Winning it is nice, of course — but even just a nomination for the Best Picture Academy Award is perhaps the biggest honor in the film industry. Throughout the nearly one-century history of the award, there have been dozens upon dozens of Best Picture nominee lineups of all varying degrees of quality. Throughout the 2000s in particular (the last decade that had five nods in the category every year before it was expanded to ten in 2010), each of the ten lineups ranged from mediocre to phenomenal.

, which doesn't always go on to win, ,which sometimes wins, somehow. But when these five nominees align and deliver extraordinary and unforgettable cinematic experiences, that's how one knows that was a special year for those who enjoy following awards season. From years that maybe only had one or two outstanding films to ones where each nominee has stood the test of time like fine wine, . Some are outright tragic, while others are fascinating to look a bit more deeply at.

The 81st Academy Awards rewarded the best in cinema of 2008. Infamous for being the year that 's was snubbed for Best Picture (one of the main reasons why the number of Best Picture nominees doubled the next year), it's also the weakest lineup of the 2000s. The year, aside from offering what many still call the greatest comic book movie of all time, had all sorts of other exceptional movies, .

, a rather problematic and not particularly memorable film, won Best Picture that year (along with seven other Oscars). The best of the bunch was arguably 's , a great drama with a very creative premise, but by no means the director's best. is a fine biopic with a fantastic performance; is a splendid historical drama, and divisive though it may be, some think is also decent. The fact that this year's Best Picture winner was a film that almost went straight to DVD doesn't exactly speak highly about the quality of this lineup.

The 79th Academy Awards rewarded the best in cinema of 2006, another year full of fantastic movies that went under Best Picture voters' radar, like and . There's one bright spot, however: the winner of the award that year was 's —the first (and so far only) time that one of the legendary director's films won Best Picture. It was a well-deserved victory, even if many other of the year's best were overlooked.

2006 was a great year for action, dramedy, foreign arthouse, and Hollywood arthouse alike. As for the Best Picture nominee lineup, (those being The Departed and , one of the best movies about mental health), it's nevertheless a pretty decent group of movies. is an okay Japanese WWII film directed by , is a bloated but powerful multi-story drama, and is... a Best Picture nominee. But although these three movies are just okay, their two superior peers more than compensate for their shortcomings.

The 78th Academy Awards rewarded the best movies of 2005. People shouldn't allow themselves to be fooled by that year's Best Picture recipient, , typically ranked at the very bottom of most people's ranking of every Best Picture winner. 2005 was actually , even if not the most exciting of the decade. , , and are but a few of the year's most memorable films, none of which received Best Picture nominations.

The general narrative is that that left the true best motion picture of the year, the gay romantic drama , in the mud. It's a beautiful film, and it has indeed aged far better than any of its four co-nominees. Even still, is a solid biopic of the titular author, with delivering one of the best performances of his career (which won him an Oscar), is a really underrated period drama directed by , and is one of 's best 21st-century works.

The 74th Academy Awards rewarded the best in cinema of 2001. It was the turn of the century, so a lot of weight was lying on filmmakers' and studios' shoulders to prove that they were capable of . As the Best Picture lineup from the 2002 Oscars proves, they were off to a really good start.

While the impactful but melodramatic wasn't exactly a great start to the 21st century's Best Picture selection, it was definitely not the worst one possible. Besides, with nominees as exceptional and timeless as (which, frankly, should have won that year) right there, it's hard to complain about this lineup. The whodunnit and the tragic drama are both fantastic and criminally underrated nowadays, and is the best-crafted example of 's maximalist style.

The 77th Academy Awards rewarded the best in cinema of 2004. Following the historic 76th Awards that saw a particular fantasy epic win a record number of eleven Oscars was always bound to be hard, but 2005 came in clutch. , and while many of its best and most memorable movies (like and ) didn't receive Best Picture nods, the ones that did are fantastic.

The Best Picture winner from that year was the heartbreaking , one of Clint Eastwood's best-ever directing efforts—though some might point to , one of Scorsese's best 21st-century films, as the more deserving winner of the two. While lesser, the other three nominees were still very worthy contenders, though. is a beautiful movie about the man who created ; unsurprisingly landed his first Oscar win for perfectly playing (in a year when he was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for another phenomenal movie, ), and is as hilarious and complex as it is beautifully and deeply human.

The 73rd Academy Awards rewarded the best in film of the year 2000, the cinematically glorious end of the 21st century. A remarkable number of incredible films that are still remembered as some of the best of modern times were released during this year — some nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, most not. But while masterworks like and got less Oscar love than they deserved, .

, one of the most exhilarating historical epics of the last few decades, was the movie that deservingly won Best Picture. As for a runner-up, most people might point to the martial arts extravaganza , one of the best international movies of the past quarter-century. made two phenomenal nominees in and, and though the feel-good romance is easily the weakest link, it's still a pretty sweet movie. While not the ideal condensation of everything that 2000 had to offer in terms of great movies, the 2001 Best Picture lineup is nevertheless an exceptional group of films with two all-timers and another pair of fantastic movies surprisingly made by the same director. Chocolat is there, too.

The 76th Academy Awards rewarded the best in cinema of 2003. Then again, for the vast majority of the competitive categories for narrative feature films, that meant . Not that anyone's complaining since it might just be the best fantasy movie of the 2000s. Nevertheless, its domination at the 76th Oscars may make it easy to forget that there were many other excellent films released in 2003, like , , and .

None of those were nominated for Best Picture, though. However, while sad, that fact is by no means a travesty since . is by far the weakest and least-talked-about of the bunch, but is capable of rendering any viewer an emotional wreck, is a riveting adventure epic, is a romance masterpiece, and — of course — Return of the King is one of those films that only come along once in a lifetime.

The 72nd Academy Awards rewarded the best movies of 1999. For the first Oscar ceremony of the 2000s, . From psychological dramas to fantasy tearjerkers to horror thrillers, it was a pretty solid group of films that one could hardly blame the Academy for considering the best of 1999, even if it meant leaving out films like , , and the late 's life-affirming .

While many would say that has aged like milk left out in the sun for too long, others would still call it a very deserving Best Picture recipient. No matter the case, no one would have complained if any of the other four nominees had won instead. is one of the best horror films of the '90s, is so emotionally hard-hitting that its DVD should have come bundled with tissues, is a great period drama, and the conspiracy thriller deserves to be a topic of conversation much more often nowadays.

The 80th Academy Awards rewarded the best movies of 2007, which some may go so far as to call . This bold statement was proved by movies as outstanding as , , and . But while none of these movies received a Best Picture Oscar nod, 2008's lineup of nominees is one of those rare cases where .

No Country for Old Men is often considered one of the greatest Best Picture recipients of modern times, and for good reason. It truly is a flawless masterpiece and one of the best in its genre—two qualities that also fit There Will Be Blood like a glove. Then, there's Atonement, one of the best romantic dramas of the decade; Juno, a textbook example of a perfectly written comedy movie; and Michael Clayton, a legal thriller that hijacks the audience's full attention and doesn't let go until the credits roll. If Best Picture nominee lineups alone decided the cinematic quality of a year, 2007 would be way up there.

The 75th Academy Awards rewarded the best movies of 2002, another strong contender for the title of best year for cinema of the 2000s. Whether it is or isn't, however, there's one thing that's hard to argue against: its Best Picture nominee lineup is definitely the best of the decade. That's without even getting into the topic of films that weren't nominated but very much deserved to be, like City of God, Catch Me If You Can, Hero, and Adaptation.

The film that won Best Picture that year was Chicago, easily one of the best musical Best Picture winners ever. Some might say that The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, one of the most gloriously fantastic sequels of all time, was more deserving. Others might point to The Pianist, a virtually flawless war film with the capacity to wreck anyone's heart. Even the multi-story drama The Hours and the criminally over-hated Gangs of New York would have been worthy winners of the award. If this tremendous lineup of movies doesn't constitute the best one of the decade, none could.

NEXT:The Worst Best Picture Winner from Each Decade