As the 2000s turn into the 2010s, we look back at the biggest films, records, books and TV shows of the decade.

By Mark Savage Entertainment reporter, BBC News

Clockwise from top left: Lord Of The Rings, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Kate Winslet, George Clooney

Take a look at the list of the UK's top 10 grossing films of the 2000s below, and there is a striking theme. All of them are adaptations - of a novel, of a musical or a theme park ride.

The story is the same at the global box office, too, save for one notable exception - animated sequel Shrek 2.

But while Hollywood's reliance on franchise fare is nothing new, these charts also reveal how CGI defined popular cinema in the 2000s.

The Lord Of The Rings populated its battle scenes with digital actors, directed by artificial intelligence. Characters like Sonny in I, Robot were entirely computer generated, while motion capture techniques allowed Brad Pitt to age backwards in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

At times, it seemed that if there wasn't an army of orcs, a jaw-dropping, physically impossible camera swoop, or a bright blue bi-ped with eyes like Bambi, the audience wasn't interested.

But, despite the big studios' reliance on sequels and adaptations, cinemagoers frequently had their heartstrings plucked by smaller, more intimate films.

Little Miss Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire, Bridget Jones's Diary, Once and Juno made millions with their deceptively casual storytelling and home-spun comedy.

Meanwhile, sparked by Michael Moore's incendiary film-making and sustained by the rise of DVD, documentaries flourished in the noughties - from polemicals like Super Size Me and An Inconvenient Truth, to more thoughtful, romantic pieces like Man On Wire.

Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars, including best film and best director

True life stories maintained their stranglehold at the Oscars and the Baftas.

There were prizes for biopics of gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk, musician Ray Charles, torch singer Edith Piaf, environmental activist Erin Brockovich, dictator Idi Amin, journalist Truman Capote and - for Britain's Helen Mirren - The Queen.

But cinema largely failed to tackle current world events, with few dramas succeeding in contextualising or, indeed, railing against the political upheavals of the decade.

Notable exceptions included The Hurt Locker, a brutally realistic action movie following an elite bomb squad around Iraq, and United 93, which reconstructed the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on 11 September, 2001.

Latin America flourished as a centre of cinema, producing gems like Y Tu Mama Tambien, Amores Perros and The Motorcycle Diaries.

The 2000s also saw the Bond franchise reinvigorated, with Daniel Craig as the latest 007

Visionary Mexican director Guillermo del Toro flitted between Mexico and Hollywood, wrestling comic book movies Blade II and Hellboy into robust shape, while receiving plaudits for macabre fairy tales like Pan's Labyrinth, which he directed, and The Orphanage, which he produced.

The heartthrob of the decade was undoubtedly George Clooney, who managed to use his profile to rejuvenate the thought-provoking "talkies" of the 1970s, funding them through glossy, commercial affairs like the Ocean's triology.

Angelina Jolie ended the decade as Hollywood's best-paid actress, earning $27m (£16.7m) from 2008 - 2009, but her output vacillated wildly between award-baiting dramas and throwaway fluff.

At the Oscars, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench each received four nominations during the 2000s - but only Winslet took home the coveted best actress award, for Nazi-era drama The Reader.

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