In 2009, he wrote and produced The Hurt Locker, for which he won both the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2012 he wrote and produced Zero Dark Thirty, teaming again with director Kathryn Bigelow, about the tracking and killing of Osama bin Laden. The film earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay. The pair collaborated a third time for 2017's Detroit.
Boal has won two Academy Awards (with another two nominations), a BAFTA Award, two Writers Guild of America Awards, and a Producers Guild of America Award, and also has four Golden Globe Award nominations.
Mark Boal was born on January 23, 1973, in New York City, the son of Lillian Firestone and William Stetson Boal, Jr., a producer of educational films. His half-brother is Christopher Stetson Boal, a playwright and screenwriter. His mother was born to a Jewish family and his father converted to Judaism. Boal attended Bronx High School of Science and was on the high school's Speech and Debate Team. He earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Oberlin College in 1995.

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