Last night, I worked one of two screenings going on at a theater. Detroit being the screening alongside ours. As their line started trickling in an older gentleman came up to me, pointed at the line that wrapped down the hallway, and said “I saw that movie last week. One of my closest friends lived in Detroit during those riots. I was so happy to see that story told with such respect for its source material and told so very, very well too.”  

This is not the first time I’ve heard a reaction like this to a Kathryn Bigelow movie.  

If you’re unfamiliar with this two-time Academy Award Winning mastermind, I’m more than happy to fill you in. 

Kathryn has directed plenty of movies, but she’s most well-known for two phenomenal war films; Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker. Zero Dark Thirty was nominated for an Academy Award in 2013 for Best Motion Picture of the Year and The Hurt Locker won two Academy Awards in 2010 for Best Achievement in Directing AND Best Motion Picture of the Year. Want to know the coolest part?  

With that win in 2010, she became the first woman in Oscar history to win the Best Director Oscar.  

Yes, you read that correctly, folks. And if you’ve seen either of these movies, you’ll completely understand why.  

Kathryn shows how the female perspective really delivers a different point-of-view, especially in a war story. There’s a focus on raw emotion in the stories she tells, and she makes sure to drive it home with her direction at the helm of it all. The Hurt Locker really shows how some men love war, and the multitudes of emotion that come with that. She delves into what the idea of being a “hero” is like in the 21st century. And with Zero Dark Thirty, she tells an intense and riveting story of the decade long man-hunt for Osama bin Laden. With the help of Jessica Chastain’s Golden-Globe-winning acting throughout this entire movie, it’ll leave you on the edge of your seat begging to see more after that two-and-a-half-hour runtime is through.  

So, before you go out and see Detroit this weekend, give her filmography a little look-see. Then prepare to cry your eyes out at how good they are.  

I leave you with this quote from her: 
“If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't.” –Kathryn Bigelow