10. Ellen Kuras
Quietly building one of the most impressive and independent-minded of portfolios, Kuras has been at work since 1990 turning in consistently terrific, understated, intelligent work. First making a splash with the stylish, black and white Tom Kalin retelling of the Leopold/Loeb murder case “Swoon,” she also worked on Mary Harron‘s energetic and impressionistic “I Shot Andy Warhol,” before kicking off a 4-film collaboration with Spike Lee with shattering doc “4 Little Girls,” followed by the insanely underrated “He Got Game.” Along the way she also shot Ted Demme‘s “Blow,” Rebecca Miller‘s “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” and segments of Jim Jarmusch’s “Coffee and Cigarettes” as well as the late Alan Rickman‘s 2014 title “A Little Chaos,” but probably her finest hour to date came with Michel Gondry‘s full-hearted fantasy “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
9. Darius Khondji
It’s hard to think of two more dissimilar filmmakers than Michael Haneke and Woody Allen, or indeed James Gray and David Fincher yet all of them have repeatedly chosen the Iranian Khondji to shoot their films. As a result, in his CV the warm bounciness of Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” bumps against the gothic baroque of Fincher’s “Seven” which rubs shoulders with the icy meta-formalism of Haneke’s “Funny Games” remake, which sits beside the layered, textured period detailing of Gray’s “The Immigrant.” But Khondji has been a force to be reckoned with since the early ’90s when visual spectaculars like Jeunet & Caro‘s “Delicatessen,” and “City of Lost Children” announced his talents. We’ll next see his work in Gray’s “Lost City of Z,” but even more excitingly, down the line we get his first collaboration with Bong Joon-ho on “Okja.”
8. Rodrigo Prieto
We’re waiting with bated breath for Martin Scorsese‘s “Silence,” and a percentage of that anticipation is due to Prieto, who delivered one of the most enjoyably excessive spectaculars of the director’s career with “Wolf of Wall Street.” Obviously, “Silence” is in a different register, but Prieto’s catalogue is so varied we’ve no fear it won’t look amazing anyway: this is the DP behind Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s earlier, somber stuff ( “Babel,” “21 Grams,” “Biutiful” as well as the livelier “Amores Perros“) and Tommy Lee Jones‘ austere “The Homesman” too. With such a diverse output (he also counts Ang Lee’s “Lust Caution,” Spike Lee’s “The 25th Hour,” Curtis Hanson’s “8 Mile” and Ben Affleck’s “Argo” among his credits) Prieto only has one Oscar nomination, for Ang Lee‘s “Brokeback Mountain,” but we’re very sure that will change, and probably soon.
7. Jeff Cronenweth
With a relatively modest 22 credits to his name as DP so far, Cronenweth is one of the less prolific cinematographers to feature so high. Yet when you realize that he’s become David Fincher‘s DP of choice (having worked as a camera operator on “Seven,” second unit DP on “The Game,” graduating to DP on 1999’s “Fight Club“) it seems less unlikely. Fincher’s meticulous vision is hugely reliant on his films’ visual style and there’s no doubt that his work with Cronenweth has seen him both expand and refine that vision, even as Cronenweth too has grown. Their collaboration continues to yield terrific results (“The Social Network,” “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Gone Girl“). And if Cronenweth’s work outside Fincher hasn’t always been on the greatest films (Kathryn Bigelow’s “K-19: The Widowmaker,” bubbly misfire “Down With Love,” 2012’s unconvincing “Hitchock“), his work on them has never been less than superlative.
6. Edward Lachman
Both of Lachman’s Oscar nominations have come for Todd Haynes films – the technicolor Douglas Sirk homage “Far From Heaven” and the creamy richness of last year’s gorgeous “Carol,” – and so it’s always a surprise to recall that he’s also behind the lo-fi drollery of Todd Solondz’ “Wiener Dog,” let alone Larry Clark‘s unreleasable “Ken Park.” But eclecticism is very much part of Lachman’s arsenal, which has also seen him grace projects as diverse as neon-soaked Bret Easton Ellis adaptation “Less Than Zero,” Steven Soderbergh‘s “The Limey” and “Erin Brockovich,” Haynes’ brilliant, collagistic “I’m Not There,” and Ulrich Seidl‘s chilly, scathing “Paradise” trilogy. Truly a chameleon, it seems like Lachman’s m.o. is not to have a signature style so much as about 23 of them, and to master each one as though it were his sole life’s work.
5. Robert Elswit
You know a film is going to look incredible if you see ‘Robert Elswit A.S.C.’ in the credits. At this point, it’s just fact. Famous for being Paul Thomas Anderson’s go-to guy (for every single one of the most exciting director’s films barring “The Master”), Elswit’s formidable talents extend much further than PTA’s masterpieces, even if his Oscar-winning “There Will Be Blood” photography is his crowning achievement. The man knows how to shoot action as well as anyone in the business (sandstorm scene in ’Ghost Protocol’ anyone?), he can turn back the clocks of time and go back to smokey black-and-white cinematic beauty (“Good Night, and Good Luck”) and inject the nightscapes of Los Angeles with eerie atmosphere and ridiculous allure (“Nightcrawler”). It’s safe to say that we’d get excited over a bug-spray commercial if we knew Elswit was shooting it, but we’ll certainly settle for the Matthew McConaughey vehicle “Gold” and George Clooney’s “Suburbicon.”
4. Hoyte Van Hoytema
During our horror-feature blitz in October, we had the chance to shower praise on some of the most stunning specimens of the genre, one of which was “Let The Right One In.” The man responsible? Swiss-born Dutchman Hoyte van Hoytema, who has since 2008 skyrocketed into DP-stardom, and now, we imagine, holds the power to turn down any project he wants. He worked with Tomas Alfredson again for the sumptuous espionage film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and dropped jaws with how he crafted Spike Jones’ future in “Her”– lighting the film in such a way that the screen practically warms you up with its glow throughout the running time. He’s now reached the peak of mainstream artistry, thanks to his work for Christopher Nolan in the dazzling sci-fi spectacular “Interstellar” and, what we’re willing to bet our collective houses on will be one of 2017’s most impressive visual treats, “Dunkirk”.
3. Bradford Young
Cinematography is in many respects about painting with light, but perhaps more than anyone since Gordon Willis, Bradford Young doesn’t just do that, he paints with darkness as well. Young came out of the indie world, working with Dee Rees on “Pariah,” Andrew Dosunmu on “Restless City” and Ava DuVernay on “Middle Of Nowhere,” and quickly showed him to be a cinematographer with a true poetry to his images (and that rarest of things in the cinematography world, someone who really knew how to light for African-American performers). He would go on to reteam with Dosunmu on “Mother Of George” and DuVernay on “Selma,” but also ventured out, with stunning, almost Malick-esque photography on David Lowery’s “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” and, with his most Willis-ian work so far, capturing the shadows of 1980s New York with J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year.” This year gave him his biggest ever scope, and maybe his most indelible images, with Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival,” but he’s soon going even bigger, teaming with Lord & Miller for their “Han Solo” movie, which should be a fascinating mix.
2. Emmanuel Lubezki
We wouldn’t fault you for feeling just a tiny bit fatigued by Emmanuel Lubezki. He’s by-and-large the most famous cinematographer working today, and basically an A-list celebrity – a genuinely odd status for a DP. As easy as it to get jaded, though, there’s no denying his legendary work behind the camera. For his work with Terrence Malick since “The New World,” Lubezki has redefined the use of natural light and freewheeling camera movement. For Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” and sci-fi ride “Gravity,” he brought us to our knees with masterful digital innovations. Most recently he turned the camera into the main star of Inarritu’s “Birdman” and ‘Revenant’ – writing new chapters of long-take poetry. Pulling off the unprecedented feat of winning three back-to-back Oscars has written Lubezki’s name in the history books with a permanent marker but that’s not stopping him from taking a break. He’s got new projects with Malick and Cuarón in the works, as well as the much-anticipated mystery VR project – and yes, we’re still very much excited.
1. Roger Deakins
There are many great cinematographers on this list, and there are even some others whose work on the visual side can go so far as to compensate for a film’s paucity in other areas. But there is really only one DP whose is not only consistently astonishing, to an often film-saving degree, but who is also magnificently generous with his time and expertise: the greatest of ambassadors for his craft. Roger Deakins is well-known in cinematography circles not just for his unsurpassed talent and the iconic work he has done for the Coen brothers (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” “The Big Lebowski” etc), Andrew Dominik (“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford“) Denis Villeneuve (“Prisoners,” “Sicario“) et al, but for somehow finding the time to provide detailed and helpful instruction to the next generation of cinematographers too. It’s always a bonus when a filmmaker you admire turns out to also be a decent person, but in Deakins’ case it feels like it’s all part of the same thing: his work is informed by such a gorgeous empathy, and such a thrillingly evocative use of light and shade to give the stories he shoots added dimensions and human depths, that it feels like they could only ever have have come from such a gent. Needless to say, he’s a good 50-60% of the reason we cannot wait for Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner” sequel.
You would think with a list as long as 50, we’d have ample space to fit every DP we’re fond of, but you’d be wrong. There are more than a few who some of us feel mighty aggrieved didn;t make the list, from Manuel Alberto Claro, whose work on Lars Von Trier‘s “Melancholia” and “Nymphomaniac” really seemed to kick the Danish provocateur’s game up a further notch, to Luca Bigazzi whose collaborations with Paolo Sorrentino are often the best thing about the Italian director’s patchy films to Chung Chung-hoon whose collaborations with Park Chan-wook are always so sublimely stylish.
Also there’s Vittorio Storaro who is of course a legend, and did fine work on Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society” recently; Dick Pope (“Mr Turner”); John Toll (“The Thin Red Line” but also “Jupiter Ascending”); Mihai Malaimare Jr. (“The Master”); Autumn Durald (“Palo Alto”); Guillermo Navarro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” though he’s more of a full-time director now, like Wally Pfister); Mike Gioulakis (“It Follows”); Mikhail Krichman (“Leviathan”); Remi Adefarasin (“Elizabeth”); Linus Sandgren (“La La Land”): Rob Hardy (“Ex Machina”); Daniel Landin (“Under The Skin”);
James Laxton (“Moonlight”); Denis Lenoir (“Eden,” “Things To Come”); Ryszard Lenczewski (“Ida,” “Margaret”); and Larry Smith (“Only God Forgives”) among many, many others. Let us know the favorite of yours who we missed in the comments below.