The Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow (2009)

This film took off as an independent one and right now is among the favorites for this year's Oscars. It's a war thriller about a bomb squad in Iraq, and the fruit of the work of an embedded journalist in the US Army. The action scenes are realistic in a movie sense. I mean, war is terrible and people die all the same or even easier than in a film, but we want to watch drama, and life (and war) is just plain. Same to be said about the main character drawed as a modern cowboy who lights a cigarette after his wild performance. The general atmosphere is accurate: The tension the soldiers undergo, the lack of communication with iraqi people, the desolate scenery. The title seems to refer to military slang meaning "tough times".