2002 Movie Musical, Starring Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Has an 87% Rotten Tomatoes Score and Won Best Picture

More than two decades after Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones brought murder, celebrity and “All That Jazz” to the screen, their acclaimed movie musical remains a critical favorite.

The film is Chicago, director Rob Marshall’s 2002 adaptation of the Broadway musical.

It currently holds an 87% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, where reviewers continue to praise Zellweger and Zeta-Jones as Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, two accused murderers competing for fame in Jazz Age Chicago.

After shooting her lover, aspiring performer Roxie hires slick attorney Billy Flynn, played by Richard Gere, and watches her criminal case become a media sensation. Zeta-Jones’ Velma quickly realizes that Roxie isn’t merely a rival inside the Cook County Jail — she is stealing her spotlight.

Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly round out the star-studded cast as Matron “Mama” Morton and Roxie’s neglected husband, Amos.

The film received 13 Academy Award nominations and won six. In addition to Best Picture, it took home Oscars for costume design, film editing, art direction, sound and Zeta-Jones’ supporting performance, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Zellweger was nominated for Best Actress, while Latifah and Reilly also received acting nominations.

One of the film’s most enduring sequences began with the sounds of a frightened woman’s first night in jail.

“What is she hearing?” Marshall recalled asking while creating the “Cell Block Tango,” according to Entertainment Weekly.

The dripping faucets, guards’ footsteps and fingernails striking jail bars became the rhythm beneath the number. Red scarves represented the victims’ blood, while the only woman protesting her innocence danced with a white one.

Marshall also revealed that the performers danced on towering platforms without harnesses or wires.

“That would never happen now,” he said.

The risks produced one of the movie’s defining scenes, and helped Chicago become the first musical in more than three decades to win Best Picture.