20. Mátyás Erdély
Last year’s “Son Of Saul” was one of the most impressive directorial debuts of recent years, but Hungarian DP Mátyás Erdély deserves at least some of the credit as the man who helped director László Nemes to bring his haunting Holocaust hellscape to life. The pair actually go years back — Erdély actually lensed the director’s first short back in 2007. But Erdély made his name earlier, pulling off the muscular camerawork of Gerardo Naranjo’s impressive “Miss Bala” as his first major calling card. It was followed by Sean Durkin’s taut mini-series “Southcliffe” and undervalued Sam Claflin-starring horror “The Quiet Ones,” but it was 2015 that saw him cement his place as one of the best in the world with both “Son Of Saul” and the quite different, but equally powerfully-captured “James White.” Next, he’ll reteam with Nemes on period drama “Sunset,” and that’s something to be very excited about.
19. Anthony Dod Mantle
Few here have had careers as extraordinarily varied, or accomplished, as Anthony Dod Mantle, who’s gone from Dogme ’95 to Ron Howard in less than 20 years. The Danish cinematographer was something of a digital pioneer, first breaking out with Thomas Vinterberg’s “Festen” in 1998 and going out to work with Lars Von Trier and Harmony Korine. But it was Danny Boyle who brought him into the mainstream with “28 Days Later,” Dod Mantle’s gritty, grainy photography doing so much to help reinvent the zombie movie. They’d continue to work together (winning Dod Mantle the Oscar for his vibrant “Slumdog Millionaire” work, and he helped to re-energize Howard with his excellent work on “Rush.” More recently, he’s embraced a certain classical quality with “Our Kind Of Traitor,” but don’t expect that from his reteam with Boyle next year on the “Trainspotting” sequel, which given Dod Mantle’s earlier work could be even more of a visual trip than the first.
18. Bruno Delbonnel
As far as we’re concerned, cinematography is a kind of magic, and there are few who make it seem more magical than Bruno Delbonnel. The French DP came from seemingly nowhere back in 2001 to execute the charming, hugely influential storybook look of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Amelie” (and would later reteam with the director for the more darkly beautiful “A Very Long Engagement”). Since then he’s worked with a dizzying array of filmmakers, taking in blockbusters (a “Harry Potter” film, three with Tim Burton that are better looking than some of the director’s gaudier recent ones), the arthouse (two Aleksandr Sokurov movies) and even the Coen Brothers, delivering the gorgeous, soft-edged near-monochrome of “Inside Llewyn Davis.” He’s had four Oscar nominations so far — maybe Joe Wright’s Winston Churchill biopic “Darkest Hour” will be the one to win it for him.
17. Mark Lee Ping Bin
Arguably the greatest Taiwanese cinematographer ever to lift up a camera, and certainly the best at the moment, Mark Lee Ping Bin turns the silver screen into transporter to a land of endless awe. His collaborations with Hou Hsiao-Hsien, which started in the mid 80s and elevated films like “In the Hands of a Puppet Master” and “Cafe Lumiere” with their visual grandeur, culminated into their greatest visual treat yet, “The Assassin” – a film of such miraculous imagery, it makes a case for cinema as religion better than most films of the century thus far. He’s recently had a big resurgence thanks to ‘Assassin’ and Yang Chao’s “Crosscurrent” – an absolutely gorgeous poetic fable that won the DP a deserved Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale for “Outstanding Artistic Contribution” and his eclectic choice of projects continues with this year’s “Especes Menacees” and Donna Vermeer’s French comedy “Les Passages.”
16. Maryse Alberti
There are several cinematographers who work across the documentary/fiction divide, but few are as ambidextrous as French DP Alberti. Now 62, Alberti’s first notable fiction outing was on Todd Haynes‘ subversive 30-minute TV film “Dottie Gets Spanked,” which then led to another collaboration on “Velvet Goldmine,” as well as lensing Richard Linklater‘s microbudgeted “Tape” and Todd Solondz‘s “Happiness.” Simultaneously, Alberti’s documentary work includes some of the best-known docs of recent years: “Taxi to the Dark Side,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” “West of Memphis,” “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks” to name a few, yet in the last few years her fiction work has again taken center stage. Darren Aronofsky‘s “The Wrestler,” true story “Freeheld” and Ryan Coogler‘s terrific “Creed” all benefitted from Alberti’s polished, yet docu-real style.
15. Natasha Braier
In this ultra-male-dominated field of the business, women obviously have a gigantic mountain to climb to get their work displayed properly. When they do, as in the case of Natasha Braier, they glisten like a neon diamond for all the world to ponder the ugly and unfortunate behind-the-scene gender politics even harder. Braier astonished us with her wide shots of apocalyptic dystopia for David Michod’s “The Rover” and then straight-up fucked with our minds (in the best possible way) with the blazing, colorful palettes of Nicolas Winding Refn’s “The Neon Demon” earlier this year. Her work there is so luxurious and striking, it’s impossible to forget, and looks down on most of her male peers’ work so far this year. Next up for Braier is an untitled Nash Edgerton project with a star-studded cast, and we cannot wait to see what she does.
14. Robbie Ryan
Dublin-born Ryan had a pretty stellar Cannes 2016 with two films for his two most frequent collaborators: Andrea Arnold‘s “American Honey” with its romanced, saturated, nostalgic, windswept look took the Jury Prize, while Ken Loach‘s “I, Daniel Blake,” with its much more prosaic, docu-realist style took the Palme d’Or. But Ryan has been showing his versatility film-on-film for years now – the witty Western grandeur of “Slow West” beside the no-nonsense simplicity of “Philomena” rubbing shoulders with his utterly gorgeous, cold, damp lensing on Arnold’s “Wuthering Heights” (he’s shot all of Arnold’s features to date, and her Oscar-winning short “Wasp“). One of the hardest-working and most in-demand DPs in the game, he has a clutch of upcoming titles, but the one we’re most excited for is Noah Baumbach‘s unintelligibly titled “Yeh Din Ka Kissa.”
13. Greig Fraser
When we first did our cinematographers on the rise piece more than six years ago, the very first name we made sure to include was Greig Fraser, a young Australian DOP who’d done some truly glorious work in Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” after some shorts for people including Nash Edgerton). We couldn’t have dreamed at the time that it would lead all the way to a galaxy far far away. Fraser’s next film was Matt Reeves’ “Let Me In,” which both captured the essence of, and in some way exceeded, Hoyte Van Hoytema’s work on the original “Let The Right One In,” but team-ups with Spike Jonze on Arcade Fire short “Scenes From The Suburbs,” Andrew Dominik on “Killing Them Softly” and Kathryn Bigelow on “Zero Dark Thirty” were all him, and suggested a singular talent. 2014’s “Foxcatcher” displayed some of his finest work ever, and we’re truly psyched to see what he does in the upcoming “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” — he’s arguably the most talented DP ever to work on a “Star Wars” movie.
12. Matthew Libatique
Stay close to your film school pals. Matthew Libatique was at AFI with Darren Aronofsky, and not only did it begin a collaboration that’s carried across every one of Aronofsky’s movies, but it also saw Libatique begin a career that took him to the very top. His first feature as DP was Aronofsky’s “Pi,” a film that owes so much to the high-contrast black-and-white look that Libatique gave it, and he went on to help capture the nightmare of “Requiem For A Dream.” He’s done some thrilling work with Spike Lee on “Inside Man” and “Chi-Raq,” picked up an Oscar nod for Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” and basically established the look of the Marvel universe with his work on the first “Iron Man” (which remains one of their better-looking movies). He’s amazingly versatile, and we can’t wait for his reteam with Aronofsky next year on “Mother” (and for his team-up with James Ponsoldt on “The Circle”).
11. Robert Richardson
If you’re a certain kind of filmmaker of a certain age making a certain kind of big crime or war movie, it seems like it’s virtually the law that you have to work with Robert Richardson. The Gandalf-haired DP worked consistently with Oliver Stone for more than a decade on films including “Platoon” and the Oscar-winning “JFK,” then as the century turned teamed up with Martin Scorsese and then Quentin Tarantino, bringing his gorgeous sense of space and color to films including “The Aviator” (another Oscar-winner) and “Kill Bill.” Richardson’s done surprisingly sensitive work with other filmmakers — on “Eight Men Out” and, uh, “Eat Pray Love” to name but two, but he’s at his best with a legendary auteur at his side, and continues to experiment with new forms and formats — his work on “Hugo” (which won him his third Oscar — only two DPs have more) remains some of the best use of 3D, and for all the flaws of “The Hateful Eight,” its amazing widescreen compositions weren’t one of them. Next up: Ben Affleck’s “Live By Night” and Andy Serkis’s directorial debut “Breathe” with Andrew Garfield.
