THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Based on the novel by Gaston Leroux
Stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Screenplay by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Joel Schumacher
Directed by Joel Schumacher

Gerard Butler
Emmy Rossum
Patrick Wilson
Miranda Richardson
Minnie Driver

Premiere date: December 22, 2004
PG-13 for brief violent images.

Christine Daee is a tortured young star who is haunted by the voice of the phantom, a musician who hides in the shadows to hide a facial disfigurement, yet sings to her obsessively. Dwelling in the dark, damp chambers beneath the Paris opera house, the phantom lords over the cast and management with artistic autocracy - he writes the shows, casts them, and threatens all who disobey his plans with dramatically violent outbursts. But when his young student Christine falls for the rich and dapper Raoul, the phantom descends into madness.

National Board of Review
Best Breakthrough Performance - Emmy Rossum

3 Academy Award Nominations
Best Cinematography
Best Art Direction
Best Original Song - "Learn to Be Lonely"

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR

Based on the novel by John Irving
Written and directed by Tod Williams

Jeff Bridges
Kim Basinger
Jon Foster
Elle Fanning

Premiere date: July 14, 2004
R for strong sexuality and graphic images, and language.

Famous children's books author Ted Cole and his beautiful wife Marion's once-great marriage has been strained by tragedy. The Coles lovingly parent their surviving child, bright 4-year-old Ruth, who takes everything in stride as perhaps only a child can. But Marion's equation of love with loss, coupled with Ted's infidelities, points towards a much-needed change in the relationship. That may come in the form of Eddie O'Hare, the young man Ted hires to work as his summer assistant. Eddie idolizes Ted, but Ted's erratic work habits soon leave Eddie to his own devices. Marion becomes an object of desire for Eddie, rekindling in her some surprising emotions as a mother and as a woman. To Eddie's surprise and delight, his yearning is potently reciprocated. As he becomes passionately entwined with the seemingly fragile yet increasingly bold Marion, Eddie comes to realize that, similarly, Ted's surface fecklessness hides something deeper within. As the summer draws to a close, Marion and Ted must make difficult decisions about the future of their family.

National Board of Review
Special Recognition for Excellence in Filmmaking

THE INCREDIBLES

Written and directed by Brad Bird

Craig T. Nelson
Holly Hunter
Sarah Vowell
Samuel L. Jackson
Jason Lee

Premiere date: November 5, 2004
PG for action violence.

It takes a will of steel to hide your superhero talents from a world that still needs you, yet no longer appreciates what you can do. Battling a bulging belly and boring job, Mr. Incredible longs for the glory days of upholding law and order while his superhuman family tries to fit in and find their place in "normal" life. Relief from quiet suburbia finally comes years later, when the family uncovers a diabolical plan and must bring together their respective strengths to save the day.

National Board of Review
Best Animated Feature

4 Academy Award Nominations, 2 Wins
Best Animated Feature
Best Original Screenplay
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing

PAPER CLIPS

Directed by Elliot Berlin and Joe Fab

Premiere date: September 8, 2004
G

The town of Whitwell is a tiny community of about two thousand people nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. Its citizens are almost exclusively white and Christian. In 1998, the children of Whitwell Middle School took on an inspiring project, launched out of their principal's desire to help her students open their eyes to the diversity of the world beyond their insulated valley. What happened would change the students, their teachers, their families and the entire town forever, and eventually open hearts and minds around the world. Paper Clips tells the moving story of how these students responded to what had been to them a completely unfamiliar chapter in human history - the Holocaust - with a promise to honor every single soul lost in that horrible event by collecting paper clips to represent each individual exterminated by the nazis. Their dedication was absolute. Their plan was simple but profound. The amazing result, which stands permanently in their schoolyard, is an unforgettable lesson of how a committed group of children can change the world, one classroom at a time.

DOWN TO THE BONE

Screenplay by Debra Granik and Richard Lieske
Directed by Debra Granik

Vera Farmiga
Hugh Dillon
Clint Jordan
Caridad De La Luz

Premiere date: January 15, 2004 (Sundance Film Festival)
R for pervasive drug content, language and some sexuality.

Irene is a working-class mother living in upstate New York. She struggles to keep her marriage together and raise two sons while keeping her cocaine addiction a secret. After a series of nearly fatal mishaps, and finally hoping to make a change in her life, she decides to check herself into a rehab center. She knew kicking the habit would be tough, but the experience proves even more difficult than she could have anticipated. There, she meets and falls in love with a fellow reformed addict. When one of them falls into a relapse with the addiction, their commitment to staying clean - and to each other - shatters.

Sundance Film Festival
Dramatic Directing Awards - Debra Granik
Special Jury Prize - Vera Farmiga

KINSEY

Written and directed by Bill Condon

Liam Neeson
Laura Linney
Peter Sarsgaard
Chris O'Donnell

Premiere date: November 12, 2004
R for pervasive sexual content, including some graphic images and descriptions.

Alfred Kinsey was an entomologist who taught at Indiana University and had a keen interest in an area of human behavior that had seen little scholarly research: human sexuality. Kinsey began an exhaustive series of interviews with a wide variety of people from all walks of life in order to find out the truth about sex practices in America. When he published Sexual Behavior and the Human Male in 1948, his findings were wildly controversial, indicating that most men had a wider variety of sexual experiences than most people imagined, including a number of practices commonly thought to be dangerous or perverted (including pre-marital sex, same-sex contacts, and masturbation). An even greater outcry greeted Kinsey's next volume, Sexual Behavior and the Human Female, which contradicted common notions than most women went into marriage sexually inexperienced.

National Board of Review
Best Supporting Actress - Laura Linney
xx
1 Academy Award Nomination
Best Supporting Actress - Laura Linney

FINDING NEVERLAND

Based on the play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan" by Allan Knee
Screenplay by David Magee
Directed by Marc Forster

Johnny Depp
Kate Winslet
Julie Christie
Dustin Hoffman

Premiere date: November 12, 2004
PG for mild thematic elements and brief language.

Successful playwright J.M. Barrie watches his latest play open to a ho-hum reaction among the polite society of England. A literary genius of his times but bored by the same old themes, Barrie is clearly in need of some serious inspiration. Unexpectedly, he finds it one day when he encounters the Llewelyn Davies family: four fatherless boys and their beautiful, recently widowed mother. Despite the disapproval of the boys' steely grandmother and the resentment of his own wife, Barrie befriends the family, engaging the boys in tricks, disguises, games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings, cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways. He transforms hillsides into galleon ships, sticks into mighty swords, kites into enchanted fairies and the Llewelyn Davies boys into "The Lost Boys of Neverland." From the sheer thrills and adventures of childhood will come Barrie's most daring and renowned masterwork, "Peter Pan." At first, his theatrical company is skeptical. While his loyal producer worries he'll lose his shirt on this children's fantasy, Barrie begins rehearsals only to shock his actors with such unprecedented requests as asking them to fly across the stage, talk to fairies made out of light and don dog and crocodile costumes. Then, just as Barrie is ready to introduce the world to "Peter Pan," a tragic twist of fate will make the writer and those he loves most understand just what it means to really believe.

National Board of Review
Best Film
Outstanding Film Music Composition
xx
7 Academy Award Nominations, 1 Win
Best Picture
Best Actor - Johnny Depp
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Film Editing
Best Art Direction
Best Costume Design
Best Original Score

RAY

Screenplay by James L. White
Directed by Taylor Hackford

Jamie Foxx
Kerry Washington
Regina King
Clifton Powell

Premiere date: October 19, 2004
PG-13 for depiction of drug addiction, sexuality and some thematic elements.

Born in a poor town in Georgia, Ray Charles went blind at the age of seven shortly after witnessing his younger brother's accidental death. Inspired by a fiercely independent mother who insisted he make his own way in the world, Charles found his calling and his gift behind a piano. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered incorporating gospel, country, jazz and orchestral influences into his inimitable style. As he revolutionized the way people appreciated music, he simultaneously fought segregation in the very clubs that launched him and championed artists' rights within the corporate music business.

National Board of Review
Best Actor - Jamie Foxx
xx
6 Academy Award Nominations, 2 Wins
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor - Jamie Foxx
Best Film Editing
Best Costume Design
Best Sound Mixing

SOMERSAULT

Written and directed by Cate Shortland

Abbie Cornish
Sam Worthington
Lynette Curran
Erik Thomason

Premiere date: May 17, 2004 (Cannes Film Festival)
NR

After trying to seduce her mother's live-in boyfriend, guilt-ridden teen Heidi runs away from home and heads for a small ski resort, where her sexual awakening and amorphous yearning for love collide. Rudderless and broke, Heidi exchanges her sexual favors for a place to sleep till she lands a job. But just as she starts to settle in, her irresponsible behavior jeopardizes her fragile equilibrium.

BORN INTO BROTHELS

Directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman

Premiere date: January 17, 2004 (Sundance Film Festival)
R for some sequences of strong language.

A tribute to the resiliency of childhoos and the restorative power of art, Born Into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York based photographer, gives each of these youngsters a camera and teaches them how to take pictures, simultaneously causing them to look at their world with new eyes. Together with Ross Kauffman, Briski captures the magical way in which beauty can be found in the most unlikely of places and how a bright and promising future becomes a possibility for children who previously had no future at all.

Sundance Film Festival
Audience Award - Documentary
Grand Jury Prize Nominee

National Board of Review
Best Documentary

1 Academy Award Nomination, 1 Win
Best Documentary Feature

MY SUMMER OF LOVE

Based on the novel by Helen Cross
Screenplay by Pawel Pawlikowski and Michael Wynne
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Natalie Press
Emily Blunt
Paddy Considine

Premiere date: August 24, 2004 (Edinburgh Film Festival)
R for sexuality, language and some drug use.

Kindred spirits from different worlds become entagled together one volatile summer in this passionate, psychological thriller. Local girl Mona is naive, reckless and filled with yearning for something more in life. Tamsin is spoiled and bored and trying to escape the confines of her prep-school existence when she draws Mona into her fantasy world. But what started as a magical friendship soon becomes laced with deception and danger.

Edinburgh Film Festival
Best New British Feature

DEAD MAN'S SHOES

Screenplay by Shane Meadows, Paddy Considine and Paul Fraser
Directed by Shane Meadows

Paddy Considine
Toby Kebbell
Gary Stretch

Premiere date: August 20, 2004 (Edinburgh Film Festival)
R

Richard comes home to the rural region where he grew up after seven years in the army bent on revenge against the local gang of dealers and thugs that brutalized his mentally disabled brother, Anthony. Richard's one-man guerilla campaign terrorizes the bullies, who begin to turn on one another as he efficiently eliminates them one by one.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Screenplay by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
Directed by Edgar Wright

Simon Pegg
Nick Frost
Kate Ashfield

Premiere date: April 9, 2004
R for zombie violence/gore and language.

There comes a day in every man's life when he has to get off the couch...and kill some zombies. When flesh-eating zombies are on the hunt for a bite to eat, it's up to slacker Shaun and his best pal to save their friends and family from becoming the next entree. Masters of horror and film critics alike are hailing Shaun of the Dead as the funniest and scariest film of the year. It's a screamingly hilarious zomedy that will have you dying of laughter.

SIDEWAYS

Based on the novel by Rex Pickett
Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor
Directed by Alexander Payne

Paul Giamatti
Thomas Haden Church
Virginia Madsen
Sandra Oh

Premiere date: September 13, 2004 (Toronto Film Festival)
R for language, some strong sexual content and nudity.

A wine tasting road trip to salute Jack’s final days as a bachelor careens woefully sideways as he and Miles hit the gas en route to mid-life crises. The comically mismatched pair, who share little more than their history and a heady blend of failed potential and fading youth, soon find themselves drowning in wine and women. Emerging from a haze of pinot noir, wistful yearnings and trepidation about the future, the two inevitably collide with reality.

National Board of Review
Best Supporting Actor - Thomas Haden Church
Best Adapted Screenplay

5 Academy Award Nominations, 1 Win
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Supprting Actor - Thomas Haden Church
Best Supprting Actress - Virginia Madsen
Best Adapted Screenplay

KILL BILL: VOLUME 2

Based on the character of "The Bride" by Q & U

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

Uma Thurman

David Carradine

Michael Madsen

Daryl Hannah

Gordon Liu

Michael Parks

Premiere date: April 16, 2004

R for violence, language and brief drug use.

Having already crossed two names from her Death List, The Bride is back with a vengeance and taking aim at Budd and Elle Driver, the only survivors from the squad of assassins who betrayed her four years earlier. It's all leading up to the ultimate confrontation with Bill, The Bride's former master and the man who ordered her execution!

VERA DRAKE

Written and directed by Mike Leigh

Imelda Staunton

Premiere date: September 6, 2004 (Venice Film Festival)
R for depiction of strong thematic material.

Vera Drake is the beloved wife of Stan and the mother of Sid and Ethel. Vera spends her days cleaning houses for money and looking in on elderly and sick neighbors out of the kindness of her heart. She even attempts to be a matchmaker for her daughter, inviting a lonely neighbor, Reg, to see if he might be a perfect match for the introverted Ethel. But Vera performs another duty that her family doesn't know about, one that is deeply frowned upon by society. When tragedy befalls a young client of Vera's, the truth comes out, forcing her family to see their mother in an entirely different light.

Venice Film Festival
Golden Lion
Best Actress - Imelda Staunton

3 Academy Award Nominations
Best Director
Best Actress - Imelda Staunton
Best Original Screenplay

BEING JULIA

Based on the novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
Directed by Istvan Szabo

Annette Bening
Jeremy Irons
Shaun Evans

Premiere date: October 15, 2004
R for some sexuality.

Julia Lambert is a true diva: beautiful, talented, wealthy and famous. She has it all - including a devoted husband who has masterminded her brilliant career - but after years of shining in the spotlight she begins to suffer from a severe case of boredom and longs for something new and exciting to put the twinkle back in her eye. Julia finds exactly what she's looking for in a handsome young American fan, but it isn't long before the novelty fling adds more sparks than she was hoping for. Fortunately for her, this surprise twist in the plot will thrust her back into the greatest role of her life - being Julia.

National Board of Review
Best Actress - Annette Bening

1 Academy Award Nomination
Best Actress - Annette Bening

MILLION DOLLAR BABY

Based on short stories by F.X. Toole
Screenplay by Paul Haggis
Directed by Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood
Hilary Swank
Morgan Freeman

Premiere date: December 15, 2004
PG-13 for violence, some disturbing images, thematic material and language.

Frankie Dunn has trained and managed some incredible fighters during a lifetime spent in the ring. The most important lesson he teaches his boxers is the one that rules his life: above all, always protect yourself. In the wake of a painful estrangement from his daughter, Frankie has been unwilling to let himself get close to anyone for a very long time. His only friend is Scrap, an ex-boxer who looks after Frankie's gym and knows that beneath his gruff exterior is a man who has attended Mass almost every day for the past 23 years, seeking the forgiveness that somehow continues to elude him.

Then Maggie Fitzgerald walks into his gym.

In turns exasperating and inspiring each other, Frankie and Maggie come to discover that they share a common spirit that transcends the pain and loss of their pasts, and find in each other a sense of family they lost long ago. What they don't know is that soon they will both face a battle that's going to demand more heart and courage than any they've ever known.

National Board of Review
Special Achievement Award - Clint Eastwood
xxx
7 Academy Award Nominations, 4 Wins
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor - Clint Eastwood
Best Actress - Hilary Swank
Best Supporting Actor - Morgan Freeman
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Film Editing

MARIA FULL OF GRACE

Written and directed by Joshua Marston

Catalina Sandino Moreno
Yenny Paola Vega
Guilied Lopez
Johanna Andrea Mora

Premiere date: January 18, 2004 (Sundance Film Festival)
R for drug content and language.

Maria Full of Grace tells the story of one young woman’s journey from a small Colombian town to the streets of New York. A bright, spirited 17-year old, Maria Alvarez lives with three generations of her family in a cramped house in rural Colombia and works stripping thorns from flowers in a rose plantation. The offer of a lucrative job involving travel – in fact, becoming a drug “mule” – changes the course of her life. Far from the uneventful trip she is promised, Maria is transported into the risky and ruthless world of international drug trafficking. Her mission becomes one of determination and survival and she finally emerges with the grace that will carry her forward into a new life.

Sundance Film Festival
Audience Award
Grand Jury Prize Nominee
xxx
1 Academy Award Nomination
Best Actress - Catalina Sandino Moreno

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, and Pierre Bismuth
Directed by Michel Gondry

Jim Carrey
Kate Winslet
Kirsten Dunst
Mark Ruffalo
Elijah Wood
Tom Wilkinson

Premiere date: March 19, 2004
R for language, some drug and sexual content.

Joel is stunned to discover that his girlfriend Clementine has had her memories of their tumultuous relationship erased from her mind. Out of desperation, he contacts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, to have Clementine removed from his own memory. But as Joel's memories progressively disappear, he begins to rediscover his love for Clementine. From deep within the recesses of his brain, Joel attempts to escape the procedure. As Dr. Mierzwiak and his crew chase him through the maze of his memories, it's clear that Joel just can't get Clementine out of his head.

National Board of Review
Best Original Screenplay
Special Recognition for Excellence in Filmmaking
xxx
2 Academy Award Nominations, 1 Win
Best Actress - Kate Winslet
Best Original Screenplay