As part of our celebration of all things Academy Awards, we’ve collected 44 of your favorite Oscar winners and made them available via C Spire Video On Demand. Over the coming days, we’ll provide a rundown of each and every one of the films we’re featuring this year.
In this post, we take a look at five Oscar winning films from the early 2000’s that broke new ground for some of Hollywood’s most iconic leading ladies including, Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball, Catherine Zeta-Jones in the screen-adaptation of the Broadway hit Chicago, and Hilary Swank’s gritty performance in Million Dollar Baby.
Walk the Line (2005) – $3.99
“Walk the Line” follows the early years in the career of American music legend Johnny Cash. The young Cash sets out on life’s journey battered by his brother’s accidental death and an abusive father, who blames him for the incident. His rise to fame with such hits as “A Boy Named Sue” and “Ring of Fire” is countered by his struggle with amphetamines, barbiturates and alcohol. His instability, both financial and emotional, leads to the failure of his first marriage. The few comforts of his unhappy youth had come from the radio programs of June Carter, the luminous daughter of country music’s first family. When their paths cross, it’s her devotion and support that becomes his salvation.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Leading Actor
Capote (2005) – $3.99
On assignment to write an article for ‘The New Yorker,’ Truman Capote traveled to a small Kansas town, where he began to investigate and report on the gruesome murder of a local family. At first leery of the writer, the townsfolk come to trust Capote and allow him into their lives, giving him his story.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Leading Actor
Million Dollar Baby (2004) – $3.99
Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) is a veteran Los Angeles boxing trainer who keeps almost everyone at arm’s length, except his old friend and associate Eddie “Scrap Iron” Dupris (Morgan Freeman). When Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) arrives in Frankie’s gym seeking his expertise, he is reluctant to train the young woman, a transplant from working-class Missouri. Eventually, he relents, and the two form a close bond that will irrevocably change them both.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Motion Picture of the Year
- Leading Actress
- Supporting Actor
- Directing
Ray (2004) – $3.99
Born in a poor town in Georgia, Ray Charles went blind at the age of seven shortly after witnessing his younger brother’s accidental death. Inspired by a fiercely independent mother who insisted he make his own way in the world, Charles found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered incorporating gospel, country, jazz and orchestral influences into his inimitable style. As he revolutionized the way people appreciated music, he simultaneously fought segregation in the very clubs that launched him and championed artists’ rights within the corporate music business.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Leading Actor
- Sound Mixing
Crash (2004) – $3.99
Writer-director Paul Haggis interweaves several connected stories about race, class, family and gender in Los Angeles in the aftermath of 9/11. Characters include a district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his casually prejudiced wife (Sandra Bullock), dating police detectives Graham (Don Cheadle) and Ria (Jennifer Esposito), a victimized Middle Eastern store owner and a wealthy African-American couple (Terrence Dashon Howard, Thandie Newton) humiliated by a racist traffic cop (Matt Dillon).
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Motion Picture of the Year
- Original Screenplay
- Editing
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) – $3.99
The culmination of nearly 10 years’ work and conclusion to Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy based on the timeless J.R.R. Tolkien classic, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” presents the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil fighting for control of the future of Middle-earth. Hobbits Frodo and Sam reach Mordor in their quest to destroy the `one ring’, while Aragorn leads the forces of good against Sauron’s evil army at the stone city of Minas Tirith.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Motion Picture of the Year
- Director
- Writing
- Editing
- Art Direction – Set Decoration
- Costume Design
- Makeup
- Original Score
- Original Song
- Sound Mixing
- Visual Effects
Mystic River (2003) – $3.99
When the daughter (Emmy Rossum) of ex-con Jimmy Marcus (Sean Penn) is murdered, two of his childhood friends from the neighborhood are involved. Dave (Tim Robbins), a blue-collar worker, was the last person to see her alive, while Sean (Kevin Bacon), a homicide detective, is heading up the case. As Sean proceeds with his investigation, Jimmy conducts one of his own through neighborhood contacts. Eventually, Jimmy suspects Dave is the culprit and considers taking the law into his own hands.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Leading Actor
- Supporting Actor
Chicago (2002) – $3.99
Nightclub sensation Velma (Catherine Zeta-Jones) murders her philandering husband, and Chicago’s slickest lawyer, Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), is set to defend her. But when Roxie (Renée Zellweger) also winds up in prison, Billy takes on her case as well — turning her into a media circus of headlines. Neither woman will be outdone in their fight against each other and the public for fame and celebrity.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Best Picture
- Supporting Actress
- Art Direction
- Costume Design
- Editing
- Sound Mixing
Training Day (2001) – $3.99
Police drama about a veteran officer who escorts a rookie on his first day with the LAPD’s tough inner-city narcotics unit. “Training Day” is a blistering action drama that asks the audience to decide what is necessary, what is heroic and what crosses the line in the harrowing gray zone of fighting urban crime. Does law-abiding law enforcement come at the expense of justice and public safety? If so, do we demand safe streets at any cost?
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Leading Actor
Monster’s Ball (2001) – $3.99
Monster’s Ball is a hard-hitting Southern drama tempered by a story of powerful, life-changing love. It is the story of Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), an embittered prison guard working on Death Row who begins an unlikely, but emotionally charged affair with Leticia (Halle Berry), the wife of a man he has just executed.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Leading Actress
A Beautiful Mind (2001) – $3.99
A human drama inspired by events in the life of John Forbes Nash Jr., and in part based on the biography “A Beautiful Mind” by Sylvia Nasar. From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash Jr. experienced it all. A mathematical genius, he made an astonishing discovery early in his career and stood on the brink of international acclaim. But the handsome and arrogant Nash soon found himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery.
Academy Awards Winner For:
- Motion Picture of the Year
- Supporting Actress
- Director
- Adapted Screenplay
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