The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is the film industry’s yearly way to recognize some of cinema’s most beautiful and instantly iconic imagery. It’s an award that rewards those men who frame and compose the scenes that we see in every film—a somewhat technical award that nonetheless is one of the most hotly contested on a yearly basis, thanks to the prodigious talents of a handful of legendary cinematographers who tend to be nominated on a semi-regular basis. It’s a category that the film buffs in the audience are certainly paying quite a lot of attention.
In anticipation of the upcoming 90th Academy Awards taking place on March 4, check out the video above from YouTube channel Burger Fiction, which specializes in mash-ups and supercuts of this nature. Compiled here are striking visual imagery from all the films that have received Best Cinematography Oscars since 1927. There are actually even more films than you may realize in the video, owing to the fact that from 1936 to 1966 there were two separate cinematography categories—one for B&W films, and one for color.
At the end of the video, we also get a bonus look at this year’s nominated films: Mudbound, Blade Runner 2049, The Shape of Water, Dunkirk and The Darkest Hour. Our hearts are with Roger Deakins, whose nomination for Blade Runner 2049 is his 14th, despite the fact that he’s never successfully won the category.
Could it finally be Deakins’ year? Let’s hope so.