Oscars: Every Best Picture Winner Ever Ranked From Worst To Best

33. The Hurt Locker (2009)

The Hurt Locker
Summit Entertainment

The epitome of director Kathryn Bigelow's career up to that point, The Hurt Locker made her the first - and currently only - woman to win the Best Director Academy Award, in an Oscar season that all-too-poetically pitted her against her ex-hubby James Cameron and his uber-hit Avatar.

As a super-charged meditation on masculinity and the effects of war, The Hurt Locker is one of the better post-9/11 character-driven war films, aided hugely by Barry Ackroyd's eye-wateringly good lensing and a Jeremy Renner performance that propelled him into the spotlight.

Though the film had a surprisingly short shelf-life with audiences and is barely talked about anymore, it's a classic war movie any way you cut it.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.