First reviews in for Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's Osama Bin Laden Movie

The actor Fares Fares on the set of 'Zero Dark Thirty'. Director Kathryn Bigelow's access has proved controversial (AP/PA)

Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director when she won for The Hurt Locker in 2010. Her next film though, looks set to grab even more headlines.

Zero Dark Thirty, a procedural about the hunt for and killing of Osama Bin Laden is already controversial, after the Obama administration was accused of giving sensitive information to the film crew. However, following the first press screenings in New York and Los Angeles, the work is very good. We're talking Oscars-good.

Particular praise has been heaped on star Jessica Chastain, who plays a CIA operative obsessed with tracking down Osama. "[Chastain] is essentially asked here to carry a movie for the first time, and she rises to the occasion," wrote Scott Feinberg for The Hollywood Reporter. Time Magazine's Richard Corliss said it blew Ben Affleck's similarly-themed Argo "out the water".