How did Chicago get best picture?

1. The musical "comeback" was all the rage at the time. Moulin Rouge opened the door the year before and Chicago capitalised.

2. It made a ton of money. 170 million in the US 15 years ago for a non franchise movie was huge.

3. Throwback to the 20s and older musicals that appealed to the mostly geriatric AMPAS crowd.

4. None of the competition were strong enough. Gangs was considered a disappointment, TTT was filling time until they awarded the third part and The Hours was a downer about lesbians. The Pianist was the only real threat and it peaked way too late. Had the voting gone on a fortnight longer perhaps it could have upset.

5. Weinstein was behind the campaign and noone was better than him at it at the time.

6. It's a very good movie that pretty much everyone including the critics liked.

Not saying it is a bad film just curious how it won over masterpieces like... LOTR

It was pretty good.

Quite easily, I would say

It was a critically acclaimed, popular hit. By Oscar night us was a foregone conclusion.

I wouldn’t have gone with it myself but worse films have won, before and since.

I don’t think any of that year’s contenders were ‘masterpieces’.

Baz Lurhman's head game was unmatched