The Hurt Locker swept six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, becoming the lowest-grossing film ever to win Best Picture at the time.
At the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony on March 7, 2010, Kathryn Bigelow's war drama The Hurt Locker won a total of six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
The sweep was remarkable given the film's modest budget of approximately $15 million and limited theatrical run prior to the ceremony, making it—at the time—the lowest-grossing film ever to win the Best Picture Oscar. Critics praised the film's visceral, documentary-style depiction of the psychological toll of the Iraq War on American soldiers, particularly bomb disposal technicians operating under constant threat.
The night was also notable for the media narrative pitting Bigelow's intimate war drama against ex-husband James Cameron's science-fiction blockbuster Avatar, which had become the highest-grossing film of all time. The Hurt Locker's victory over such a commercial juggernaut was seen as a triumph of critical and artistic merit over box-office spectacle.
This sweep further reinforced Bigelow's position as a formidable directorial talent, validating her decades-long career in genre filmmaking and paving the way for greater industry recognition of women directing large-scale, tension-driven narratives previously considered the province of male directors.