Picture gallery: Best film nominees

The five Academy Award nominees for best picture are Traffic, Gladiator, Erin Brockovich, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Chocolat.

Traffic, with Catherine Zeta Jones, is hailed as Hollywood's best attempt at tackling the battle against the drugs trade

A different sort of battle features in Gladiator, where slaves are pitched against each other in mortal combat

Gladiator star, Russell Crowe, has said he wants audiences to identify with his character, the enslaved General Maximus

Erin Brockovich was hailed as a true-to-life portrayal of a working class legal crusader

Good collides with evil in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the guise of Chow Yun-Fat and Zhang Ziya

The Mandarin-speaking martial arts epic is director Ang Lee's first Chinese-language film for six years.

Chocolat star and Oscar nominee Juliette Binoche says it was a role she was 'destined to play'