cinemadiso's - Best Cinematography List

One of the most critically-acclaimed films of all time, 'Days of Heaven' is a moving story about two men who love the same woman. Richard Gere, a fugitive from the slums of Chicago, finds himself pitted against a shy, rich Texan (Sam Shepard) for the love of Abby (Brooke Adams).

Show moreShow less

Orson Welles makes his feature-length directorial debut with this classic drama which often tops critics' polls of the best films of all time. In 1940, newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Welles) dies after uttering the word 'Rosebud'.

An anonymous reporter (William Alland) is assigned the task of uncovering the meaning of Kane's dying word, and in the course of his enquiries he receives varying accounts of his life from former colleagues Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and Bernstein (Everett Sloan), and ex-wife Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore). The film, which Welles also produced and co-wrote, was not-so-loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Show moreShow less

How does an Irish lad without prospects become part of 18th-century nobility? For Barry Lyndon (Ryan O'Neal) the answer is: any way he can! His climb to wealth and privilege is the enthralling focus of this sumptuous Stanley Kubrick version of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel.

For this ravishing, slyly satiric winner of four Academy Awards, Kubrick found inspiration in the works of the era's painters. Costumes and sets were crafted in the era's designs and pioneering lenses were developed to shoot interiors and exteriors in natural light. The result? Barry Lyndon endures as a cutting-edge movie that brings a historical period to vivid screen life like no other film before or since.

Show moreShow less

F. W. Murnau, Germany's finest director, was imported to Hollywood in July 1926. William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation promised and gave him complete artistic freedom. Fox told Murnau to take his time, spend whatever he had to, and make any film he wished to make.

The film that resulted was Sunrise, made entirely without studio interference. Sunrise, a psychological thriller from the silent movie era, begins when the pleasant and peaceful life of a naive country Man (George O'Brien) is turned upside down when he falls for a cold-blooded yet seductive Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston). She persuades him to drown his virtuous Wife (Janet Gaynor) in order to be with her. This is one of the most moving stories ever told on screen - a tale of temptation, reconciliation, reconsecration, and redemption, told with a lyrical simplicity that gives it the timeless universality of a fable.

Show moreShow less

"2001: A Space Odyssey" is a countdown to tomorrow, a road map to human destiny, a quest for the infinite. It is a dazzling, Academy Award-winning visual achievement, a compelling drama of man vs. machine, a stunning meld of music and motion.

It may be the masterwork of director Stanley Kubrick (who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur C. Clarke) and it will likely excite, inspire and enthrall for generations. To begin his voyage into the future, Kubrick visits our prehistoric ape-ancestry past, then leaps millennia (via one of the most mind-blowing jump cuts ever conceived) into colonized space, and ultimately whisks astronaut Bowman (Keir Dullea) into uncharted realms of space, perhaps even into immortality.

The story begins in Rome, 1938. Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a young fascist who takes on the job of assassinating his former professor who has fled to Paris. With his girlfriend (Stefania Sandrelli) in tow he meets the professor and his young wife (Dominique Sanda)...

Show moreShow less

1902: John McCabe (Warren Beatty) turns up in a northwest mining town called Presbyterian Church, starts gambling and sets up a successful brothel with his girlfriend Constance Miller (Julie Christie), an opium-addicted madam.

They refuse an offer from the mine operators to buy them out, but the mine bosses refuse to take no for an answer.

Show moreShow less

This Powell and Pressburger classic is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.

Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), a young ballerina, becomes torn between her love for composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and artistic devotion to her profession, which is dominated by impresario Lermontov.

Show moreShow less

Set in Midwestern America, 'The Magnificent Ambersons' tells the tale of Isabel Amberson Minafer (Dolores Costello) and her son George (Tim Holt), an upper middle class family experiencing social decline at the turn of the century.

With the industrial and technological age taking full force, the chances within the family are self destructing. After the death of her husband Wilbur (Don Dillaway), Isabel is romantically linked with Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten) whom she knew from years previous to her marriage. George, unhappy with this courtship, proceeds to do everything in his power to destroy their relationship despite falling for Eugene's daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter). Disaster strikes for the Amberson family and events do not turn out as George expected...

The epic yet intimate story follows the life journey of Jack O'Brien (played as an adult by Penn), the eldest son of a fractured Texas family. Pitt delivers a powerful performance as the cataclysmic force of nature in Jack's world, his complex and rigidly authoritarian father.

Show moreShow less

Francis Ford Coppola's stunning vision of man's heart of darkness revealed through the madness of the Vietnam War. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) receives orders to seek out a renegade military outpost led by the mysterious Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando).

Willard's mission: "Terminate with extreme prejudice".

Show moreShow less

Forty-two-year-old Manhattan native Isaac Davis (Allen) has a job he hates, a seventeen-year-old girlfriend (Mariel Hemingway) he doesn't love, and a lesbian ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) who's writing a tell-all book about their marriage... and whom he'd like to strangle.

But when he meets his best friend's sexy, intellectual mistress, Mary (Diane Keaton), Isaac falls head over heels in lust! Leaving Tracy, bedding Mary and quitting his job are just the beginning of Isaac's quest for romance and fulfillment in a city where sex is as intimate as a handshake - and the gate to true love... is a revolving door.

Show moreShow less

A tall, handsome 'preacher' - his knuckles eerily tattooed with 'love' and 'hate' - roams the countryside, spreading the gospel...and leaving a trail of murdered women in his wake.

To Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), the work of the Lord has more to do with condemning souls than saving them, especially when his own interests are involved. Now his sights are set on $10,000 - and two little children are the only ones who know where it is. 'Chill...dren!' the preacher croons to the terrified boy and girl hiding in the cold, dark cellar...innocent young lambs who refuse to be led astray.

Show moreShow less

Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) leads a group of Anglican nuns to a remote Himalayan range of mountains, there to set up a mission in an abandoned harem.

This is her first position of authority and she finds both her physical and her spiritual limits being taxed as she has to maintain order and discipline in a claustrophobically hostile environment. Slowly but surely, however, the privations and hardship they must endure, the extremes of climate and the peculiar amorality of the local natives all combine to slowly corrupt the women's faith, pushing them further into jealousy, anger and madness...

Show moreShow less

The year is 2027: The world's youngest person has just died at 18, and humankind is facing its own extinction. In a society torn apart by violence and warring sects, children of men follows Theo (Clive Owen) as he becomes an unlikely champion of earth's SURVIVAL.

One women represents the planet's LAST REMAINING HOPE - When her safety is threatened, Theo is forced to protect her from certain peril.