Kate Winslet grossing US$18 million ($23 million) internationally

Shot prior to the release of Titanic, Hideous Kinky, a low-budget hippie romance, was Winslet's sole film of 1998. Winslet had rejected offers to play the leading roles in Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in favour of the role of a young English mother named Julia who moves with her daughters from London to Morocco hoping to start a new life. The film garnered generally mixed reviews and received only limited distribution, resulting in a worldwide gross of US$5 million ($6.6 million).Despite the success of Titanic, the next film Winslet opted to star in was Holy Smoke! (1999), featuring Harvey Keitel, another low-budget project—much to the chagrin of her agents, who felt "miserable" about her preference of arthouse movies.Feeling pressured, Winslet has said she "never saw Titanic as a springboard for bigger films or bigger pay cheques", knowing that "it could have been that, but would have destroyed [her]." The same year, she voiced Brigid in the computer animated film Faeries.

In 2000, Winslet appeared in the period piece Quills with Geoffrey Rush and Joaquin Phoenix, a film inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade. The actress served as somewhat of a "patron saint" of the film for being the first big name to back it, accepting the role of a chambermaid in the asylum and the courier of The Marquis' manuscripts to the underground publishers. Well-received by critics, the film garnered numerous accolades for Winslet, including nominations for SAG and Satellite Awards.The film was a modest arthouse success, averaging US$27,709 ($35,337) per screen its debut weekend, and eventually grossing US$18 million ($23 million) internationally.

In 2001's Enigma, Winslet played a young woman who finds herself falling for a brilliant young World War II codebreaker, played by Dougray Scott. It was her first war film, and Winslet regarded "making Enigma a brilliant experience" as she was five months pregnant at the time of the shoot, forcing some tricky camera work from the director Michael Apted. Generally well-received, Winslet was awarded a British Independent Film Award for her performance,and A. O. Scott of The New York Times described Winslet as "more crush-worthy than ever." In the same year she appeared in Richard Eyre's critically acclaimed film Iris, portraying novelist Iris Murdoch. Winslet shared her role with Judi Dench, with both actresses portraying Murdoch at different phases of her life. Subsequently, each of them was nominated for an Academy Award the following year, earning Winslet her third nomination. Also in 2001, she voiced the character Belle in the animated motion picture Christmas Carol: The Movie, based on the Charles Dickens classic novel. For the film, Winslet recorded the song "What If", which was released in November 2001 as a single with proceeds donated to two of Winslet's favourite charities, the N.S.P.C.C. and the Sargeant Cancer Foundation for Children. Europe-wide top ten hit, it reached number one in Austria, Belgium and Ireland, number six on the UK Singles Chart, and won the 2002 OGAE Song Contest.

Her next film role was in the 2003 drama The Life of David Gale, in which she played an ambitious journalist who interviews a death-sentenced professor, played by Kevin Spacey, in his final weeks before execution. The film underperformed at international box offices, garnering only half of its US$ 50,000,000 budget, and generating mostly critical reviews,with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it a "silly movie."

Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet