LOS ANGELES — The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow battled her way into Oscar history books on Sunday, topping her movie’s best film honour with her own Academy Award for directing, to become the first wo­man to earn that distinction.

The low-budget film, which has earned $20 million at box offices, picked up six awards in all and beat Avatar, directed by Bigelow’s ex-husband James Cameron. Avatar is the top-grossing movie of all time with $2,5 billion.

In a ceremony that harked back to old Hollywood with glamour, music and comedy, the gritty drama about a squad of bomb-defusing specialists also secured writer Mark Boal the Academy Award for original screenplay and claimed honours for film editing, sound editing and mixing.

“This really is, there’s no other way to describe it, it’s the moment of a lifetime,” said Bigelow, the first female best director in the Academy Awards’ 82-year history, adding that she hopes to be the “first of many” wo­men film makers to win the honour, and that the “female” modifier “would be a moot point” in the future.

Boal highlighted the struggle to make the movie when, only a few years ago in Hollywood, money for such true-life drama was hard to find after audiences turned their backs on war films.

“This has been a dream, beyond a dream,” said Boal, a journalist who was embedded with American troops in Iraq. At best, he added, the film’s makers had hoped “we would find a distributor and someone would like the movie”.

For its part, Avatar walked away with three Oscars, but all in technical categories — visual effects, cinematography and art direction.

Veteran Jeff Bridges claimed best actor for playing a drunken country singer in the drama Crazy Heart. The son of Hollywood star Lloyd Bridges held his trophy high over his head, looking to the heavens and thanking his deceased parents. “Mom and Dad, yeah,” he shouted. “Thank you Mom and Dad for turning me on to such a groovy profession.”

Sandra Bullock was named best actress for The Blind Side in a first for the actress once dubbed “America’s sweetheart” because she won so many early fans in her romantic comedies. For The Blind S ide, however, she took the part of a real-life, strong-willed mother who helps take a homeless youth off the street and turns him into a football success. “Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down?” she joked on the Oscars stage.

Bullock held back tears when thanking her own mother, whom she called “a trailblazer” and major influence in her own life. “To the moms who take care of the babies, no matter where they come from. Those moms never get thanked,” Bullock said.

Family film Up, one of the best-reviewed movies of 2009, won two Oscars, for best animated movie and 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.

Dark drama Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire also earned two Oscars, including best supporting actress for Mo’Nique and, in another piece of Academy Award history, adapted screenplay for writer Geoffrey Fletcher, who became the first African American to claim that honour.

Mo’Nique told reporters backstage that in her hair she wore the same gardenia Hattie McDaniel wore when she won supporting actress in Gone With the Wind — a trailblazing win because it was the first Oscar for an African American. “I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all she had to so that I would not have to,” Mo’Nique said on stage.

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz won best supporting actor for his turn as a menacing Nazi officer in revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds, which follows a band of American Jews killing their enemies behind lines during WW2. But it was the only trophy Quentin Tarantino’s Basterds could claim from eight nods.

Oscar organisers promised a fast-paced show with lots of laughs from co-hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. And after an old-style musical 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.