2000's Academy Awards Winners Trivia Quiz

Answer: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Set in China in the times of the Qing Dynasty, the film follows a series of conflicts that arise after the sword of a veteran warrior, who wants to retire from martial arts, gets stolen.

The movie was a massive success, breaking a few records at the time. With the dialogue entirely in Chinese, it was the first non-English spoken film to gross over $100 million in the United States (it earned $128 millions), as well as becoming the highest-grossing foreign-language film produced overseas in American history.

Answer: No Man's Land

The movie is set in the Bosnian War, and follows the story of two opposing soldiers caught between their lines. Initially aiming to kill each other, they eventually come to terms about the absurdity of the conflict and reflect on the need for peace and understanding.

It was the film debut for the writer and director Danis Tanovic. Aside from the Academy Award, it also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002.

Answer: Nowhere in Africa

The movie is based on a book of the same name by Stefanie Zweig. It centers on the life of a German Jewish family that, escaping the war and the Nazi persecution, relocate in Kenya. It also won in five categories of the 2001 German Film Awards.

Answer: The Barbarian Invasions

Directed by Denys Arcand, this movie was the first from Canada to win the award. It's a sex comedy-drama, a sequel to Arcand's previous production "The Decline of The American Empire" from 1986. It won many other accolades, including Best Screenplay and Best Actress at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, and it's considered historically significant in Canada due to its success.

Answer: The Sea Inside

Directed by Alejandro Amenabar, "The Sea Inside" (an almost literal translation of the Spanish title "Mar Adentro") narrates the story of Ramon Sampedro, who had suffered an accident that left him quadriplegic, and his almost 30 year battle for the right to end his life with assisted suicide.

Answer: Zulu

"Tsotsi",which can be translated as "thug", was the first movie from South Africa to win the Academy Award, and also the first movie from Africa made in a local language to do so (prior to this, the only other African winners were "Z" (1969) from Algeria, and "Black and White in Color" (1976) from Ivory Coast, both spoken primarily in French).

The movie follows the story of a young street-gang leader, whose life takes a turn after he discovers a baby during one of his hits.

Answer: The Lives of Others

Set in the mid '80s East Germany, "The Lives of Others" deals with the monitoring and surveillance of local people, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the directorial debut of Florian Henckel von Donnesrmarck. The film was critically acclaimed worldwide, and set a record at the Deutscher Filmpreis awards by scoring 11 nominations (of which it won seven).

Answer: The Counterfeiters

The real Operation Bernhard, which was dramatized in the movie, sought to lead the United Kingdom into financial difficulties by flooding their economy with forged banknotes. The movie was based on the memoir by Adolf Burger, a Slovak Jew who survived the Holocaust, who forged baptismal certificates in order to save people from deportation and was later imprisoned and forced to take part on Operation Bernhard.

The movie was acclaimed and picked by several publications as one of the top ten movies of 2008 (although the movie was released a year earlier). It was the first Foreign Movie Award for Austria, which was to be followed a few years later by "Amour" in 2012.

Answer: Departures

Japan's prejudices against people dealing with death are so strong that the distributors were initially reluctant to release the movie. However, after being premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival, it won the grand prize, and so it was finally released domestically and internationally.

It was the first Japanese movie to win the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film since the creation of that category in 1957. It is to note that, prior to that year, three Japanese films won an honorary Academy Award: "Rashomon" in 1952, "Gate of Hell" in 1955, and "Samurai: Legend of Musashi" in 1956.

Answer: The Secret In Their Eyes

Set during the last few years before the beginning of the so called "Dirty War", the plot follows a crime investigation in the mid '70s. It was the second award for an Argentinian film after "The Official Story" (1985), making it the first South American country to win two of such awards.

As a side note, this was the first edition since 1988 in which there were no submissions from 'new' countries (as in, there were no countries that made their first submission on that year).