Best Cinematography: The Digital Reign And Film’s Revival At The Oscars

As chronicled in the 2012 Christopher Kenneally documentary “Side by Side,” up to the mid-2000s, digital cinematography was only used for certain Danny Boyle or Steven Soderbergh projects rather than as the default norm for cinema. While the number of films shot on 35mm in recent years has increased recently from 23 in 2018 to 60+ in 2023, these are still abnormalities in the cinematography norms of modern filmmaking. To fully understand how and when digital camerawork came to dominate Hollywood, look at the modern history of the Best Cinematography Oscar. This category’s winners and nominees from the last 20 years vividly portray how digital cinematography has ascended to its current high status in Hollywood.

Believe it or not, it took until the 81st Academy Awards for a digital Best Cinematography nominee to emerge at the Oscars. At this ceremony, not one but two features shot on digital film (“Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) were nominated in this category. Anthony Dod Mantle took home the Best Cinematography Oscar that year for his work on “Slumdog Millionaire.” It was a shot heard around the world in terms of camerawork; digitally shot movies weren’t just capable of scoring Oscar nominees; they could take home the trophy, too. Interestingly, though, neither “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” nor “Slumdog Millionaire” were entirely captured on digital cameras. They still made use of classic film for certain sequences.

The following year, Mauro Fiore’s win for Best Cinematography for “Avatar” would take things one step further. Now, a motion picture shot entirely on digital film took home a prestigious Oscar associated with artists like Joseph Ruttenberg and Conrad L. Hall. Digital cinematography was no longer an anomaly but a recurring feature in the Best Cinematography Oscar category. Meanwhile, that year’s Best Picture winner, “The Hurt Locker,” blended old and new cinematography techniques. Sizeable portions of Kathryn Bigelow’s film were captured on 16mm cameras, yet digital Phantom HD cameras were also utilized for key sequences.

Though Wally Pfister won the Best Cinematography Oscar the following year for his old-school film work on “Inception,” digital cinema’s ceaseless dominance was not stopping. By the early 2010s, as studios began making digital cinematography the norm for all movies, “Hugo” and “Life of Pi” took home the Best Cinematography Oscars. From there, the 2010s typically saw digitally shot Best Cinematography Oscar winners, albeit with one notable exception: “La La Land,” as part of its homage to classic musicals, was shot on 35mm.

Otherwise, the omnipresence of digital cinema was reflected in this cinematography style dominating the Oscars. Legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins took home two Oscars in the 2010s for digitally shot productions “Blade Runner 2049” and “1917.” If Deakins had embraced digital camerawork, then this filmmaking mode had truly arrived. Part of this dominance, unfortunately, isn’t just because all artists love working with digital cinematography. The ubiquity of digitally shot movies and digital Best Cinematography Oscar nominees/winners is also because of corporate mandates that make it often impossible to shoot features through traditional means.

This is most evidently seen in Netflix, a company that movies like “Da 5 Bloods” turn to when no other financing opportunities are available. The streamer has strict mandates that all original films/TV shows developed in-house be shot on very specific, often digital cameras to deliver “peak” image resolution. In other words, if you want your movie to exist with Netflix money, you have to accept shooting digitally and in a style reminiscent of other programming on the streamer. Netflix makes exceptions by allowing certain movies like “Maestro” or “Rustin” to be shot on classical 35mm film. However, Netflix original movies must typically be digital creations, creating more opportunities for digitally shot Best Cinematography Oscar nominees.

Even with this ubiquity and industry standards stretching far beyond Netflix, the Best Cinematography Oscar has begun housing more and more features shot on film. Across the 94th and 95th Academy Awards ceremonies, “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” “Bardo,” “West Side Story,” and “Empire of Light” were all shot, either entirely or almost exclusively, on various film formats. Meanwhile, the 96th Academy Awards didn’t just see Hoyte von Hoytema score the Best Cinematography Oscar for a movie (“Oppenheimer“) shot on film since “Inception” thirteen years earlier.

All but one of that year’s Best Cinematography nominees were either largely or exclusively captured on film. The only exception was “El Conde,” with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Maestro,” and “Poor Things,” making that year’s Best Cinematography Oscar nominee line-up an exciting throwback. It was an exciting development mirroring how 2023 saw 60+ new releases shot on film. A format once thought of as dead has been making a minor comeback on many fronts, including in award season.

Can this hot streak continue this year? Surprisingly, almost certainly. The current big movies generating lots of Best Cinematography buzz on the film festival circuit are titles shot on various forms of film, such as 35mm or 16mm. These include projects like “The Brutalist,” “Nickel Boys,” “Conclave,” “Nosferatu,” “Blitz,” “Challengers,” “Maria,” “Sing Sing,“ and “Anora.“ Looking at the biggest 2024-2025 award season contenders, traditional cinematography techniques are the norm, while digital camerawork is the exception. In a staggering but deeply welcome development, artists have begun to embrace the virtues of classical film cinematography yet again.

This year’s Best Cinematography Oscar race features predominantly films shot digitally but also a few shot on traditional celluloid. Here is the Next Best Picture team’s ten consensus films at the moment for Best Cinematography:

THE BRUTALIST (Lol Crawley)

DUNE: PART TWO (Greig Fraser)

MARIA (Edward Lachmann)

NOSFERATU (Jarin Blaschke)

BLITZ (Yorick Le Saux)

EMILIA PÉREZ (Paul Guilhaume)

CONCLAVE (Stéphane Fontaine)

NICKEL BOYS (Jomo Fray)

JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX (Lawrence Sher)

GLADIATOR II (John Mathieson)

Of these ten films, “The Brutalist,” “Maria,” and “Nosferatu” are shot on film, while the others are shot digitally. Currently, the Next Best Picture team believes Lol Crawley will win his first Oscar for Brady Corbet’s epic immigrant story, “The Brutalist.” Still, the industry might just decide it’s time to finally award Edward Lachmann for an entire career of beautiful images with his latest breathtaking work on Pablo Larrain’s “Maria.” Or maybe, after his first nomination for Robert Eggers’s “The Lighthouse,” the Academy is impressed by Jarin Blaschke’s use of shadows within the gothic horror setting to give him his first win for “Nosferatu.”

If any movies shot on film take home the Best Cinematography Oscar, it would be the first time in nearly two decades that features shot on film won in this category on two consecutive occasions (after last year’s “Oppenheimer“). After more than a decade of studio executives and corporate heads declaring 35mm and 16mm film as an arcane technique that must be banished, it’s exciting to see this resurrection in enthralling action. Digital cinematography, as seen by the 2010s Oscar winners in this category, has become inescapable in modern cinema. However, 2023 and 2024 movies suggest an exciting comeback for shooting on film that could even entail some further Best Cinematography Oscars for the format.

Source：Lisa Laman/NBP