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2002 Movies

Take a nostalgic look back at the top movies of 2002, celebrating the films, directors and actors that defined the year and left a lasting legacy in the world of entertainment.

2002 Academy Awards

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom
Country: United States of America
Outline: While Frodo and Sam edge closer to Mordor with the help of the shifty Gollum, the divided fellowship makes a stand against Sauron's new ally, Saruman, and his hordes of Isengard.
Minority Report
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow
Country: United States of America
Outline: In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder.
Spider-Man
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe, James Franco
Country: United States of America
Outline: When bitten by a genetically modified spider, a nerdy, shy, and awkward high school student gains spider-like abilities that he eventually must use to fight evil as a superhero after tragedy befalls his family.
A Beautiful Mind
Directed by: Ron Howard
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer
Country: United States of America
Outline: After John Nash, a brilliant but asocial mathematician, accepts secret work in cryptography, his life takes a turn for the nightmarish.
Mulholland Dr.
Directed by: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Jeanne Bates
Country: United States of America
Outline: After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.
The Bourne Identity
Directed by: Doug Liman
Starring: Franka Potente, Matt Damon, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen
Country: United States of America
Outline: A man is picked up by a fishing boat, bullet-riddled and suffering from amnesia, before racing to elude assassins and regain his memory.
Black Hawk Down
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana
Country: United States of America
Outline: 160 elite U.S. soldiers drop into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis.
Bloody Sunday
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Starring: James Nesbitt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nicholas Farrell, Allan Gildea
Country: Ireland
Outline: A dramatization of the Irish civil rights protest march and subsequent massacre by British troops on January 30, 1972.
Equilibrium
Directed by: Kurt Wimmer
Starring: Christian Bale, Sean Bean, Emily Watson, Taye Diggs
Country: United States of America
Outline: In an oppressive future where all forms of feeling are illegal, a man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system and state.
Gangs of New York
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jim Broadbent
Country: United States of America
Outline: In 1863, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points area of New York City seeking revenge against Bill the Butcher, his father's killer.
24 Hour Party People
Directed by: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Steve Coogan, Lennie James, John Thomson, Paul Popplewell
Country: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Outline: In 1976, Tony Wilson sets up Factory Records and brings Manchester's music to the world.
Neko no ongaeshi
Directed by: Hiroyuki Morita
Starring: Chizuru Ikewaki, Yoshihiko Hakamada, Aki Maeda, Takayuki Yamada
Country: Japan
Outline: After helping a cat, a 17-year-old girl finds herself involuntarily engaged to a cat prince in a magical world where her only hope of freedom lies with a dapper cat statuette come to life.
Lantana
Directed by: Ray Lawrence
Starring: Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, Rachael Blake, Kerry Armstrong
Country: Australia
Outline: The relationships of four couples unravel after the discovery of a young woman's body in Lantana bush in suburban Sydney.
Insomnia
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan
Country: United States of America
Outline: Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.
Chicago
Directed by: Rob Marshall
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Taye Diggs
Country: United States of America
Outline: Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.
Phone Booth
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Radha Mitchell
Country: United States of America
Outline: Stuart Shepard finds himself trapped in a phone booth, pinned down by an extortionist's sniper rifle.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Directed by: George Clooney
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, Julia Roberts
Country: United States of America
Outline: An adaptation of the cult memoir of game show impresario Chuck Barris, in which he purports to have been a CIA hitman.
Iris
Directed by: Richard Eyre
Starring: Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, Kate Winslet, Hugh Bonneville
Country: United States of America
Outline: True story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Monster's Ball
Directed by: Marc Forster
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Taylor Simpson, Gabrielle Witcher
Country: United States of America
Outline: After a family tragedy, a racist prison guard reexamines his attitudes while falling in love with the African American wife of the last prisoner he executed.