Remember when Kathryn Bigelow was up against James Cameron in the 2009 Oscars? They were formerly married, so the timing was interesting to say the least. And it came as no surprise that her masterpiece The Hurt Locker beat out Cameron’s Avatar. Bigelow is a force to be reckoned with, and her filmmaking talents were on full display with that one.
Women have deservedly won the Best Director Oscars the past two years, but Bigelow came first. Just the following year, in 2010, she made Time’s 100 list of most influential people. Her directorial debut dates back to 1981 on the film The Loveless starring Willem Dafoe, and her work piled on from there. Her skills only sharpened with age, as her finest works came in recent years.
Bigelow is set to make her return to direction with her newly announced Netflix-exclusive project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bigelow has agreed to helm a feature based on David Koepp’s upcoming novel Aurora. This will be Bigelow’s first project as a director since her last release, Detroit, from 2017. While counting down the days until the release of this Netflix project, we took a closer looks at Bigelow’s finest efforts behind the camera to date.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
5 Near Dark (1987)
F/M Entertainment
One of Bigelow’s earlier works, Near Dark follows a mid-western farm boy who reluctantly becomes a member of the undead when a girl he meets turns out to be part of a band of southern vampires. Part of his initiation includes a bloody assault on a hick bar. This neo-Western horror film stars some of the leads from Bigelow’s ex-husband’s masterpiece, Aliens: Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein. Despite performing poorly at the box office, critics’ reviews were generally positive, and the film has since gained a cult following.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
4 Point Break (1991)
Largo Entertainment
In this iconic, relentlessly quotable 1991 action-thriller, Keanu Reeves plays an FBI agent who goes undercover to catch a band of bank robbers. Determining that the robbers are also surfers based on a hunch from his coworker, Utah learns how to surf and works his way into the surfing community to catch the criminals. The movie also stars the late Patrick Swayze and Gary Busey. Point Break was such a cult hit that it inspired a 2015 remake — but nothing will ever live up to Bigelow’s groundbreaking work in the early ’90s.
3 Detroit (2017)
Annapurna Pictures
The Oscar winning team behind The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty recreate racial persecution with stark composure in a gripping film, simply titled Detroit. The film depicts events at the Algiers Motel during the race riots of July 1967. Detroit brings to light a horrific crime that took place during one of America’s darkest periods. More than 50 years has passed since the riots, but it’s clear these problems continue to persist. “With the events unfolding today, the story needed to see the light of day,” Bigelow told Variety upon the film’s release. “My hope is that a dialogue comes out of this film that can begin to humanize a situation that often feels very abstract.”
2 Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Columbia Pictures
Before her Oscar-winning portrayal of Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain as a CIA intelligence analyst in Zero Dark Thirty was arguably her most important role to date. The film was rightfully nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but it probably came closest to winning Best Actress. Playing a strong-willed and utterly committed FBI agent, Chastain is a vital ingredient of this film about the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden after 9/11.
“What was important to me was that this was a very strong character at the center of this hunt and that the movie doesn’t engage necessarily in gender politics about that character,” Bigelow told Collider regarding Chastain’s role. “She is not defined by a man. She is not defined by a love interest. She is defined by her actions. I think that’s a character that’s very inspiring and is beautifully played by Jessica. It was exciting to me. I will say that I was surprised and excited that it was a woman. I was thrilled that it was a woman and to find out that there were women at the center of this hunt, but there were also a lot of men who worked very, very hard as well. It was a very wonderful screenplay, so I was very happy.”
1 The Hurt Locker (2008)
Voltage Pictures
“War is a drug,” reads The Hurt Locker’s opening titles. This Best Picture Oscar-winning war film follows an Iraq War Explosive Disposal team and the psychological impact of the trauma of war. It’s an extremely important film in the world of cinema in many ways, as Bigelow made history by becoming the first woman to ever win the Best Director Oscar. Avatar may have spawned multiple sequels (yet to be released, mind you), but The Hurt Locker took the top trophies that night back in 2009. After all the countless war films over the years, it might seem impossible for the 21st Century to churn out a unique take on the genre. But Bigelow delivered, as she always does.
