In an annual series, Every Movie Has a Lesson is going to look back twenty years to revisit, relearn, and reexamine a year of cinema history to share favorites, lists, and experiences from the films of that year. When measuring back as far as twenty years or more, I feel like “favorites” that have stood the test of time have aged to become some level of “best.” I feel like a bunch of those populate my reflective look back at the best of 2003.

As with every year, I need to offer a personal level of clarification when I build and justify lists like the one you’re going to read below for 2003. That challenge is that there can often be a distinct difference between a movie that is considered one of the “best,” respected and revered on technical and artistic levels, and something held dear as a personal and subjective “favorite.” I find myself torn between “bests” and “favorites” all the time, every year present or past, when creating any “10 Best” list as a credentialed film critic. Call it an occupational hazard.

NOTE: Poster images from IMP Awards

MY TOP 10 FILMS OF 2003

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

3. Secondhand Lions

4. X2: X-Men United

5. Elf

6. The Last Samurai

7. School of Rock

8. Mystic River

9. The Cooler

10. Old School

THE NEXT TEN BEST

11. Finding Nemo 

12. 28 Days Later

13. Something’s Gotta Give

14. Hulk

15. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days 

16. Big Fish

17. Kill Bill: Volume 1

18. Cold Mountain

19. The Hunted

20. SEABISCUIT

A year ago when I was chronicling my place in the world in 2002, I called myself a mess. By 2003, I found myself in a better place and secure in a teaching job in the south suburbs of Chicago I would have for six more years. I found a great group of teacher friends and movies were a spot to gather from time to time. Overall, though, I can’t say the year was all that great.

For me, it’s the big finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and a massive valley before anything and everything else. As many will tell you, it was the perfect capper to one of the greatest film trilogies of all-time. It deserved every Oscar it won and, quite frankly, every Oscar it didn’t the two years prior. I felt bad then and now that Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World had to share the year with Jackson’s opus. That film deserved better (and a sequel). 

After those two Oscar bait films aside, 2003 had a few excellent exemplars of old Hollywood formula done in a new century that populate my Top 20. You won’t find many superhero sequels better than X2, blueprint rom-coms better than Something’s Gotta Give and How to Love a Guy in 10 Days, college movies better than Old School, white savior historical epic glamor projects better than The Last Samurai, and straight westerns better than Open Range. They may be “typical” movies, but they are typical movies done extraordinarily well within their trappings. Add the wonderful, brawny whimsy of Secondhand Lions to that list of classical-feeling movies done in a new era.

The other big keepers of this year for me are the family films that become instant cornerstones. In a rapid amount of time Elf became a modern Christmas classic that will have more legs than any movie from this year. Right behind it is the Jack Black all-timer School of Rock, a movie eternally dear to my teacher’s heart. It took time, but I came to get over the nails-on-the-chalkboard “whale talk” of Finding Nemo and recognize its brilliance. While it’s not completely a family film, I’m a long-time defender of Ang Lee’s Hulk. I wish more modern superhero films had its challenging intelligence and stylish transitional editing.

It’s probably more telling about me what is NOT in this Top 20. What can I say? I was still years away from being the pedigree-sniffing film critic I have to pretend to be today. Then and still now, I was never a Pirates of the Caribbean guy. I think Love Actually is incredibly overrated and have died many deaths on that hill. Everyone else’s seminal #1 of 2003, Lost in Translation, was exactly that for me. The cult classic The Room is the dogshit that it really is and belongs nowhere on any list. The rest is the rest.

NEXT: Best of the rest of 2003!