Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

I'm fine with Roger Deakins. I've voted for him a few times in the past but I don't feel strongly enough about any of these other choices to vote for them. There's a wearying quality to all the prestige 3D films or insane tracking shots of most of the Oscar-winning cinematography juggernauts over the past decade, but 1917 is a pretty great achievement. I don't desperately feel the need to take Roger Deakins' second Oscar away from him.

I'm not sure where I land in this category. None of these made my ballot, but I don't think any of these are bad work at all. I would probably put The Lighthouse last, mainly because that movie felt like nothing but an exercise in technique, and as skilled as the cinematography is, it never really rose above the level of a stunt to me. Joker would go next, mainly because, although there are some striking images, most of what's visually interesting about it seems to be influence by other films than anything original.

The other three are all contenders for my vote. Can't argue with Deakins getting an easy second win for virtuoso, super-high-degree-of-difficulty work. Does it win without the one-shot stunt? Maybe, because a clear alternate choice never really emerged. (The alternate, to the extent that there was one, was The Lighthouse, and that wasn't winning.) Rodrigo Prieto's work on The Irishman probably got overshadowed by the visual effects/de-aging talk, because it's not super-showy work so it probably felt like a coattail nomination, but its visual look is every bit on the level of other Scorsese films in my mind. And Once Upon a Time in Hollywood's cinematography never quite got the praise of the sets or costumes, but I think it should have. It walks the same balance as the movie itself--evoking late 60's Hollywood as a lost world but also as a world that never was. It's close, but it gets my vote. I know there was no real desire to give Richardson a fourth Oscar, but in our theoretical game, I haven't voted for him that many times, so I'm glad to vote for him here.

1917 but The Lighthouse is a very close second.

1917

1917, no contest.

Make your pick and share your thoughts about last year's nominees for cinematography.