Scorsese finally wins Oscar for directing

LOS ANGELES, Feb 26 (Reuters) Martin Scorsese finally won the Oscar for best film director with the crime thriller ''The Departed,'' ending one of the highest-profile losing streaks in the event's history.

Paradoxically, his victory came for a populist effort that was released with no intentions of seeking awards. Returning to his crime roots, Scorsese gathered an all-star cast, headed by Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon to fashion a story about official corruption in Boston.

''We wanted to make a nice genre movie, you know, and look what happened,'' said Scorsese, 64, as he arrived at the Oscars with his daughter.

It quickly became the biggest film of his career, selling more than 131 million dollars worth of tickets at the North American box office. It picked up five Academy Award nominations in all, also winning for William Monahan's adapted screenplay and Thelma Schoonmaker's editing.

Scorsese had been nominated five other times for directing such classics as ''Raging Bull'' and ''Goodfellas.'' He received writing nominations for ''Goodfellas'' and ''The Age of Innocence.'' In recent years, he campaigned mightily for 2002 historical drama ''Gangs of New York'' and two years later Howard Hughes biopic ''The Aviator,'' but he failed to reel in the big award.

''The Departed'' tells of an undercover Massachusetts state cop, played by DiCaprio, who infiltrates a criminal gang to catch a mole (Damon) in the state police.

Many of his peers like Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood, who also was nominated this year for directing Japanese language drama ''Letters From Iwo Jima,'' previously won Oscars.

The other nominees were Clint Eastwood for ''Letters from Iwo Jima,'' Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for cultural drama ''Babel,'' and two British directors, Stephen Frears for ''The Queen,'' about the British royal family, and Paul Greengrass with Sept. 11 drama, ''United 93.'' REUTERS SHB ND1106