The 9th Critics' Choice Awards were presented on January 10, 2004, honoring the finest achievements of 2003 filmmaking.

Mystic River is a 2003 American neo-noir crime drama film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, and starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laura Linney. The screenplay, written by Brian Helgeland, was based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. It is the first film in which Eastwood was credited as composer of the score.