2003
Showing 165 works across all media from 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Eleven nominations and eleven wins, a clean sweep no film has bettered: Jackson closed a decade-long gamble with battles at an unattempted scale and an ending that earns its farewells.
Seven Nation Army
A guitar pitched down to fake a bass, and the seven-note riff every stadium on earth now sings.
Crazy in Love
Rich Harrison looped a Chi-Lites horn fanfare; Jay-Z turned up at three in the morning and improvised his verse.
Toxic
Minogue passed on it; Bloodshy and Avant hung a Bollywood string sample over surf guitar for Spears's only Grammy.
Lost in Translation
Almost nothing happens and it stays with people for years: jet lag, neon, a Tokyo hotel bar, and two people awake at the wrong hours keeping each other company.
Memories of Murder
Bong made a serial killer film in which the police are the problem: it is based on a real case, and rural Korea itself ends up looking like the suspect.
Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
It is really two solo albums in one box, and the two of them barely appear on each other's halves.
In Da Club
Dre's beat was offered to D12 and Rakim before 50 Cent wrote to it and held number one nine weeks.
Finding Nemo
It became the highest grossing animated release to that point and pushed what animation could render: an ocean of light and current, and a frightened father crossing it.
Oldboy
Korean cinema broke through in the West on the strength of this: fifteen years locked in a room without explanation, and a corridor fight staged in one take.
Elephant
Recorded in eight days on equipment made before 1963, with no computers. The bassline everyone knows is a guitar pushed down an octave.
The Black Album
Every track has a different producer, which he did on purpose. He announced his retirement, held a farewell concert, and came back three years later.
Ignition (Remix)
A remix that swallowed its own original: number two in America five weeks, four at Britain's top.
The Way You Move
Eight weeks stuck at number two behind Hey Ya!, then Big Boi's live Atlanta horns finally took the top.
Touching the Void
You will not believe it is true and it is: two climbers in the Andes, one broken leg, and a decision that neither man has ever fully stopped explaining.
Kill Bill
Tarantino built it out of every film he ever loved: kung fu, spaghetti westerns, anime and samurai pictures, and the House of Blue Leaves fight tops all of them.