Year

Country

Home

People

Films

Articles

Store

The History of American Cinema: 2002

7/1 -

David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive is voted the Best Picture of 2001 by the National Society of Film Critics.   Robert Altman’s Gosford Park wins Best Director, Supporting Actress (Helen Mirren) and Screenplay (Julian Fellowes). [ADD]

20/1 -

Gail Dolgin and Vincente Franco's documentary Daughter from Danang and Rebecca Miller's drama Personal Velocity: Three Portraits win the Grand Jury Prizes at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. [ADD]

25/1 -

It is announced in Los Angeles that Robert Redford is to be presented with an Honorary Academy Award at this year's Oscars for being an "inspiration to independent and innovative filmmakers everywhere." [ADD]

30/1 -

Veteran actor Kirk Douglas and his wife Anne donate $2.5 million towards the renovation of the Culver Theater in Culver City, California.   The venue will reopen in 2004 as the Kirk Douglas Theater. [ADD]

Jan -

Singing cowboy Roy Rogers’ gold, silver and ruby-studded saddle and harness fetch $412,000 at an auction in Mesa, Arizona.   His chaps and gauntlets sell for $187,000 and his silver spurs and boot tops $61,000. [ADD]

10/2 -

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sues a company called Pipedream Products for selling Stud of the Year awards, replicas of the Academy’s statuette that possess a penis. [ADD]

22/2 -

The premiere of Joel Zwick’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding takes place in Los Angeles.   Nia Vardalos, who wrote the screenplay, also stars as Toula, a single Greek-American woman in her early thirties whose parents (Lainie Kazan and Michael Constantine want to send her to Greece to find a husband.   John Corbett also stars as her unsuitable choice of future husband. [ADD]

15/3 -

Chris Wedge’s animated feature Ice Age is released by 20th Century-Fox.   The story follows the adventures of four mismatched creatures –  a woolly mammoth (Ray Romano), a sloth (John Leguizamo), a squirrel (Chris Wedge) and a sabre-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) – as they attempt to return a lost baby to its mother. [ADD]

24/3 -

Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind wins the Best Film award at the 74th Annual Academy Awards and also wins Howard the Best Director statuette.   Halle Berry becomes the first African-American to win Best Actress for her role in Monster's Ball.   Shrek wins the first ever Academy Award for Best Feature Animation.  [MORE]

29/3 -

David Fincher's thriller, Panic Room, is released.   Jodie Foster stars as a newly-divorced mum who locks herself in the panic room of her new apartment with her daughter (Kristen Stewart), when three criminals break in. [ADD]

15/4 -

Amelia Bacheler, the actress seen holding a torch as the logo for Columbia Pictures, dies in Santa Monica at the age of 94.   Bacheler was paid $25 for the original shoot in 1936. [ADD]

19/4 -

Actor Robert Blake is arrested and charged with the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in May 2001.   Blake’s bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, is also arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. [ADD]

3/5 -

Spider-Man, Sam Raimi’s film version of the comic book hero is released.   Tobey Maguire stars as high school student Peter Parker, who acquires super powers when he is bitten by a radioactive spider.   Kirsten Dunst is Spidey’s love interest and Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin is his nemesis. [ADD]

6/5 -

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man sets a new record by taking $114.8 million at the box office in its opening weekend.   The film’s $43.6 million takings on the Saturday is also the biggest single-day total ever. [ADD]

8/5 -

The first Tribeca Film Festival, founded by Robert De Niro and business partner Jane Rosenthal, opens in New York with the premiere screening of About a Boy starring Hugh Grant. [ADD]

10/5 -

Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful, in which Richard Gere stars as a husband who suspects his wife (Diane Lane) is having an affair.   Olivier Martinez stars as Lane’s lover, with support from Erik Per Sullivan and Dominic Chianese. [ADD]

16/5 -

The worldwide premiere of George Lucas' Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones takes place in Los Angeles.   Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman star. [ADD]

24/5 -

Insomnia, Christopher Nolan’s version of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same title, is released.   Al Pacino and Hilary Swank star as a couple of cops dispatched to an Alaskan town during the season of the midnight sun to find a killer (Robin Williams). [ADD]

1/6 -

Steven Spielberg receives his bachelor's degree in film and electronic arts on Friday at California State University at Long Beach.   The director dropped out from the college more than 30 years ago. [ADD]

2/6 -

A report from the Center for Entertainment Industry Data and Research reveals that runaway production is continuing to rise.   The amount spent on producing films in Canada has increased by 144% while the amount spent on US production has fallen by 17% from 1998 to 2001. [ADD]

6/6 -

Winona Ryder is ordered to stand trial on charges of shoplifting at the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue.   Saks security staff claim to have witnessed the actress attempting to steal approximately $6,000 in merchandise [ADD]

17/6 -

Steven Spielberg's sci-fi thriller Minority Report premieres in Los Angeles.   Tom Cruise stars as a Pre-Crime law enforcement officer in a near-future in which three psychics called Pre-Cogs are able to foresee crimes.   Cruise’s job is to arrest the perpetrator before the crime is carried out, but one day the Pre-Cogs predict he will be a killer.   Colin Farrell and Max von Sydow also star. [ADD]

12/7 -

Sam Mendes adaptation of Max Allan Collins’ graphic novel The Road to Perdition is released.   Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan, a Depression-era hit man who must go on the run when his son witnesses a gangland execution.   Paul Newman, Tyler Hoechlin, Daniel Craig, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci and Liam Aiken also star. [ADD]

12/7 -

Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 sci-fi thriller Metropolis is re-released in a newly-restored version.  The film, restored in Germany under the supervision of the Murnau Foundation, is released with its original 1927 orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz. [ADD]

17/7 -

20th Century-Fox announce plans to make three Hindi films, making it the first foreign studio to enter into the Indian market.   The first film, Ek Hasina Thi (Once There Was An Attractive Woman), is scheduled to start production in August. [ADD]

2/8 -

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, Signs, is released.   Mel Gibson stars as a reverend farmer who finds a 500-foot crop circle in one of his fields. Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin also star. [ADD]

6/9 -

Robert De Niro and James Franco star as troubled father and son in Michael Caton-Jones's City by the Sea, released today, which is loosely based on "Mark of a Murder,"  a 1997 Esquire article written by the late NYC Cop Land columnist Mike McAlary.   Patti LuPone and Frances McDormand also star. [ADD]

13/9 -

Tim Story's comedy Barbershop is released by MGM.   Ice Cube stars as a barber who sells his shop to a loan shark only to decide he wants it back when he realises it is a focal point for the black community.   Cedric the Entertainer, Sean Patrick Thomas and Troy Garrity also star. [ADD]

1/10 -

Post-9/11 restrictions result in the government refusing a visa to Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, who wants to attend the New York Film Festival.   Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki announces he will boycott the Festival in protest of Kiarostami being denied a visa. [ADD]

4/10 -

Brett Ratner's Red Dragon, the third film in the Hannibal Lecter series (already filmed by Michael Mann as Manhunter in 1986), is released.   Anthony Hopkins reprises his role as Dr. Lecter, while Ralph Fiennes plays fellow serial-killer The Tooth Fairy.   Edward Norton, Emily Watson and Philip Seymour Hoffman also appear. [ADD]

7/10 -

The total box-office take of My Big Fat Greek Wedding reaches $147.7 million making it the highest grossing independent movie ever.   Previous record-holder was The Blair Witch Project (1999) with a total of $140.5 million. [ADD]

11/10 -

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love is released.   Adam Sandler takes on a rare straight role as a man with seven sisters and an anger problem.   Emily Watson stars as his love interest. [ADD]

18/10 -

The Ring, Gore Verbinski's remake of Hideo Nakata's Ringu (1998), is released. Naomi Watts stars as a reporter investigating the story of a cursed videotape that spells death for anyone who watches it.   Martin Henderson and David Dorfman co-star. [ADD]

25/10

Frida, Julie Taymor’s biopic of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, is released.   Salma Hayek plays the bushy-browed artist who wed fellow artist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) and had an affair with Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush).   The film is co-scripted by Hayek's boyfriend, Edward Norton, who appears as Nelson Rockefeller. [ADD]

8/11 -

Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile, starring rap artist Eminem, is released.   Kim Basinger plays the rapper’s mother. [ADD]

8/11 -

Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven is released.   Julianne Moore stars as a 50s housewife in Hartford, Connecticut, who discovers her husband is having a homosexual affair.   Dennis Quaid plays the errant husband.   Dennis Haysbert and Celia Weston also star. [ADD]

27/11 -

Steven Soderbergh's sci-fi opus Solaris is released.   George Clooney stars as a psychologist, sent to a space station to discover why crew members are missing, who discovers his dead wife (Natascha McElhone), alive and well aboard ship.   Jeremy Davies and Viola Davis also star as terrified crew members. [ADD]

4/12 -

The US premiere of Roman Polanski’s The Pianist takes place in Los Angeles.   Based on a true story, the film stars Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, a talented Jewish classical pianist in Poland who attempts to evade the fate of a concentration camp after the Nazis invade.   Maureen Lipman, Frank Finlay, Jessica Kate Meyer, Julia Rayner and Ed Stoppard also star. [ADD]

5/12 -

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second part of Peter Jackson's Tolkien trilogy, is released.   Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd and Andy Serkis all reprise their roles from the first film as Frodo and his band continue their quest to destroy the One Ring. [ADD]

6/12 -

Spike Jonze's Adaptation is released.   Written by Charlie Kaufman, the film elaborately weaves truth with fiction as it follows the screen Kaufman’s attempts to adapt a book called The Orchid Thief for the screen.   Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tilda Swinton, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Cara Seymour and Brian Cox star. [ADD]

9/12 -

Martin Scorsese's period gangster film Gangs of New York is released.   Set in the Five Points district of New York in the mid-19^th Century, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the son of a gang leader (Liam Neeson) murdered by the fearsome Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) who swears revenge for his father’s death.   Cameron Diaz and Jim Broadbent also star. [ADD]

10/12 -

Rob Marshall's Chicago premieres in Los Angeles.   Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere star, with support from John C. Reilly, Christine Baranski, Taye Diggs, Dominic West and Lucy Liu. [ADD]

13/12 -

Alexander Payne's About Schmidt is released by New Line Cinema.   Jack Nicholson stars as Warren Schmidt, a recently retired actuary who takes to the road when his wife of forty-two years dies.   Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney and Kathy Bates also star. [ADD]

15/12 -

Alexander Payne's About Schmidt is named best film of 2002 by the Los Angeles Film Critics. [ADD]

15/12 -

The International Documentary Association name Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine the best documentary of all time.   Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line is voted second, with Moore's first film Roger & Me (1989) is third. [ADD]

25/12 -

Stephen Daldry’s The Hours is released.   The film interweaves three different stories: that of author Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), struggling with suicidal tendencies in 1920s London, and of two women (Julianne Moore in 1950s Los Angeles, and Meryl Streep in modern-day New York) whose lives are affected by Woolf’s novel, Mrs Dalloway.   Ed Harris, Stephen Dillane and Jack Rovello also star. [ADD]

25/12 -

Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, the story of true life con-man Frank Abnagale Jr (Leonardo DiCaprio) who convinced people he was a surgeon and an airline pilot as he leaves a string of bounced cheques behind him.   Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken and Amy Adams also star. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 2002