> > My expectation is that, in a few years, the most treasured (or even remembered) movies of 2002 won't have a lot of overlap with what's getting hype right now.
>
> I'm confused what your last sentence means. People will definitely remember and treasure TTT, if nothing else.

Absolutely. There is overlap; I'm just thinking it's a lot less than usual. Of the five Best Picture nominees, The Two Towers is the only one I see people remembering fondly in years to come, just as Star Wars lives on today, 26 years after it was made.

And yes, Adaptation's cult status will endure. But I disagree about Far From Heaven: beautiful it may be, but I don't see it being remembered in general.

Contrast this to, say, 1997. Of Titanic, L.A. Confidential, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, and As Good As It Gets (in roughly descending order of enduring memory), none of them is destined for the kind of obscurity (just or unjust) that The Hours and The Pianist are destined for. When people remember 2002 movies, they'll remember TTT, Minority Report, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Road To Perdition. (Also Harry Potter, Panic Room, The Sum of All Fears, Die Another Day, and Spiderman, but I'm trying to keep this to semi-plausible Oscar candidates.) In 1997, there was more overlap between the Oscar-caliber movies that are remembered and the Oscar-caliber movies that got nominated.

All of the above is debatable, though, I suppose, because it's easy for this sort of blanket survey of things to become victim of selective memory, but I don't think this is too far off.

Now I'm curious to survey over years as well, but I have to get back to work.