The Hurt Locker Wins Big

The Hurt Locker, a little-seen war film with massive backing from the critics, pushed past Avatar & other crowd-pleasers to win the best picture Oscar at a Sunday night ceremony here, while its director, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first woman to win the directing award.

A night of firsts: Film on Iraq war grabs four awards. Kathryn Bigelow makes history becoming the first woman to win best director; best actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress go to first-timers

“There’s no other way to report it, it’s the moment of a lifetime,” said Bigelow in accepting her award. It was presented by Barbra Streisand, who announced it with the words, “Well, the time has come.”

Avatar & The Hurt Locker had come in to the night as favourites, but the smaller film took the prize from the bigger in the finish.

Mark Boal, a producer of The Hurt Locker, said of his modest expectations when the movie was shot back in 2007, “Hopefully, they would find a distributor & someone might even like the movie.”