The best picture of 2002 - as of January 1st 2003.

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2003)

Now I haven't seen all the movies of 2002 yet; I still need to see The Hours, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and all the other smaller films that will be working their way in my direction in the next few weeks. Right now however, Gangs of New York is the film to beat for best picture of the year. Even Peter Jackson's brilliant second chapter in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, couldn't captivate me the same way as Martin Scorsese's newest masterpiece.
The film isn't perfect in parts; the final act seems a little scattered, but the overall film is so grand and mesmorizing, it doesn't matter if the film is slightly flawed. Using hardly any CGI effects, Gangs of New York will probably be the last epic of this scale made the old fashioned way. You can see in every single frame the amount of time that was spent in making this picture. The battle scenes are extrodinary, and all the leads give their best performances to date. Especially Daniel Day-Lewis, who is pretty much guranteed to win the Best Actor Oscar.