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Who is the best cinematographer in the history of film? This list of the great cinematographers in movie history includes some of the top directors of photography to ever step foot behind a camera. From pioneers like Kazuo Miyagawa, Vittorio Storaro, Gregg Toland, Conrad Howe, and James Wong Howe to modern movie masters like Darius Wolski, Emmanuel Lubezki, and Hoyte van Hoytema, this <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-most-oscar-worthy-directors-of-all-time?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">list of great directors</a> of photography includes some of the most skilled cinematographers ever.Film is a visual medium. Though they're always <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/behind-the-scenes-leprechaun-movies/jacob-shelton?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">behind the scenes</a> and often unheralded, without cinematographers, there would be no movies. The best DPs help bring the vision of a director, writer, and countless others to life, painting with light to create the unforgettable images onscreen.Vote for the&nbsp;cinematographer you think is the best in the list below and if you see anyone missing from the list, feel free to add them so that other movie fans and Rankers can vote on your additions!

Best Cinematographers | Top Directors of Photography in Film History

The Greatest Cinematographers in Movie History

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Roger Deakins

Roger Alexander Deakins  (born 24 May 1949) is an English cinematographer, best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve. Deakins is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers. He received the 2011 American Society of Cinematographers (A.S.C.) Lifetime Achievement Award.In recognition of outstanding contribution to the British film industry, Deakins is an honorary fellow of the National Film School in Buckinghamshire of which he is an alumnus. In 2013 he received a CBE at Buckingham Palace for "services to film." A recipient of four BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography, Deakins has received fourteen nominations and one win for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. His most well-known works include The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo,  A Beautiful Mind, Skyfall, Sicario, and Blade Runner 2049, the latter of which earned him his first Academy Award.

Emmanuel Lubezki

Emmanuel Lubezki Morgenstern, A.S.C., A.M.C. (Spanish pronunciation: [emaˈnwel luˈβeski]; born 30 November 1964) is a Mexican cinematographer. He sometimes goes by the nickname Chivo, which means "goat" in Spanish. Lubezki has worked with many acclaimed directors, including Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Michael Mann, Joel and Ethan Coen, and frequent collaborators Terrence Malick, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.Lubezki is known for groundbreaking uses of natural lighting and continuous uninterrupted shots in cinematography, often utilizing a Steadicam, a 3-axis gimbal, or hand-held camera to orchestrate fluid, uninterrupted camera movements during particularly significant scenes. His work has been praised by audiences and critics alike, which earned him multiple awards, including eight Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography. He won in this category three times, becoming the first person to do so in three consecutive years, for Gravity (2013), Birdman (2014), and The Revenant (2015).

Vilmos Zsigmond

Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC (Hungarian: [ˈvilmoʃ ˈʒiɡmond]; June 16, 1930 – January 1, 2016) was a Hungarian-American cinematographer. His work in cinematography helped shape the look of American movies in the 1970s, making him one of the leading figures in the American New Wave movement.Over his career he became associated with many leading American directors, such as Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Michael Cimino and Woody Allen. He is best known for his work on the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter.He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for The Deer Hunter. He also won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special for the HBO miniseries Stalin.His work on the films McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter made the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) list of the top 50 best-shot films from 1950–97.  The ASC also awarded him with their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.In 2003 Zsigmond was voted as one of the ten most influential cinematographers in history by the members of the International Cinematographers Guild.

Néstor Almendros

Néstor Almendros Cuyás, ASC (30 October 1930 – 4 March 1992) was a Spanish cinematographer. One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers, "Almendros was an artist of deep integrity, who believed the most beautiful light was natural light...he will always be remembered as a cinematographer of absolute truth...a true master of light".

Vittorio Storaro

Vittorio Storaro, A.S.C., A.I.C. (born 24 June 1940) is an Italian cinematographer widely recognized for his work on numerous classic films including The Conformist, Apocalypse Now, and The Last Emperor. In the course of over fifty years, he has collaborated with directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Warren Beatty, and Woody Allen. He has received three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, a BAFTA Film Award for Best Cinematography, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Goya Award, and a David di Donatello Silver Ribbon Award, in addition to numerous lifetime achievement honours from various film organizations.

Asakazu Nakai

Asakazu Nakai (Japanese: 中井朝一; August 29, 1901 – February 28, 1988) was a Japanese cinematographer, born in Kobe. He worked on a dozen films with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work in the film Ran (1985), becoming the oldest nominee ever in that category. In 1950 he won the award for Best Cinematography at the Mainichi Film Concours for Stray Dog.

John Alcott

John Alcott, BSC (1931 – 28 July 1986) was an English cinematographer known for his four collaborations with director Stanley Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), for which he took over as lighting cameraman from Geoffrey Unsworth in mid-shoot, A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), the film for which he won his Oscar, and The Shining (1980). Alcott died from a heart attack in Cannes, France in July 1986; he was 55. He received a tribute at the end of his last film No Way Out starring Kevin Costner.

Sven Nykvist

Sven Vilhem Nykvist (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈsvɛnː ˈvɪlːhɛlm ²nyːkvɪst]) (3 December 1922 – 20 September 2006) was a Swedish cinematographer. He worked on over 120 films, but is known especially for his work with director Ingmar Bergman. He won Academy Awards for his work on two Bergman films, Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop) in 1973 and Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander) in 1983, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography for The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
His work is generally noted for its naturalism and simplicity. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest cinematographers of all time. In 2003, Nykvist was judged one of history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild.

Kazuo Miyagawa

Kazuo Miyagawa (宮川 一夫, Miyagawa Kazuo, February 25, 1908 – August 7, 1999) was a Japanese cinematographer.

Jack Cardiff

Jack Cardiff, OBE, BSC
(18 September 1914 – 22 April 2009) was a British cinematographer, director and photographer.
His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor to filmmaking more than half-a-century later. He was best known for his influential colour cinematography for directors such as Powell and Pressburger, Huston and Hitchcock.
In 2000 he was awarded an OBE and in 2001 he was awarded an Honorary Oscar for his contribution to the cinema.
Jack Cardiff's work is reviewed in the documentary film: Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (2010).

Darius Khondji

Darius Khondji, A.S.C. (Persian: داریوش خنجی‎; born 21 October 1955) is an Iranian-French cinematographer. He is best known for his work on David Fincher's Seven (1995). Khondji has worked with a number of high-profile directors, including Fincher, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, and Danny Boyle.

Freddie Young

Frederick A. Young, OBE, BSC (9 October 1902 – 1 December 1998), (often credited as F.A. Young) was a British cinematographer. He is probably best known for his work on David Lean's films Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Ryan's Daughter (1970), all three of which won him Academy Awards for Best Cinematography.
He was also director of photography on more than 130 films, including many other notable productions, such as Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939), 49th Parallel (1941), Lust for Life (1956), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), Lord Jim (1965), Battle of Britain (1969), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), and the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967).  He was also the first British cinematographer to film in CinemaScope.
Young co-wrote The Work of the Motion Picture Cameraman, with Paul Petzold, published in 1972 (Focal Press, London).
In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild placed Young among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 1996/97.In 1984, Young directed his only film as at the age of 82, Arthur's Hallowed Ground, starring Jimmy Jewel, which was made for television.

Raoul Coutard

Raoul Coutard (16 September 1924 – 8 November 2016)  was a French cinematographer. He is best known for his connection with the Nouvelle Vague period and particularly for his work with director Jean-Luc Godard. Coutard also shot films for New Wave director François Truffaut as well as Jacques Demy, a contemporary frequently associated with the movement.
He shot over 75 films during a career that lasted nearly half a century.

Ingmar Bergman

Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish director, writer, and producer who worked in film, television, theatre and radio. Considered to be among the most accomplished and influential filmmakers of all time, Bergman's films include Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), and Fanny and Alexander (1982); the last two exist in extended television versions.
Bergman directed over sixty films and documentaries for cinematic release and for television screenings, most of which he also wrote. He also directed over 170 plays. He eventually forged a creative partnership with his cinematographers Gunnar Fischer and Sven Nykvist. Among his company of actors were Harriet and Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin and Max von Sydow. Most of his films were set in Sweden, and many films from Through a Glass Darkly (1961) onward were filmed on the island of Fårö.
Philip French referred to Bergman as "one of the greatest artists of the 20th century ... he found in literature and the performing arts a way of both recreating and questioning the human condition." Director Martin Scorsese commented; "If you were alive in the 50s and the 60s and of a certain age, a teenager on your way to becoming an adult, and you wanted to make movies, I don't see how you couldn't be influenced by Bergman ....It's impossible to overestimate the effect that those films had on people."

Haskell Wexler

Haskell Wexler, ASC (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American cinematographer, film producer and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild.

Anthony Dod Mantle

Anthony Dod Mantle, DFF, BSC, ASC (born 14 April 1955) is a British cinematographer and still photographer. He won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Other accolades include two Bodil Awards, two European Film Awards, and four Robert Awards.
Dod Mantle is considered a pioneer of digital filmmaking through his collaborations with directors Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and Danny Boyle, where he popularized the use of "action-style" handheld cameras over traditional, stationary 35mm rigs.
A veteran of Dogme 95, he is heavily influenced by the cinema verite film movement. He is a member of the British, Danish, and American Society of Cinematographers, and resides in Copenhagen.



Christopher Doyle

Christopher Doyle, also known as Dù Kěfēng (Mandarin) or Dou Ho-Fung (Cantonese) (traditional Chinese: 杜可風; simplified Chinese: 杜可风) (born 2 May 1952) is an Australian-Hong Kong cinematographer. He has worked on over fifty Chinese-language films, being best known for his collaborations with Wong Kar-Wai in Chungking Express, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love and 2046. Doyle is also known for other films such as Temptress Moon, Hero, Dumplings, and Psycho. He has won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, as well as AFI Award for cinematography, the Golden Horse awards (four times), and Hong Kong Film Award (six times).

Robert Richardson

Robert Bridge Richardson, ASC (born August 27, 1955) is an American cinematographer. He has won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography three times, for his work on JFK, The Aviator, and Hugo. Richardson is and has been a frequent collaborator for several directors, including Oliver Stone, John Sayles, Errol Morris, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese. He is one of three living persons who won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography three times, the others being Vittorio Storaro and Emmanuel Lubezki.

Gregg Toland

Gregg Toland, A.S.C. (May 29, 1904 – September 28, 1948) was an American cinematographer known for his innovative use of techniques such as deep focus, examples of which can be found in his work on Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and John Ford's The Long Voyage Home (1940). Toland was voted as one of the top 10 (actually 11 with a tie) most influential cinematographers in the history of films by the International Cinematographers Guild in 2003.

Rodrigo Prieto

Rodrigo Prieto (born November 23, 1965) is a Mexican cinematographer.



Claudio Miranda

Claudio Miranda (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈklau̯ðjo miˈɾanða]) is a Chilean cinematographer best known as the Academy Award-winning director of photography on Ang Lee's film Life of Pi and as the director of photography on David Fincher's film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the first entirely digitally filmed movie nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and an American Society of Cinematographers Award. He is also known for his collaborations with American director Joseph Kosinski. He is the second Chilean person to win an Academy Award.



James Wong Howe

Wong Tung Jim, A.S.C. (Chinese: 黃宗霑; August 28, 1899 – July 12, 1976), known professionally as James Wong Howe (Houghto), was a Chinese American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was one of the most sought after cinematographers in Hollywood due to his innovative filming techniques. Howe was known as a master of the use of shadow and one of the first to use deep-focus cinematography, in which both foreground and distant planes remain in focus.Born in Guangzhou, China, Howe immigrated to the United States at age five and grew up in Washington. He was a professional boxer during his teenage years, and later began his career in the film industry as an assistant to Cecil B. DeMille. Howe pioneered the use of wide-angle lenses and low-key lighting, as well as the use of the crab dolly.
Despite the success of his professional life, Howe faced significant racial discrimination in his private life. He became an American citizen only after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, and due to anti-miscegenation laws, his marriage to a white woman was not legally recognized in the United States until 1948.
Howe earned ten nominations for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, winning twice for The Rose Tattoo (1955) and Hud (1963). He was selected as one of the ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild. On May 25, 2018, Google honored Howe with a doodle on its homepage.

Geoffrey Unsworth

Geoffrey Gilyard Unsworth, OBE, BSC (26 May 1914 – 28 October 1978) was a British cinematographer who worked on nearly 90 feature films spanning over more than 40 years. He is best known for his work on films such as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bob Fosse's Cabaret and Richard Donner's Superman.

Dion Beebe

Dion Beebe A.C.S. A.S.C. ( DEE-on BEE-bee; born 1968) is an Australian-South African cinematographer. Originally from Brisbane, Australia, his family moved to Cape Town, South Africa in 1972. Dion studied cinematography at the Australian Film Television and Radio School from 1987 to 1989.
Beebe was nominated for an Academy Award and BAFTA for his work on Rob Marshall's Chicago, and won the 2006 Academy Award for his work on the director's later Memoirs of a Geisha. He is known for his use of stylized, highly saturated colour palettes and for his experimental use of high-speed digital video on Michael Mann's Collateral (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Cinematography) and Miami Vice. He is also a member of the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).

John Toll

John Toll, ASC (born June 15, 1952) is an American cinematographer. Toll's filmography spans a wide variety of genres, including epic period drama, comedy, science fiction, and contemporary drama. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in both 1994 and 1995 for Legends of the Fall and Braveheart respectively, and has also won numerous BAFTA, ASC, and Satellite Awards. He has collaborated with several noteworthy directors, including Francis Ford Coppola, Edward Zwick, Terrence Malick, Mel Gibson, John Madden, The Wachowskis, and Ang Lee. Outside film, he has shot several commercials, the pilot episode of Emmy Award-winning drama series Breaking Bad, and has served as chief cinematographer on the Netflix original series Sense8 by the Wachowskis, on which he also got executive producing credit in its second season.

Who is the best cinematographer in the history of film? This list of the great cinematographers in movie history includes some of the top directors of ...

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