73rd Academy Awards

The 73rd Academy Awards honored the best films of 2000 and was held on March 25, 2001. It was the last Academy Awards to take place at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. It was hosted by first-time host Steve Martin, who was nominated for an Emmy Award for his presentation.

Notable films included Gladiator, which received 12 nominations and 5 awards, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which received 10 nominations and 4 awards, as well as Traffic & Erin Brockovich, which both had 5 nominations, with Traffic winning 4 of them.

After a three-year streak of high ratings, the annual ceremony received very low ratings for the first time in four years. This is partially due to the popularity of CBS's Survivor which was number one on the Nielsen Weekly Ratings. The awards show dropped to second place for the first time in broadcasting history (42.93 million viewers; with 21.1% of households watching). The second time the ceremony placed below the top happened in 2003 when it was surpassed by American Idol.

Björk arrived in a gown with a fake swan draped across her. It caused an audience reaction that led to several comments by those participating in the Awards Ceremony. She later used that dress on the cover of her 2001 record album Vespertine. Julia Roberts's black and white Valentino dress has been highlighted as one of the greatest Oscar dresses.

This marked the last time until 2010 where the winner of Best Picture also took home Best Actor.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has the record for the most nominations for a foreign language film with 10 nominations and tied with Fanny and Alexander with most wins with 4. Traffic was the first film in 25 years, since Jaws to be nominated for best picture and to take home all of the Oscars it was nominated for except Picture. The next time this would happen would be in 2009 with The Blind Side.