The 2010 TIME 100

Kathryn Bigelow's career journey has been a stark one. An artist by training, she became a Hollywood darling with the neo-vampiric Near Dark. Her passion for films that challenge conventional sympathies (crooked cops, a heroic Russian submarine commander) led to long spells of being shunned by the studios. But Bigelow, 58, always found her way back. And with The Hurt Locker, her first feature in seven years, she captured the intense, skewered madness of war and the distortion in men's souls. The result was two richly deserved Oscars.

Yet despite enormous accolades, her film is considered a financial failure — like all films about the Iraq war. The question lingers: Why, despite our country's love affair with violence, do Americans refuse to see these realistic films? With The Hurt Locker, Bigelow unflinchingly stuck her finger in the tragic heart of a national wound — our inability to face ourselves.

Stone's new film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, will be released this fall

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