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Academy Award for Best Cinematography
American film award From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work on one particular motion picture.
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History
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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]
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Superlatives
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Winners and nominees
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Winners are listed first in colored row, followed by the other nominees.
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
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Shortlisted finalists
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Finalists for Best Cinematography were selected by branch members, who voted for ten finalists which were screened to determine the five nominees.[11]
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Multiple awards and nominations
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See also
- BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography
- Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography
- Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Cinematography
- American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases
- Satellite Award for Best Cinematography
- List of Academy Award–nominated films
Notes
- The 2nd Academy Awards is unique in being the only occasion where there were no official nominees. Subsequent research by AMPAS has resulted in a list of unofficial or de facto nominees, based on records of which films were evaluated by the judges.
- A preliminary list of submissions from the studios included the following titles, which were not official nominees: First Love (Joseph Valentine), The Great Victor Herbert (Victor Milner), Gunga Din (Joseph H. August), Intermezzo (Gregg Toland), Juarez (Tony Gaudio), Lady of the Tropics (Norbert Brodine), Only Angels Have Wings (Joseph Walker) and The Rains Came (Arthur C. Miller).
- A preliminary list of submissions from the studios included the following titles, which were not official nominees: Drums Along the Mohawk (Ray Rennahan and Bert Glennon), The Four Feathers (Georges Périnal and Osmond Borradaile), The Mikado (William V. Skall) and The Wizard of Oz (Harold Rosson).
- In 1957, black-and-white and color films competed in a combined Best Cinematography category.
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References
External links
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