Director Kathryn Bigelow accepts Best Director award for "The Hurt Locker" onstage during the 82nd Annual Academy Awards held at Kodak Theatre on March 7, 2010 in Hollywood, California.[CFP]

Gallery: Red carpt; The Oscar Night

Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War thriller "The Hurt Locker" won the Oscar for best picture on Sunday.

With awards in five other categories, "The Hurt Locker," a dramatic portrayal of an elite bomb disposal unit in Iraq, became the biggest winner at the 82nd Academy Awards in Hollywood.

The film's director, Kathryn Bigelow, won the award for best director. She is the first woman to win the prize.

The film also won the awards for best original screenplay for Mark Boal; best film editing for Bob Murawski and Chris Innis, best sound editing for Paul N.J. Ottosson and best sound mixing for Ottosson and Ray Beckett.

"This really is -- there's no other way to describe it. It's the moment of a lifetime," Bigelow said.

Along with "Avatar," "The Hurt Locker" had a leading nine nominations heading into the ceremony.

The World War II yarn "Inglorious Basterds" had eight nominations, while the gritty teen drama "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" and the high-flying recessionary romance "Up in the Air" each had six.

Actor Jeff Bridges accepts Best Actor award for "Crazy Heart" onstage during the 82nd Annual Academy Awards held at Kodak Theatre on March 7, 2010 in Hollywood, California. [CFP]

Other films up for best picture were "The Blind Side," "District 9," "An Education," "A Serious Man" and "Up."

While "Avatar" has been dominant at the box office, "The Hurt Locker" has been an awards-season favorite, earning the top prize from the Producers Guild of America (PGA) and a best director award for Bigelow. Both the PGA and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) awards have traditionally been precursors to Oscar glory.

"Avatar" won a total of three awards: the award for visual effects, shared by Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones; the award for cinematography taken by Mauro Fiore, and the award for art direction which went to the team.

Accepting the award for best original screenplay for "The Hurt Locker," Boal said: "I was a reporter back from Iraq with the idea for a story about these men on the front lines of an unpopular war."

"I thought it might make a movie. The result wildly exceeded my expectations. And that is thanks to so many people. ... Most of all to one extraordinary individual and visionary filmmaker, Kathryn Bigelow. This belongs to you."

"I would also like to thank and dedicate this to the troops" -- the 115,000 who are still in Iraq, the troops in Afghanistan and the more than 30,000 wounded and 4,000 who have not made it home, Boal said.

Also at Sunday's ceremony, Jeff Bridges won the Oscar for best actor for his role as aging, hard-drinking country singer Bad Blake in "Crazy Heart," while Sandra Bullock took home the award for best actress for her role as a strong-willed Southern housewife who mentors a young black football player in "The Blind Side."

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz and standup comedian-turned-dramatic actress Mo'Nique continued their winning ways by claiming the Oscars for their respective supporting roles in "Inglorious Basterds" and "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."

The Argentinian film "The Secret in their Eyes" won the Oscar Award for best foreign-language film.