~ 50 Great Cinematographers ~

[MysteRy]

20 - Russell Metty



An alumnus of John Huston, Steven Spielberg and Orson Welles, Metty showed particular skill on the latter’s The Stranger (1946) and Touch of Evil (1958), particularly in the striking night-time scenes.

He didn’t get on with Stanley Kubrick, though; the pair fought over Spartacus (1960), with Kubrick adamant that he was the real cinematographer…

Greatest Achievement: Touch Of Evil, which proved Metty was adept with black and white, and knew how to manoeuvre a crane for those swooping overhead shots.

[MysteRy]

19 - Sacha Vierny



Vierny made 10 films with director Alain Resnais between 1955 and 1984, while Peter Greenaway referred to Vierny as his “most important collaborator”.

One of the reasons those two directors loved Vierny was his speed. As Resnais once said: “We knew each other so well that, when we were on set, he could tell the frame and lens I was going to choose just by the way I looked through the viewfinder and moved up or down.”

Greatest Achievement: Belle De Jour (1967), in which Vierny cannily went for frosty lighting to counterbalance the film’s raunchy content.

[MysteRy]

18 - Charles Rosher



The first ever cinematographer to receive an Oscar (in 1929), Rosher was also the first ever full-time movie cameraman when David Horsley set up a Hollywood production company in 1911.

Greatest Achievement: Silent 1927 drama Sunrise, which Rosher worked on with Karl Struss, is considered one of the most important achievements in cinematography.

[MysteRy]

17 - Maryse Alberti



A winner of trophies at the Sundance Film Festival and Spirit Awards, Alberti is a French cinematographer who mostly works in American independent cinema.

Her myriad credits include Crumb (1994), Taxi To The Dark Side (2007), Velvet Goldmine (1998) and, bizarrely, two early episodes of Sex And The City (1998).

Greatest Achievement: The Wrestler (2008), which Alberti shot on Super 16.

“I really felt that the story needed to be told on film and I knew that the texture of Super 16 would be perfect,” she says. “It’s not a glossy, glamorous story so you need a little bit of grittiness in the image.”

[MysteRy]

16 - Asakazu Nakai (Picture unavailable)



An Oscar-nominated Japanese cinematographer, Nakai was a frequent collaborator of director Akira Kurosawa.

Greatest Achievement: He collaborated with fellow cinematographer Takao Saitô on 1985’s Ran, though he also impressed working solo on 1954’s epic Seven Samurai.

That film was notable for its use of the long lens (over the then-commonplace telephoto lens), which affords Samurai some fantastic wide-angle cinematography – and a noticeable fluidity in movement.

Still from Seven Samurai (1954)

[MysteRy]

15 - Robert Burks



A close friend and working buddy of Alfred Hitchcock’s, Burks caught Hitch’s attention with 1950’s The Glass Menagerie. Impressed, Hitch asked him to shoot Strangers On A Train (1951).

The duo went on to create some of cinema’s finest thrillers, among them Rear Window (1954), North By Northwest (1959) and How To Catch A Thief (1955).

Greatest Achievement: Vertigo (1958), which embraced VistaVision and created something equal parts beautiful and nightmarish.

Photo: Alfred Hitchcock shows cinematographer Robert Burks how he wants Tippi Hedren framed in a scene from Marnie (1964).

[MysteRy]

14 - Gordon Willis



His love for rich blacks and dimly-lit interior shots earned him the moniker ‘prince of darkness’, not least because he used those techniques to ghoulish effect on The Godfather trilogy.

Greatest Achievement: The Godfather (1972) is his best known film, though he also did amazing work on Woody Allen’s Zelig (1983), helping to create a faded 1920s look for the film.

[MysteRy]

13 - Sven Nykvist



One of Ingmar Bergman’s favourite cinematographers, Nykvist was celebrated for his simple approach to some of cinema’s most startling images – something most evident in his love for natural lighting.

After working with Bergman, he went on to collaborate with other cinematic greats Roman Polanski and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Greatest Achievement: Persona (1966), which includes the mesmerising shot of twilight slowly creeping into a hospital room.

[MysteRy]

12 - Sergei Urusevsky



Renowned for his wily cinematic language, Urusevsky’s finest work came when he knocked heads with director Mikhail Kalatozov.

His favourite techniques were a use of deep focus and gravity-defying tracking shots, all of which would take a decade to reach Western filmmaking.

Greatest Achievement: I Am Cuba (1964), which comes equipped with that mind-bending opening tracking shot – devised entirely by Urusevsky.

[MysteRy]

11 - Subrata Mitra



A native of West Bengal, Mitra rose to prominence thanks to his work with director Satyajit Ray for his major 10 films including Apu Trilogy.

He was responsible for inventing the technique of ‘bounce lighting’, in which a set or location is illuminated by bouncing light from an off-camera surface.

Greatest Achievement: The Apu Trilogy, with its poetic lighting.

[MysteRy]

10 - Conrad L. Hall



JJ Abrams has Hall to thank for making lens flares cool - Hall turned so-called filmmaking ‘mistakes’ such as light striking the camera lens and dirty film into an aesthetic all their own.

Greatest Achievement: He won his first Oscar for Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969). And the other two for Sam Mendes' two notable pieces American Beauty (1999), and Road to Perdition (2002).

[MysteRy]

9 - James Wong Howe



Howe saw a lot of change over the years, beginning in the silent era and working all the way up to when film went colour.

He was most popular in the ‘30s and ‘40s, though it wasn’t until the ‘50s and ‘60s that the Academy finally awarded him gold for The Rose Tattoo (1955) and Hud (1963).

Greatest Achievement: Hud, a perfect example of Howe’s contribution to black and white film – he pioneered techniques that ensured a crisp, sharp image.

[MysteRy]

8 - Vittorio Storaro



A frequent collaborator of Bernardo Bertolucci, Storaro was hugely inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of colours, which stresses the relationship between colour and emotion.

He certainly attained that explosive combination in the Oscar-winning likes of The Last Emperor (1987) and Reds (1981).

Greatest Achievement: Francis Ford Coppola gave Storaro the freedom to do whatever he wanted on Apocalypse Now (1979).

The result is an oily, hellish masterpiece.

[MysteRy]

7 - Christopher Doyle



Though he’s an Australian, Doyle made his mark in Asian cinema, most notably working with director Wong Kar-Wai.

He’s considered an integral component in the Asian New Wave, not least because of his love for high saturation and heart-stopping splashes of colour.

Greatest Achievement: In The Mood For Love (2000) is a thing of beauty, but it was Doyle’s multi-coloured work on Hero (2002) that really popped.

Photo: Doyle with his most buddy filmmaker Wong Kar‑wai.

[MysteRy]

6 - Emmanuel Lubezki



Throughout a varied career, Lubezki has tackled numerous (often conflicting) genres and excelled at each and every one. With Ali (2001), he jumped from 35mm to digital and invented a tiny camera to attain close-up shots during the fight scenes.

Then, of course, he took handheld to the limit with Children Of Men (2006), which features gob-smackingly long takes (some achieved in digital editing) and a believably gritty future world.

Greatest Achievement:The Tree Of Life (2011).

Even if you’re not a fan of Malick’s approach to narrative (or lack thereof), there’s no doubting that Tree Of Life is one of the most beautifully shot films ever made.