Kathryn Bigelow made history on Saturday night when she became the first woman to receive the Director’s Guild of America Award for Oustanding Achievement in Feature Film for her 2009 Iraq War thriller The Hurt Locker.
Bigelow beat off stiff competition in the form of ex-husband James Cameron (Avatar), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) and Lee Daniels (Precious) to bag the award, which typically serves to predict the Best Director winner at the upcoming Academy Awards. Only six DGA winners have not went on to collect the Oscar with the last of these being Rob Marshall (Chicago), who lost out to Roman Polanski (The Pianist) back in 2002.
Also celebrating success is filmmaker Louie Psihoyos who collected the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary Award for The Cove, while you can check out a full list of winners here.
The Academy Award nominations are announced in just two days time on February 2nd. Be sure to check out Trevor Hogg’s in depth profiles on frontrunners James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow and Jason Reitman.
Originally published January 31, 2010. Updated April 10, 2018.
