| Academy Award for Best Cinematography | |
|---|---|
 The 2023 recipient: Hoyte van Hoytema | |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) |
| First awarded | 1929 |
| Most recent winner | Hoyte van Hoytema Oppenheimer (2023) |
| Website | oscars |
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work on one particular motion picture.
In its first film season, 1927–28, this award (like others such as the acting awards) was not tied to a specific film; all of the work by the nominated cinematographers during the qualifying period was listed after their names. The problem with this system became obvious the first year, since Karl Struss and Charles Rosher were nominated for their work together on Sunrise. Still, three other films shot individually by either Rosher or Struss were also listed as part of the nomination. In the second year, 1929, there were no nominations at all, although the Academy has a list of unofficial titles that were under consideration by the Board of Judges. In the third year, 1930, films, not cinematographers, were nominated, and the final award did not show the cinematographer's name.
Finally, for the 1931 awards, the modern system in which individuals are nominated for a single film was adopted in all profession-related categories. From 1939 to 1966 with the exception of 1957, there were also separate awards for color and black-and-white cinematography. After Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), the most recent black-and-white films to win since then are Schindler's List (1993), Roma (2018) and Mank (2020).
Floyd Crosby won the award for Tabu in 1931, which was the last silent film to win in this category. Hal Mohr won the only write-in Academy Award ever, in 1935 for A Midsummer Night's Dream . Mohr was also the first person to win for both black-and-white and color cinematography.
No winners are lost, although some of the earliest nominees (and of the unofficial nominees of 1928–29) are lost, including The Devil Dancer (1927), The Magic Flame (1927), and 4 Devils (1928). The Right to Love (1930) is incomplete, and Sadie Thompson (1927) is incomplete and partially reconstructed with stills.
David Lean holds the record for the director with the most films that won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the Oscars with five wins out of six nominations for Great Expectations , The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia , Doctor Zhivago , and Ryan's Daughter .
The first nominees shot primarily on digital video were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, with Slumdog Millionaire being the first winner. [1] The following year, Avatar was the first nominee and winner to be shot entirely on digital video. [2]
In January 2017, Bradford Young became the first African-American cinematographer to be nominated for an Academy Award, for his work on Arrival.
In 2018, Rachel Morrison became the first woman to receive a nomination. [3] Prior to that, it had been the last non-acting Academy Award category to never nominate a woman. [4] [5]
In 2019, Alfonso Cuarón became the first winner of this category to have also served as director on the film, for Roma . [6] This followed a public dispute between Cuarón and the Academy over the Academy's plan to shorten the Oscars broadcast by relegating four awards, including cinematography, to the commercial breaks in the show. Cuarón objected by saying, "In the history of cinema, masterpieces have existed without sound, without color, without a story, without actors and without music. No single film has ever existed without cinematography ..." [7]
| Category | Name | Superlative | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most awards | Leon Shamroy | 4 awards | 1942 | Awards resulted from 18 nominations. |
| Joseph Ruttenberg | 1958 | Awards resulted from 10 nominations. | ||
| Most nominations | Leon Shamroy | 18 nominations | 1965 | Nominations resulted in 4 awards. |
| Charles Lang | 1972 | Nominations resulted in 1 award. | ||
| Most consecutive awards | Emmanuel Lubezki | 3 consecutive awards | 2013, 2014, 2015 | Awards resulted from 8 nominations. |
| Oldest winner | Conrad L. Hall | Age 76 | 2002 | Hall died just two months before the awards ceremony. Hall is also the oldest non-posthumous winner, at age 73, in 1999. |
| Oldest nominee | Asakazu Nakai | Age 84 | 1985 | Nakai shared the nomination with two others. |
| Youngest winner | Floyd Crosby | Age 31 | 1930/1931 | |
| Youngest nominee | Edward Cronjager | Age 27 | 1930/1931 | |
| Most nominations without an award | George Folsey | 13 nominations | 1963 | |
| First female nominee | Rachel Morrison [8] | 2017 | ||
| Nominee/winner who also directed the film | Alfonso Cuarón | Cuarón served as director and director of photography for Roma | 2018 |
Winners are listed first in colored row, followed by the other nominees.
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible to submit a nomination and vote on the final ballot. The Best Picture category is traditionally the final award of the night and is widely considered the most prestigious honor of the ceremony.
The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of a film director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry.
Charles G. Rosher, A.S.C. was an English-born cinematographer who worked from the early days of silent films through the 1950s.
The 12th Academy Awards ceremony, held on February 29, 1940, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best in film for 1939 at a banquet in the Coconut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was hosted by Bob Hope, in his first of nineteen turns as host.
Hal Mohr, A.S.C. was a famed movie cinematographer who won an Oscar for his work on the 1935 film A Midsummer Night's Dream. He was awarded another Oscar for The Phantom of the Opera in 1943 and received a nomination for The Four Poster in 1952.
Emmanuel Lubezki Morgenstern is a Mexican cinematographer. Lubezki is known for uses of natural lighting and continuous uninterrupted shots in cinematography, often utilizing a Steadicam, a 3-axis gimbal, or hand-held camera. He is also known for his frequent collaborations with Terrence Malick, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Best Cinematography is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognize a cinematographer who has delivered outstanding cinematography in a film.
The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage is a festival that celebrates and awards cinematography and cinematographers. The festival is held in Toruń, Poland, at the end of November every year. It spans the course of one week, with multiple events at one time.
Leonard Smith was a cinematographer who had over 70 film credits from a career that spanned from 1915 to 1946.
Rachel Morrison is an American cinematographer and director. For her work on Mudbound (2017), Morrison became the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. She has twice worked with director Ryan Coogler, as cinematographer on the films Fruitvale Station (2013) and Black Panther (2018). Morrison's feature film directorial debut is the biographical sports drama The Fire Inside (2024).
Roma is a 2018 drama film written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who also produced, shot, and co-edited it. Set in 1970 and 1971, Roma follows the life of a live-in indigenous (Mixteco) housekeeper of an upper-middle-class Mexican family. It is a semi-autobiographical take on Cuarón's upbringing in Mexico City's Colonia Roma neighborhood. The film stars Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira. It is an international co-production between Mexico and the United States.
The 90th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2017, and took place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was held on March 4, 2018, rather than its usual late-February date to avoid conflicting with the 2018 Winter Olympics. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 24 categories. The ceremony, which was televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd and directed by Glenn Weiss. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel hosted for the second consecutive year.
The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2018 and took place on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 24 categories. The ceremony was televised in the United States by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and was produced by Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss, with Weiss also serving as director. This was the first telecast to have no host since the 61st ceremony held in 1989.
Gabriela Rodríguez is a Venezuelan film producer based in London. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture for her work on Roma, and was the first Latin American woman to earn a nomination in that category. She also won two BAFTAs and a British Independent Film Award, as well as other nominations for her production work on the film.
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