2003: Year's Best Movies

A fading movie star falls for a lonely young woman in Tokyo.

The tragic murder of a 19-year-old girl reunites three childhood friends still living in Boston--the victim's gangster father, a detective, and the disturbed man they both suspect of killing her.

A freak accident brings together a critically ill mathematician, a grieving mother, and a born-again ex-con.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town she finds out that their support has a price.

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

A young woman conceals the fact of her terminal cancer to live her life with a passion she never had before.

A young boy accidentally discovers a deep hole in the ground, where another boy is kept prisoner.

An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.

Gandalf and Aragorn lead the World of Men against Sauron's army to draw his gaze from Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom with the One Ring.

Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.

A series of vignettes that all have coffee and cigarettes in common.

A frustrated son tries to determine the fact from fiction in his dying father's life.

The true story of a single teacher's courage to stand up against an untouchable prefect's sadistic disciplinary regime and other abuse in a Catholic Reformatory and Industrial School in 1939 Ireland.

An abandoned wife is evicted from her house and starts a tragic conflict with her house's new owners.

A young American studying in Paris in 1968 strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister. Set against the background of the '68 Paris student riots.

When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.

A teenage boy expelled from school for fighting arrives at a boarding school where the systematic bullying of younger students is encouraged as a means to maintain discipline, and decides to fight back.

After a terrible day, two good friends and housemates find the outside world converted into a featureless and empty white void.

After being kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must track down his captor in five days.

A tale about a strange young man, Bulcsú, the fellow inspectors on his team, all without exception likable characters, a rival ticket inspection team and racing along the tracks - and a tale about love.

After waking from a four-year coma, a former assassin wreaks vengeance on the team of assassins who betrayed her.

Two young couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for urban legends of murder end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic backwater family of serial killers.

Mockumentary captures the reunion of 1960s folk trio the Folksmen as they prepare for a show at The Town Hall to memorialize a recently deceased concert promoter.

In 19th century Japan, Nathan Algren, a US army captain, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques. Captain Algren finds himself trapped in a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

A phobic con artist and his protégé are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the former's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly.