Labor of love alert: in recent years we’ve poured extra special helpings of heart and soul into our lists of the year’s Best Cinematography, and while it might overstate things to suggest the decade list, therefore, has that care lavished on it tenfold, it’s not far off. Our ground rules were simple: try to reduce the number of repetitions by choosing emblematic but differently styled works from the same cinematographer or director where possible, don’t overlook the clever in favor of the beautiful, and don’t get so lost in the enjoyment of these spectacular examples of craft that you miss your original deadline. (We broke that last one).
READ MORE: 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2020
Argue with our rankings, exclusions, and badly written breathless adulation all you like, but do not think to argue that any of these 75 (!) films do not belong in the all-time pantheon of great cinematography.
READ MORE: The 100 Best Films Of The Decade [2010s]
More best of year and decade content is here too, the 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2020, The 100 Best Films Of The Decade, the 25 Best Films Of 2019, the Best Performances Of The Decade, Best Soundtracks of the Decade, Best TV of the Decade, Best TV of 2019, Best Posters, and Trailers of 2019 and more to come.
READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2019
75. “Anna Karenina” (2012) Seamus McGarvey
So scrumptious it makes outrageously pulchritudinous stars like Keira Knightley, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Alicia Vikander look merely adequate to requirements, Joe Wright‘s reimagining of Tolstoy’s classic tale of adultery also boasts some seriously inventive cinematography from the in-demand Seamus McGarvey (who also shot Gareth Edwards‘ “Godzilla,” one of the most beautiful tentpoles ever.) There’s something almost gluttonous about the imagery here: the literal theatricality of the intricate, baroque production design; the dizzying, hyperreal transitions; and the shameless cramming of every inch of widescreen real estate with lovesick, luxuriant detail.
74. “The House of Others” (2016) Gorka Gómez Andreu
It’s likely you won’t have heard of this tiny Georgian film, but if you managed to see it, there’s no way you will have forgotten Gorka Gómez Andreu’s incredible cinematography. The uncanny story of newcomers to a Georgian village chased by the shadow of war, and by the restless spirits of their new houses’ previous occupants, it’s told in bewitching compositions, misty and mysterious, that retreat fractionally from the subjects as if we’re constantly bidding farewell. Cinematography can evoke so many things; in “The House of Others” it evokes nothing less than the haunting of a nation told from the perspective of the ghosts.
73. “The Neon Demon” (2016) Natasha Braier
When Nicolas Winding Refn decided to lean into the criticism most frequently leveled at his films — that they’re style over substance — and make a film literally about the substanceless-ness of style, he had to make sure the style lived up to it. Natasha Braier‘s (“Honey Boy,” “Gloria Bell,” “The Rover“) slinky, kinky, perverse camera delivers, in deliciously sharp imagery that alone justifies the ticket price, pivoting between high-fashion tableaux as angular as a sculpted cheekbone, and louche, bloodstained, sleazy-motel chic. Turns out you can have your supermodel and eat her too.
72. “A Ghost Story” (2017) Andrew Droz Palermo
Semi-infamous for the long, long take in which Rooney Mara grief-gobbles an entire pie, David Lowery‘s divisive, demanding but ultimately deeply rewarding lament for the shortness of life amid the longness of time needs the minor-key hum of Andrew Droz Palermo’s bloodlessly restrained, tightly framed photography to pull off its central magic trick. Over the course of 92 often silent, often repetitive, usually humdrum minutes, you get a glimpse of eternity — and of a phantasmagorical metaphysics all the more spectacular for being so outwardly unassuming.
71. “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting On Existence” (2014) István Borbás, Gergely Pálos
Roy Andersson‘s films are so idiosyncratically his that it might seem odd to single out the cinematography. But here, working with regular collaborators István Borbás and Gergely Pálos (the latter of whom also shot 2019’s “About Endlessness“) Andersson’s imagery achieves a kind of platonic ideal of his style. These locked-off shots are so precise it’s like they solve some geometric theorem for generating irony and absurdity merely through framing: the odd arrangement of the ashen-faced sadsack characters; the off-balance expanses of blank, disappointed walls; and a palette that is — somehow hilariously — the color of blanched almonds.