Gaining further recognition (1998–2002)
Next was a role in the Coen brothers' dark comedy The Big Lebowski (1998). The film was not a hit at the time of its release but has since become a cult classic. She played Maude Lebowski, a feminist artist and daughter of the eponymous character who becomes involved with "The Dude" (Jeff Bridges, the film's star). At the end of 1998, Moore had a flop with Gus Van Sant's Psycho, a remake of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name. She portrayed Lila Crane in the film, which received poor reviews and is described by The Guardian as being one of her "pointless" outings. A review in Boxoffice magazine bemoaned that "a group of enormously talented people wasted several months of their lives" working on the film.
After re-uniting with Robert Altman for the dark comedy Cookie's Fortune (1999), Moore starred in An Ideal Husband – Oliver Parker's adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play. Set in London at the end of the nineteenth century, her performance of Mrs. Laura Cheverly earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. She was also nominated in the drama category that year for her work in The End of the Affair (1999). Based on the novel by Graham Greene, Moore played opposite Ralph Fiennes as an adulterous wife in 1940s Britain. Michael Sragow lauded her writing that her performance was "the critical element that makes [the film] necessary viewing." She received her second Academy Award nomination for the role, her first for Best Actress, as well as nominations at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards.
In between the two Golden Globe-nominated performances, Moore was in A Map of the World supporting Sigourney Weaver, as a bereaved mother. Her fifth film of 1999 was the acclaimed drama Magnolia, a "giant mosaic" chronicling the lives of multiple characters over one day in Los Angeles. Paul Thomas Anderson, in his follow-up to Boogie Nights, wrote a role specifically for her. His primary objective was to "see her explode", and he cast her as a morphine-addicted wife. Moore said it was a particularly difficult role and she was rewarded with a SAG nomination. She was named Best Supporting Actress of 1999 by the National Board of Review, in recognition of her three performances in Magnolia, An Ideal Husband, and A Map of the World.
Apart from a cameo in The Ladies Man, a comedy, Moore's other appearance in 2000 was in a short-film adaptation of Samuel Beckett's play Not I. In early 2001, she appeared as FBI agent Clarice Starling in Hannibal, a sequel to the Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs. Jodie Foster had declined to reprise the role, and director Ridley Scott eventually cast Moore over Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Gillian Anderson, and Helen Hunt. The news received considerable attention from the press but Moore said she was not interested in nor capable of upstaging Foster. Although it got mixed reviews, Hannibal earned $58 million in its opening weekend and finished as the tenth-highest-grossing film of the year.
Moore starred in three more 2001 releases: with David Duchovny in the science fiction comedy Evolution, in her husband's dramatic film World Traveler, and with Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, and Cate Blanchett in The Shipping News. All three films were poorly received. The year 2002 marked a high point in Moore's career, as she became the ninth performer to be nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year. She received a Best Actress nomination for the melodrama Far from Heaven, in which she played a 1950s housewife whose world is shaken when her husband reveals he is gay. The role was written specifically for her by Todd Haynes, the first time the pair had worked together since Safe, and Moore described it as "a very, very personal project ... such an incredible honor to do". David Rooney of Variety praised her "beautifully gauged performance" of a desperate woman "buckling under social pressures and putting on a brave face". Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "what Moore does with her role is so beyond the parameters of what we call great acting that it nearly defies categorization". The role won Moore the Best Actress award from 19 different organizations, including the Venice Film Festival and the National Board of Review.
Moore's second Oscar nomination that year came for The Hours, in which she co-starred with Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep. She again played a troubled 1950s housewife, prompting Kenneth Turan to write that she was "essentially reprising her Far from Heaven role". Moore said it was an "unfortunate coincidence" that the similar roles came at the same time, and that the characters had differing personalities. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the performance "wrenching", while Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised a "superbly controlled, humane performance". The Hours was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Moore also received BAFTA and SAG Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress, and was jointly awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actress with Kidman and Streep at the Berlin International Film Festival.
