001.

There was Baz Luhrmann’s anachronistic musical, Moulin Rouge! as well as  Peter Jackson’s first installment of the J.R.R.  Tolkian Lord of the Rings trilogy; Steven Spielberg’s version of the science fiction film Stanley Kubrick left behind, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and Ridley Scott’s look at modern warfare, Black Hawk Down.

Then there were David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, his most enigmatic puzzle since Twin Peaks more than a decade earlier; Robert Altman’s fascinating 1930s murder mystery, Gosford Park; Christopher Nolan’s reverse order mystery, Memento and Ron Howard’s controversial mix of schizophrenia and academia, A Beautiful Mind.

Domestic issues were represented by such films as Todd Field’s In the Bedroom; Marc Foster’s Monster’s Ball; Michael Cuesta’s L.I.E. and Richard Eyre’s Iris.

The Coen Brothers had The Man Who Wasn’t There; Wes Anderson had The Royal Tenenbaums and Terry Zwigoff had Ghost World.

All these and more had passionate supporters, but which would emerge as the year’s top ten?

A Beautiful Mind; Gosford Park; In the Bedroom; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Moulin Rouge! Were the lucky five to secure Best Picture nominations from the Academy.

Moulin Rouge! got there via National Board of Review and Golden Globe – Musical or Comedy wins and A Beautiful Mind via Broadcast Critics and Golden Globe – Drama wins.  In the Bedroom got there via its L.A. Film Critics Award and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring via its American Film Institute citation as the year’s best film.  Gosford Park, which was a runner-up to many of those awards was the recipient of the Best Director award from the New York Film Critics; the National Society of Film Critics and the Globes.

Moulin Rouge!’s Luhrmann and In the Bedroom’s Todd Field were odd men out among Oscar’s Best Director nominees.  Black Hawk Down’s Scott and Mulholland Drive’s Lynch took their slots.

Mulholland Drive which had won both the New York Film Critics and National Society of Film Critics awards for Best Picture as well as a slew of awards from other organizations was shockingly nominated for only one Oscar but was certainly liked well enough to have been nominated as one of the ten had Oscar doubled its lists of contenders that year.

Black Hawk Down which was nominated for four Oscars and won two would also have been on the list.  The other three?  A.I.: Artificial Intelligence only received two nominations, but like Mulholland Drive was liked well enough to have nabbed a slot as well.  It’s anyone’s guess but mine would be The Man Who Wasn’t There and The Royal Tenenbaums.

In the end, A Beautiful Mind and its director, former child actor Ron Howard, emerged triumphant.