All 'Best Cinematography' Winners (1967-2021)

All pictures, that have ever won an Oscar for 'Best Cinematography' since 1967(after coloured and BW nominations were combined into one).




What are some of your favorites and least favorites out of these?

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The video makes you realize what a joke of an award that one is.

From the word 'joke', I take it you find some of these winners laughable, which one would you say is the most laughable to you?

It's not that the cinematography of the Oscar winners isn't sufficient. It's just not distinct most of the time. The movies employ pleasant visuals of nevertheless plebeian nature. Some individual picks are grandiose, but most are merely utilitarian, mistaking eye candy for real beauty. As Mishima said, "Beauty burns the hand when you touch it". There's no such pretense in the cinematographies of the Oscar winners.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Favorites:
Days of Heaven
Fanny and Alexander
JFK
Blade Runner 2049
Mank

Least favorite: Nothing specific, and I know Days of Heaven qualifies as one, but it does seem like a cliché that if your movie has wide, sweeping vistas like those in Albert Biertstadt's paintings, the award is yours. It reminds me of a joke someone made on another forum (that's not really a joke, but it was posed as one) that cinematography is not photography.

Let me put it this way: You can have the latest in filmmaking technology, and spend two years solicitously constructing each frame. And then somebody goes among real people with a hand-held camera and shoots them the way they are, without any pretense, without any lies. Cinema as a mirror - and they will achieve a truer beauty than you ever can with your artifice. Masters like van Keuken or Jean Rouch shot some incredibly memorable images not because they had the most expensive equipment, but because they had an aesthetic eye for the human condition. Something many of the so-called A-list directors lack.

It's the lack of diversity. There are some great films there but in like 50 years of the award there about 2 or 3 films that are not in the English language. It's pitiful. The awards are just handed out to those pictures that spend the most on their oscar campaigns.

Japanese cinema gave us so many gems in terms of cinematography. Are there many Japanese films in that video? Or French? Or Italian etc etc etc Nevermind we have Lord of the Rings there though, all is well.

I despair.

Yeah, the vividly elevated kitsch of this sort is always praised as the cinematography's finest. Unfortunately, most people lack a sense of aesthetics that'd allow them to see through plebeian art of this sort.

The Oscar ceremony omits world cinema masterpieces yearly. Only those films that were nominated can win, so it shouldn't surprise you that French or Japanese films didn't win. Because they weren't even nominated. Because hardly anybody watched them at the time. People have to forever part with the notion that the Oscars is in any way a worthy award that gives prizes to truly wonderful art films. It's not and it never was. It HAPPENED to do that once in a while, maybe by mistake, maybe by godly coincidence, but the Oscars are a plebeian ceremony held by majority-voting plebeians for plebeian viewers.

Which country's film academy has shown proper diversity in terms of awarding cinematography?

I definitely wouldn't look at film academies or even film festivals in general. I'd stick to cinema magazines such as Kinema Junpo in Japan and Cahiers du Cinéma in France for some worthwhile takes. (Sometimes faulty, but always commendable.)

I have no idea, I don't particularly like awards. But it's the gravitas that the Oscars hold that is damaging. "It won THE oscar" ? That must mean it's terrific and the best film of the year then right? Trouble is, it rarely is the best film of the year.

Look at the cinematography in :

Decision to Leave
November
Persona
In The Mood for Love
Soy Cuba
The Color of Pomegranates
Tarkovsky's 'Mirror'
Russian Ark
Enter The Void
Gabbeh
The Double Life of Veronique.

etc etc etc

World beating cinematography that beats most films in the video above yet nowhere near a nomination yet a prize.

So there is no form of 'established recognition' for a true cinematographer/artist.. except maybe a compliment from their peers/idols, a mention in a magazine or a mention on a mofo list..

Really need to see Soy Cuba asap..

Robby Muller never got an oscar or any major award. Yet he's one of the most brilliant cinematographers to ever do it! That is crazy.

This is spot on. The moment a film wins an Oscar, people stop seeing it as a film by director X. Or a film on X. Or a film. They begin seeing it as an Oscar film. And they start applying their preconceived notions to it even before watching it. This is the truly damaging side of the Oscars. I can elaborate if anybody wishes me to.