Previously: Production Design, Costumes, Screenplays, Visual FX, Animation & Docs, and Supporting Categories
News of the World
Where will Oscar voters turn for the Best Cinematography nominations this season. Will they be looking for evocative landscapes, genre polish, intimate dramas, gaudy musicals, or tour de force biopics? In an Oscar year that's been characterized by the near complete lack of the theatrical experience, the category that arguably most needs that to soar is a big question mark. With most voters not seeing the contenders on the big screen what will they make of, say, Dariusz Wolski's large open impressive vistas in News of the World? Will Hoyte van Hoytema's slick lensing of something expensive like Tenet have any thrilling sweep on television screens? Will Mandy Walker's work on Mulan have any takers since it fits both of those descriptions?
Nomadland
Mank
The only sure thing at this writing appears to be Joshua James Richards acclaimed magic hour work on Nomadland. It's the kind of emotional and natural epic imagery that can feel so breathtaking on large screens, but it's also intimate dramatically in a way that will inevitably work on the small screen. I myself screened it in frankly terrible circumstances (as surely many other critics and voters will) and the mournful beauty was still impossible to miss despite being muffled by pixellation and intrusive watermarks. We'd guess that Erik Messerschmidt's work on Mank is not far behind since black and white is enough of a gimmick that it usually wins the Academy's eyeballs if not their automatic votes.
Minari
I Carry You With Me
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
We're currently predicting an all first-timers field of nominees which is... unlikely now that we've typed it out. But many of Oscar's previously-nominated cinematographers either sat this year out or their movies are divisive (Lukasz Zal on I'm Thinking of Ending Things) or saddled with an unfair 'underperforming' narratives (the Tenet situation) or not often discussed or praised on visual terms (Phedon Papamichael on Trial of the Chicago 7 and Matthew Libatique on The Prom). Some of the most beautiful work is on small scale films like Lachlan Milne on Minari or Juan Pablo Ramirez on I Carry You With Me but small-scale films occassionally run into trouble in the craft categories.
SEE THE CHART - Who do you think will be nominated this year?