The Directors: Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thiry

 


Throughout 2025 I'm turning my focus to Directors. They help craft the vision on screen that makes a movie work. This year I'm looking at five favorite films from 18 directors I admire and 10 films directed by different women that I have enjoyed. Join me Fridays and Saturdays throughout 2025 as we take this journey.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle, Kyle Chandler, and Mark Strong
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
About: I begin with the first of my 10 female directors, Bigelow. Some have gravitated toward The Hurt Locker as her best film. For me, it's Zero Dark Thirty. I think this is a fascinating film that is very well put together. I think it might be her most ambitious film, too. Chastain is great here in a story that's both important but also doesn't pull any punches when it asks us to think about our methods, our results, and who we want to be. Some have called it pro torture, but I think it more sought to depict what we did and how we got to our end result, asking the audience to decide if the ends justify the means. Even more than a decade later, we should still wrestle with that question.

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