LOS ANGELES?Kathryn Bigelow, director of the Iraq war drama ?The Hurt Locker,? battled her way into Oscar history books, topping her movie?s Best Picture trophy with her own for directing, to become the first woman ever to earn that distinction.

The nerve-jangling movie about a US Army bomb disposal squad in Baghdad blew away its rivals and dominated the 82nd Academy Awards on Sunday (yesterday in Manila), scooping a total of six Oscars.

?It?s the moment of a lifetime,? said Bigelow, only the fourth woman ever to be nominated for the Best Director award by Academy voters. ?It?s so extraordinary to be in the company of my fellow nominees, such powerful filmmakers.? She was up against James Cameron for ?Avatar,? Quentin Tarantino for ?Inglourious Basterds,? Jason Reitman for ?Up in the Air? and Lee Daniels for ?Precious.?

Bigelow dedicated her victory ?to the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world.?

Her low-budget film had been locked in a duel with ?Avatar,? the $500-million science-fiction epic directed by her ex-husband (they were married from 1989 to 1991). Cameron was seated right behind Bigelow at the ceremony and joined a standing ovation for her, saying, ?Yes, yes? after she won.

?Avatar? is the top-grossing movie of all time with global receipts of $2.5 billion and counting. With just $12.6 million domestically (and $20 million from around the world), ?The Hurt Locker? is reportedly the lowest-grossing film to win Best Picture in this modern era of detailed box-office bookkeeping.

?The Hurt Locker? also won for writer Mark Boal the Oscar for Original Screenplay and claimed honors for Film Editing, Sound Editing and Mixing.

First-time winners

Backstage, Bigelow told reporters that she hoped she was only the first of many women directors to win an Oscar.

As in the Best Director race, first-time winners took all four acting prizes: Sandra Bullock as Best Actress for ?The Blind Side?; Jeff Bridges as Best Actor for ?Crazy Heart?; Mo?Nique as Supporting Actress for ?Precious?; and Austria?s Christoph Waltz as Supporting Actor for ?Inglourious Basterds.?

The Oscar marks a career peak for Bridges, a beloved Hollywood veteran who had been nominated four times in the previous 38 years without winning. In ?Crazy Heart,? Bridges plays an alcoholic country singer trying to clean up his act.

Holding his Oscar aloft, he thanked his late parents, actor Lloyd Bridges and poet Dorothy Bridges: ?Thank you, Mom and Dad, for turning me on to such a groovy profession.? Earlier in the program, he had welled up with tears after a moving tribute from Michelle Pfeiffer.

?Crazy Heart? also won for Original Song with its theme tune, ?The Weary Kind,? by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett.

?America?s Sweetheart?

Her award wraps up a wild year for Bullock, who had box-office smashes with ?The Blind Side? and ?The Proposal,? but also a flop with ?All About Steve,? which had earned her the worst-actress trophy at the annual Razzies, the Oscars parody by Razzies.com, just the night before.

?Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?? Bullock asked the Oscar crowd. But she gushed with praise for her fellow nominees, including Meryl Streep who, she joked, is ?such a good kisser.?

Bullock had never before been nominated. An industry darling, she was once dubbed ?America?s Sweetheart? for the romantic comedies that earned her many fans early in her career. For ?The Blind Side,? however, she took the part of a real-life, strong-willed woman who takes a homeless youth off the street and makes him into a football success.

She held back tears when thanking her own mother, Helga, whom she called ?a trailblazer? and a major influence in her own life. ?For reminding her daughters,? she said, ?that there?s no race, no religion, no class system, no color, nothing, no sexual orientation, that make us better than anyone else.?

Startling turns

The supporting-acting winners capped remarkable years, Mo?Nique startling fans with dramatic depths previously unsuspected in the actress known for lowbrow comedy, and Waltz leaping to fame with his first big Hollywood role.

?I would like to thank the academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics,? said Mo?Nique, who plays the heartless, abusive mother of an illiterate teen in the Harlem drama ?Precious: Based on the Novel ?Push? by Sapphire.?
Mo?Nique added her gratitude to the first black woman to win an Oscar, Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress in 1939 for ?Gone With the Wind.?

She also thanked Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who signed on as executive producers to spread the word on ?Precious? after it premiered at last year?s Sundance Film Festival.

?Precious? also won the adapted-screenplay Oscar for Geoffrey Fletcher, to become the first African-American to claim that honor.

Mo?Nique?s triumph made her only the fifth black actress in history to win an Oscar after Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg, Halle Berry and Jennifer Hudson.

Though a veteran stage and TV actor in Europe, Waltz had been a virtual unknown in Hollywood before Quentin Tarantino cast him as the prattling, ruthless Jew-hunter Hans Landa in his World War II saga.

The actor gave one of the best-ever Oscar acceptance speeches: ?Quentin with his unorthodox methods of navigation, this fearless explorer, took this ship across and brought it in with flying colors, and that?s why I?m here,? Waltz said. ?This is your welcoming embrace, and there?s no way I can ever thank you enough. But I can start right now?thank you.?

But his was the only trophy that Tarantino?s ?Basterds? claimed after being the second-most nominated movie with eight nods.

Biggest in history

Cameron?s phenomenally successful blockbuster?the highest-grossing film in history with more than $2.5 billion in earnings and counting?finished the night with three Oscars, mostly in technical categories?Visual Effects, Cinematography and Art Direction.

?Avatar? and ?Hurt Locker? had nine nominations each.

Producer punished

When Bigelow collected the Best Picture Oscar, she was joined by her fellow ?Hurt Locker? producers Boal and Greg Shapiro. A fourth producer?financier Nicolas Chartier, a key money man behind the film?was barred from attending as punishment for violating awards rules by sending e-mails to Oscar voters, urging them to back ?The Hurt Locker? over ?Avatar.?

Oscar overseers said Chartier still will receive his best-picture Oscar, but at a later time.

Smash hits

The Best Picture category was loaded with smash hits, ?Avatar? at $720 million domestically and climbing, and the animated blockbuster ?Up? and ?The Blind Side? topping $200 million.

?Up,? a family film and one of the best-reviewed movies of 2009, won two Oscars? Best Animated Movie and Best Original Score with its tale of an elderly man who ties balloons to his home and flies off on an adventure with a young boy.

?Never did I dream that making a flip-book out of my third-grade math book would lead to this,? said ?Up? director Pete Docter.

Perfectly scripted

It was a perfectly scripted night. Organizers had promised a fast-paced show with lots of laughs from co-hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. And after an old-style musical number by Neil Patrick Harris with showgirls and men in tuxedos and tails, Baldwin and Martin put on a stand-up routine picking out stars in the audience.

?There?s that damn Helen Mirren,? Martin said.

?No Steve, that?s Dame Helen Mirren,? Baldwin came back.