100 Films to See for Cinematography

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Criteria for grading a film on cinematography

Most people, even filmmakers who should know better, have the erroneous notion that cinematography is all about pretty pictures.

Not true.

Cinematography has multiple disciplines. I’m looking for mastery over all disciplines. Truly great cinematography is also pioneering, and advances the art and craft of filmmaking. Here’s my definition of cinematography:

What is Cinematography?

Here are the four disciplines I’ve considered:

1 Film lighting artistry

Film lighting decides how everything looks. To get a perfect score in this category the film must have pioneering lighting.

What if there’s no artificial lighting? In that case I consider natural lighting, practicals and exposure.

2 Camera angles artistry

Composition is important in photography. In cinematography, composition is the art of framing multiple shots that need to be combined as a coherent whole. Most times these shots are from different angles. Sometimes it’s just a fixed angle, and sometimes there’s motion, too.

Finding the right angle is hard. Finding it consistently over an entire film is genius. A perfect score in this category signifies the film broke new ground in composition, camera angles and blocking.

3 Camera movement artistry

When you add camera movement, things get really tricky. To paraphrase Orson Welles in gender neutral terms, that’s what separates the greats from the pretenders. To get a perfect score a film must either advance the art and craft of camera motion. In other words, every frame a painting, even when it moves.

What if there’s no camera movement?

The score reflects camera angles artistry. After all, restraint is much the hallmark of art as abandon. However, when deciding between two movies of other equally great cinematography disciplines, the one that utilized camera movement gets the advantage, because it’s that much harder.

4 Color design artistry

A great part of cinematography is production design. Attention paid to the color palette pays off with a more coherent world and mood. Why must it not be rewarded? To get a perfect score here the colors must have advanced the art of cinematography.

Movies shot on film get the benefit here, because most things had to be done on set. Color timing wasn’t as precise as the color grading tools we have today.

What if there’s no color?

A significant portion of great cinematography is in black and white. One can approach this from two perspectives. Either one assumes that filming in color is tougher, because the added element of color makes everything harder. On the other hand you can assume that black and white has its own language, and it must be treated on par with color.

I decided to go with a compromise you might not agree with, but works for me. I averaged the scores of the other three categories and that’s what black and white films get under the color category. Strangely, it doesn’t lead to unexpected results. A more direct comparison is impossible anyway.

What happens when there’s a tie?

I value film over digital. I value the year the film was made, and otherwise I value camera movement above other departments because it just makes all the other cinematography disciplines that much harder to perfect as well. When you move the camera, lighting becomes more complicated, camera angles become harder to pull off, and color needs to be perfect.

I value color second, film lighting third, and camera angles fourth. Don’t get me wrong. Camera angles artistry is critically important, and is the foundation of cinematography. However, it is also the one with convention to guide you. It’s a safety net that other disciplines don’t have.