Results of the 76th Academy Awards Announced - 2004-03-01

The results of the 76th Academy Awards ceremony held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles were announced. The film 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' won the award for Best Picture of 2003. This film was nominated in eleven categories, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Makeup, Best Original Score, and Best Song, and it won awards in all these categories. Peter Jackson, its director, was also chosen as Best Director. In the history of the Academy Awards, only two films have managed to win all the nominated awards: the old film 'Ben-Hur' and 'Titanic'. The Best Actress award went to Charlize Theron for her role as a serial killer in the film 'Monster'. According to film critics' predictions, in the Best Actor category, despite the close competition between Bill Murray for 'Lost in Translation' and Sean Penn for 'Mystic River', Sean Penn took the award, and upon its announcement by Nicole Kidman, all attendees stood up to honor Mr. Penn and applauded him. In his brief speech, Sean Penn thanked Clint Eastwood and stated that 'there is no such thing as the best in acting'. The Best Supporting Actor award went to Renée Zellweger for her performance in 'Cold Mountain'. In this category, for the first time, Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo was nominated for her role as the wife of an Iranian officer in the film 'House of Sand and Fog'. In recent weeks, Ms. Aghdashloo has won several awards, including the New York Film Critics Award and the Los Angeles Film Critics Award, and the night before the Oscars, she also received the Independent Spirit Award. In the Best Supporting Actor category, Tim Robbins won the Oscar for his role in 'Mystic River', competing against actors such as Alec Baldwin, Benicio del Toro, Djimon Hounsou, and Ken Watanabe. The Best Screenplay award went to Sofia Coppola for 'Lost in Translation', placing her alongside Nicolas Cage as a second-generation Oscar winner from the Coppola family. The film 'Finding Nemo' won in the Animation category, the Canadian film 'Barbarian Invasions' won for Best Foreign Film, the documentary 'Fog of War', and the short film 'Harvey Krumpet' each won top awards. The Academy also acknowledged the efforts of Blake Edwards, the creator of the Pink Panther films, and paid tribute to the late actors Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Elia Kazan, David Hemmings, Charles Bronson, Robert Stack, and Alan Bates who passed away in the past year.