Visions of Light is a 1992 documentary film directed by Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy, and Stuart Samuels. The film is also known as Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography.

The film covers the art of cinematography

Cinematography

Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...

 since the conception of cinema at the turn of the 20th century. Many filmmakers and cinematographer

Cinematographer

A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...

s present their views and discuss why the art of cinematography is important within the craft of filmmaking.

Synopsis

The film is the equivalent of a walk through a cinema museum. The doc interviews many modern-day directors of photography and they illustrate via examples their best work and the scenes from films that influenced them to pursue their art.

Many known cinematographers are interviewed, including: Nestor Almendros

Néstor Almendros

Néstor Almendros, ASC was an Oscar winning Spanish cinematographer. One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers, "Almendros was an artist of deep integrity, who believed the most beautiful light was natural light...he will always be remembered as a cinematographer of absolute...

, John Bailey

John Bailey (cinematographer)

John Bailey, A.S.C. is an American Cinematographer and Film Director.Born in Moberly, Missouri, Bailey attended Santa Clara University and Loyola University Chicago. During his junior year he studied German language and culture at the University of Vienna, where he developed an appreciation for...

, Conrad Hall

Conrad Hall

Conrad Lafcadio Hall, ASC was an American cinematographer from Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia. Named after writers Joseph Conrad and Lafcadio Hearn, he was best known for photographing films such as In Cold Blood, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and Road to...

, Michael Chapman

Michael Chapman

Michael Chapman may refer to:* Mike Chapman , record producer* Michael Chapman * Michael Chapman * Michael Chapman...

, László Kovács

László Kovács (cinematographer)

László Kovács, A.S.C. was a Hungarian cinematographer who was influential in the development of American New Wave films. Most famous for his award-winning work on Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, Kovács was the recipient of numerous awards, including three Lifetime Achievement Awards...

, and others.

They discuss their craft and pay homage to the cinema pioneers like Gregg Toland

Gregg Toland

Gregg Toland, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer noted for his innovative use of lighting and techniques such as deep focus, an example of which can be found in his work on Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.-Career:...

, Billy Bitzer

Billy Bitzer

Gottfried Wilhelm "Billy" Bitzer was a pioneering cinematographer notable for his close association with D. W. Griffith....

, James Wong Howe

James Wong Howe

James Wong Howe, A.S.C. was a Chinese American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films...

 and John Alton

John Alton

John Alton A.S.C. , born Johann Altmann, in Sopron/Ödenburg, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary, was an American cinematographer...

. The practitioners also explain the origins behind many of their most indelible images in cinema history.

Cinematographer interviews

• Ernest Dickerson
  Ernest Dickerson
  Ernest Roscoe Dickerson A.S.C. is an American film and television director and cinematographer. He directed generally urban films sometimes with supernatural stories like Juice, Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, Bones and Never Die Alone...
  
  
• Michael Chapman
  Michael Chapman (cinematographer)
  Michael Chapman, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer whose prominence owes most to his innovative work of the 1970s and 1980s....
  
  
• Allen Daviau
  Allen Daviau
  Allen Daviau, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer.-Selected filmography:*Amblin *Close Encounters of the Third Kind *E.T...
  
  
• Caleb Deschanel
  Caleb Deschanel
  Joseph Caleb Deschanel, A.S.C. is an American film cinematographer and film/television director.-Early life:Deschanel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a French father and an American mother, who raised him in her Quaker religion. He went to Severn School for high school...
  
  
• Conrad Hall
  Conrad Hall
  Conrad Lafcadio Hall, ASC was an American cinematographer from Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia. Named after writers Joseph Conrad and Lafcadio Hearn, he was best known for photographing films such as In Cold Blood, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and Road to...
  
  
• William A. Fraker
  William A. Fraker
  William Ashman Fraker, A.S.C., B.S.C. was a cinematographer, film director, and producer. He has been nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. In 2000, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers honoring his career...
  
  
• John Bailey
  John Bailey (cinematographer)
  John Bailey, A.S.C. is an American Cinematographer and Film Director.Born in Moberly, Missouri, Bailey attended Santa Clara University and Loyola University Chicago. During his junior year he studied German language and culture at the University of Vienna, where he developed an appreciation for...
  
  
• Néstor Almendros
  Néstor Almendros
  Néstor Almendros, ASC was an Oscar winning Spanish cinematographer. One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers, "Almendros was an artist of deep integrity, who believed the most beautiful light was natural light...he will always be remembered as a cinematographer of absolute...
  
  
• Vilmos Zsigmond
  Vilmos Zsigmond
  Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C. is a Hungarian-American cinematographer.In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild placed Zsigmond among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.-Biography:...
  
  
• Stephen H. Burum
  Stephen H. Burum
  Stephen Henry Burum, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer.-Biography:Burum was born in 1939 in Dinuba, California, a small Central Valley town near Visalia. He graduated from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in the 1960s, and became an instructor at the same school...
  
  
• Charles Lang
  Charles Lang
  Charles Bryant Lang, Jr., A.S.C. was an American cinematographer.Early in his career he worked with the Akeley camera, a gyroscope-mounted "pancake" camera designed by Carl Akeley for outdoor action shots...
  
  
• Sven Nykvist
  Sven Nykvist
  Sven Vilhem Nykvist was a Swedish cinematographer. He worked on over 120 films, but is known especially for his work with director Ingmar Bergman...
  
  
• László Kovács
  László Kovács (cinematographer)
  László Kovács, A.S.C. was a Hungarian cinematographer who was influential in the development of American New Wave films. Most famous for his award-winning work on Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, Kovács was the recipient of numerous awards, including three Lifetime Achievement Awards...
  
  
• James Wong Howe
  James Wong Howe
  James Wong Howe, A.S.C. was a Chinese American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films...
  
  
• Haskell Wexler
  Haskell Wexler
  Haskell Wexler, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild.-Early life and education:Wexler was born to a Jewish...
  
  
• Vittorio Storaro
  Vittorio Storaro
  Vittorio Storaro, A.S.C., A.I.C. is an Italian cinematographer.In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild judged Storaro one of history's ten most influential cinematographers.-Biography:...
  
  
• John A. Alonzo
  John A. Alonzo
  John Alonzo, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer who pioneered hand held work, lighting techniques and HD development during his career...
  
  
• Victor J. Kemper
  Victor J. Kemper
  Victor Jay Kemper, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer who has worked on over fifty films. He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers , and was its president twice, from 1993 to 1996, and from 1999 to 2001...
  
  
• Owen Roizman
  Owen Roizman
  Owen Roizman, A.S.C. is a cinematographer and a Member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.He is also a member of the American Society of Cinematographers .-Filmography:...
  
  
• Gordon Willis
  Gordon Willis
  Gordon Willis, ASC, is an American cinematographer best known for his work on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather series as well as Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Manhattan....
  
  
• Bill Butler
  Bill Butler (cinematographer)
  Wilmer C. “Bill” Butler, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer, part of the New Hollywood generation. He shot The Conversation, and completed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest after Haskell Wexler was fired from the production. He also shot three Rocky films, among many other movie projects...
  
  
• Michael Ballhaus
  Michael Ballhaus
  Michael Ballhaus, A.S.C. is a German cinematographer. In 1990, he was the Head of the Jury at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.- Life and career :...
  
  
• Frederick Elmes
  Frederick Elmes
  Frederick Elmes, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer who has won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography twice, for Wild at Heart and Night on Earth....
  
  

Filmography

The filmmakers discuss the following films:

• Dickson Experimental Sound Film
  Dickson Experimental Sound Film
  The Dickson Experimental Sound Film is a film made by William Dickson in late 1894 or early 1895. It is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto-sound-film system developed by Dickson and Thomas Edison...
  
  (1895)
• Repas de bébé
  Repas de bébé
  Repas de bébé is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Louis Lumière and starring Andrée Lumière....
  
  (1895)
• L'Arrivée d'un train à la Ciotat
  L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat
  L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed...
  
  (1895)
• The Kiss (1896)
• Le Spectre rouge (1907)
• The Birth of a Nation
  The Birth of a Nation
  The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
  
  (1915)
• Intolerance
  Intolerance (film)
  Intolerance is a 1916 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent Era. The three-and-a-half hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines each separated by several centuries: A contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; a...
  
  (1916)
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene from a screenplay by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. It is one of the most influential of German Expressionist films and is often considered one of the greatest horror movies of the silent era. This movie is cited as...
  
  (1920)
• Way Down East
  Way Down East
  Way Down East is a silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. It is the best known of four film adaptations of the melodramatic 19th century play Way Down East by Lottie Blair Parker...
  
  (1920)
• Der Letzte Mann (1924)
• Ben-Hur
  Ben-Hur (1925 film)
  Ben-Hur is a 1925 silent film directed by Fred Niblo. It was a blockbuster hit for newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This was the second film based on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace...
  
  (1925)
• Napoléon (1927)
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
  Sunrise (film)
  Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise, is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" by Hermann Sudermann.Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production...
  
  (1927)
• The Crowd
  The Crowd
  The Crowd is a 1928 American silent film directed by King Vidor. It is notable for its dramatization of the concerns and dangers of urbanization and modernity....
  
  (1928)
• The Cameraman (1928)
• The Cocoanuts
  The Cocoanuts
  The Cocoanuts is the first feature-length Marx Brothers film, produced by Paramount Pictures. The musical comedy stars the four Marx Brothers, Oscar Shaw, Mary Eaton, and Margaret Dumont. Produced by Walter Wanger and the first sound movie to credit more than one director , and was adapted to the...
  
  (1929)
• On the Waterfront
  On the Waterfront
  On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...
  
  (1954)
• Applause
  Applause (film)
  Applause is a 1929 black-and-white backstage musical film, shot during the early years of sound films. It is very notable as one of the few films of its time to break free from the restrictions of sound technology. Based on a novel by Beth Brown, the film was staged and directed by Rouben...
  
  (1929)
• The Locked Door
  The Locked Door
  The Locked Door is an American drama film featuring Barbara Stanwyck in her second film appearance, first starring role, and first talking picture. The film is based on the play The Sign on the Door by Channing Pollock. A previous version was the silent film The Sign on the Door starring Norma...
  
  (1929)
• Possessed
  Possessed (1931 film)
  Possessed is a Pre-Code 1931 drama film directed by Clarence Brown, starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film is the story of Marian Martin, a factory worker who rises to the top as the mistress of a wealthy attorney. The screenplay by Lenore J. Coffee...
  
  (1931)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931 film)
  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fredric March. The film is an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , the Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a man who takes a potion which turns him from a mild-mannered man of...
  
  (1931)
• Shanghai Express
  Shanghai Express (film)
  Shanghai Express is a 1932 American film directed by Josef von Sternberg. The pre-Code picture stars Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, and Warner Oland. It was written by Jules Furthman, based on a story by Harry Hervey. It was the fourth of seven teamings of Sternberg and Dietrich.The...
  
  (1932)
• As You Desire Me
  As You Desire Me (film)
  As You Desire Me is a 1932 film adaptation of the play by Luigi Pirandello made by MGM. It was produced and directed by George Fitzmaurice with Irving Thalberg as co-producer. The adaptation was by Gene Markey, the cinematography byWilliam H...
  
  (1932)
• What Price Hollywood?
  What Price Hollywood?
  What Price Hollywood? is a 1932 American drama film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Gene Fowler, Rowland Brown, Ben Markson, and Jane Murfin is based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns.-Plot:...
  
  (1932)
• Red Dust
  Red Dust
  Red Dust is an American 1932 romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming. The picture is the second of six movies Clark Gable and Jean Harlow made together and was produced during the Pre-Code era of Hollywood...
  
  (1932)
• Mystery of the Wax Museum
  Mystery of the Wax Museum (film)
  Mystery of the Wax Museum is a mystery/horror film released by Warner Brothers in two-color Technicolor and directed by Michael Curtiz. The movie stars Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, and Frank McHugh....
  
  (1933)
• Gold Diggers of 1933
  Gold Diggers of 1933
  Gold Diggers of 1933 is a pre-code Warner Bros. musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin , staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley...
  
  (1933)
• Queen Christina
  Queen Christina (film)
  Queen Christina is a Pre-Code Hollywood feature film loosely based on the life of 17th century Queen Christina of Sweden, produced in 1933, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Swedish-born actress Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith and Lewis Stone. It was billed as Garbo's return to cinema...
  
  (1933)
• Becky Sharp
  Becky Sharp (film)
  Becky Sharp is a 1935 film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Miriam Hopkins. Other supporting cast were Frances Dee, Cedric Hardwicke, Billie Burke, Alison Skipworth, Nigel Bruce, and Alan Mowbray. It is based on the play of the same name by Langdon Mitchell, which in turn is based on...
  
  (1935)
• Peter Ibbetson
  Peter Ibbetson
  Peter Ibbetson is an American black-and-white drama film released in 1935 and directed by Henry Hathaway.The picture is based on a novel by George du Maurier, first published in 1891. In 1917, du Maurier's story was adapted into a very successful Broadway play starring John Barrymore, Lionel...
  
  (1935)
• Desire
  Desire (1936 film)
  Desire is an American romantic drama film released in 1936 and directed by Frank Borzage. It was produced by Borzage and Ernst Lubitsch. The picture is a remake of the 1933 German film Die Schönen Tage von Aranjuez. The screenplay was written by Samuel Hoffenstein, Edwin Justus Mayer and Waldemar...
  
  (1936)
• Camille
  Camille (1936 film)
  Camille is an American romantic drama film directed by George Cukor and produced by Irving Thalberg and Bernard H. Hyman, from a screenplay by James Hilton, Zoe Akins and Frances Marion. The picture is based on the 1852 novel and play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils...
  
  (1936)
• Jezebel (1938)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
  The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)
  The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American swashbuckler film directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Filmed in Technicolor, the picture stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains.-Plot:...
  
  (1938)
• Midnight
  Midnight (1939 film)
  Midnight is a 1939 romantic comedy directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder based on a story by Edwin Justus Mayer and Franz Schulz. It starred Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche and John Barrymore.-Plot:Eve Peabody is an out-of-work American showgirl...
  
  (1939)
• The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
  The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
  The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle is an American biographical musical comedy, released in 1939 and directed by H.C. Potter. The film stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edna May Oliver, and Walter Brennan....
  
  (1939)
• The Wizard of Oz
  The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
  The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
  
  (1939)
• Gone with the Wind
  Gone with the Wind (film)
  Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
  
  (1939)
• The Grapes of Wrath
  The Grapes of Wrath (film)
  The Grapes of Wrath is a 1940 drama film directed by John Ford. It was based on John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F...
  
  (1940)
• Rebecca (1940)
• The Sea Hawk
  The Sea Hawk (1940 film)
  The Sea Hawk is a 1940 American Warner Bros. feature film starring Errol Flynn as an English privateer who defends his nation's interests on the eve of the Spanish Armada. The film was the tenth collaboration between Flynn and director Michael Curtiz. The film's screenplay by Howard Koch and Seton I...
  
  (1940)
• The Long Voyage Home
  The Long Voyage Home
  The Long Voyage Home is an American drama film and directed by John Ford. It features John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Ian Hunter, Barry Fitzgerald, Wilfrid Lawson, John Qualen, Mildred Natwick, Ward Bond, among others....
  
  (1940)
• Citizen Kane
  Citizen Kane
  Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
  
  (1941)
• How Green Was My Valley
  How Green Was My Valley (film)
  How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 drama film directed by John Ford. The film, based on the 1939 Richard Llewellyn novel, was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and written by Philip Dunne. The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and Roddy McDowall...
  
  (1941)
• The Magnificent Ambersons
  The Magnificent Ambersons (film)
  The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins...
  
  (1942)
• Meet Me in St. Louis
  Meet Me in St. Louis
  Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of an American family living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904...
  
  (1944)
• Mildred Pierce
  Mildred Pierce (film)
  Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American drama film starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Eve Arden in a film noir about a long-suffering mother and her ungrateful daughter. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, William Faulkner, and Catherine Turney was based upon the 1941...
  
  (1945)
• The Killers
  The Killers (1946 film)
  The Killers is a 1946 American film noir directed by Robert Siodmak. It is based in part on the short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. The film features Burt Lancaster in his screen debut, as well as Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, and Sam Levene...
  
  (1946)
• Out of the Past
  Out of the Past
  Out of the Past is a 1947 film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. The film was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring , with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M...
  
  (1947)
• T-Men
  T-Men
  T-Men is a semidocumentary style 1947 film noir shot in black-and-white. The film was directed by Anthony Mann with cinematography by noted noir cameraman John Alton....
  
  (1947)

• The Naked City
  The Naked City
  The Naked City is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Jules Dassin. The movie, shot partially in documentary style, was filmed on location on the streets of New York City, featuring landmarks such as the Williamsburg Bridge the Whitehall Building and an apartment building on West 83rd...
  
  (1948)
• Oliver Twist
  Oliver Twist (1948 film)
  Oliver Twist is the second of David Lean's two film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. Following the success of his 1946 version of Great Expectations, Lean re-assembled much of the same team for his adaptation of Dicken's 1838 novel, including producers Ronald Neame and Anthony...
  
  (1948)
• She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
  She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
  She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is a 1949 Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. The film was the second of Ford's trilogy of films focusing on the US Cavalry ; the other two films were Fort Apache and Rio Grande...
  
  (1949)
• Young Man with a Horn
  Young Man with a Horn (film)
  Young Man with a Horn is a 1950 drama film based on a biographical novel of the same name aboutBix Beiderbecke, the legendary jazz cornetist...
  
  (1950)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• The Big Combo
  The Big Combo
  The Big Combo is an American film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis and stylistically photographed by cinematographer and noir icon John Alton with music by David Raksin....
  
  (1955)
• The Night of the Hunter
  The Night of the Hunter (film)
  The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American thriller film directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters. The film is based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee and Laughton...
  
  (1955)
• Picnic (1955)
• Sweet Smell of Success
  Sweet Smell of Success
  Sweet Smell of Success is a 1957 American film noir made by Hill-Hecht-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists. It was directed by Alexander Mackendrick and stars Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison and Martin Milner. The screenplay was written by Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman...
  
  (1957)
• Touch of Evil
  Touch of Evil
  Touch of Evil is a 1958 American crime thriller film, written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles. The screenplay was loosely based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson...
  
  (1958)
• Jules et Jim (1962)
• Lawrence of Arabia
  Lawrence of Arabia (film)
  Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
  
  (1962)
• Hud
  Hud (film)
  Hud is a 1963 western film whose title character is an embittered and selfish modern-day cowboy. With screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., based on Larry McMurtry's 1961 novel Horseman, Pass By, it was directed by Martin Ritt and stars Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal and...
  
  (1963)
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (film)
  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1966 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is an adaptation of the play of the same title by Edward Albee...
  
  (1966)
• The Professionals (1966)
• Cool Hand Luke
  Cool Hand Luke
  Cool Hand Luke is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starring Paul Newman. The screenplay was adapted by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson from Pearce's 1965 novel of the same name. The film features George Kennedy, Strother Martin, J.D...
  
  (1967)
• In Cold Blood
  In Cold Blood (film)
  In Cold Blood is a 1967 film based on Truman Capote's book of the same name. Richard Brooks prepared the adaptation and directed the film. Some scenes were filmed on the locations of the original events, in Garden City and Holcomb, Kansas including the Clutter residence...
  
  (1967)
• The Graduate
  The Graduate
  The Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...
  
  (1967)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
  2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
  
  (1968)
• Rosemary's Baby
  Rosemary's Baby (film)
  Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...
  
  (1968)
• Easy Rider
  Easy Rider
  Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
  
  (1969)
• Midnight Cowboy
  Midnight Cowboy
  Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman and newcomer Jon Voight in the title role. Notable smaller roles are filled by Sylvia Miles, John...
  
  (1969)
• The Conformist
  The Conformist (film)
  The Conformist is a 1970 political drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The screenplay was written by Bertolucci based on the 1951 novel The Conformist by Alberto Moravia. The film features Jean-Louis Trintignant and Stefania Sandrelli, among others...
  
  (1970)
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
  McCabe & Mrs. Miller
  McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a 1971 American Western film starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, and directed by Robert Altman. The screenplay is by Altman and Brian McKay from the novel McCabe by Edmund Naughton. The cinematography is by Vilmos Zsigmond and the soundtrack includes three songs by...
  
  (1971)
• The French Connection
  The French Connection (film)
  This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection .The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore...
  
  (1971)
• The Godfather
  The Godfather
  The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
  
  (1972)
• Fat City
  Fat City (film)
  Fat City is an American neo-noir boxing drama film directed by John Huston. The picture stars Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, and Susan Tyrrell....
  
  (1972)
• Chinatown (1974)
• The Godfather Part II
  The Godfather Part II
  The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a script co-written with Mario Puzo. The film is both a sequel and a prequel to The Godfather, chronicling the story of the Corleone family following the events of the first film while also depicting the...
  
  (1974)
• The Day of the Locust
  The Day of the Locust (film)
  The Day of the Locust is a 1975 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger. The screenplay by Waldo Salt is based on the 1939 novel of the same title by Nathanael West...
  
  (1975)
• Jaws
  Jaws (film)
  Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
  
  (1975)
• Dog Day Afternoon
  Dog Day Afternoon
  Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Frank Pierson, and produced by Martin Bregman. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Penny Allen, James Broderick, and Carol Kane. The title refers to the "dog days of summer".The film was...
  
  (1975)
• Taxi Driver
  Taxi Driver
  Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
  
  (1976)
• Eraserhead
  Eraserhead
  Eraserhead is a 1977 American surrealist film and the first feature film of David Lynch, who wrote, produced and directed. Lynch began working on the film at the AFI Conservatory, which gave him a $10,000 grant to make the film after he had begun working there following his 1971 move to Los Angeles...
  
  (1977)
• Annie Hall
  Annie Hall
  Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
  
  (1977)
• Days of Heaven
  Days of Heaven
  Days of Heaven is a 1978 American romantic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard and Linda Manz. Set in the early 20th century, it tells the story of two poor lovers, Bill and Abby, as they travel to the Texas Panhandle to harvest...
  
  (1978)
• Apocalypse Now
  Apocalypse Now
  Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
  
  (1979)
• Raging Bull (1980)
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
  
  (1982)
• Blade Runner
  Blade Runner
  Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
  
  (1982)
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
  Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
  Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is an American/Japanese film co-written and directed by Paul Schrader in 1985. It was co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas....
  
  (1985)
• Blue Velvet (1986)
• The Last Emperor
  The Last Emperor
  The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures...
  
  (1987)
• Empire of the Sun
  Empire of the Sun (film)
  Empire of the Sun is a 1987 American coming of age war film based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, and Nigel Havers...
  
  (1987)
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  The Unbearable Lightness of Being (film)
  The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a 1988 American film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Milan Kundera, published in 1984. Director Philip Kaufman and screenplay writer Jean-Claude Carrière show Czechoslovak artistic and intellectual life during the Prague Spring of the Communist...
  
  (1988)
• The Last Temptation of Christ
  The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
  The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the controversial 1953 novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis. It stars Willem Dafoe as Jesus Christ, Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene, David Bowie as...
  
  (1988)
• Do the Right Thing
  Do the Right Thing
  Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American dramedy produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee, who is also a featured actor in the film. Other members of the cast include Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, and John Turturro. It is also notably the...
  
  (1989)
• Goodfellas
  Goodfellas
  Goodfellas is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese...
  
  (1990)

Awards

Wins

• New York Film Critics Circle Awards
  New York Film Critics Circle Awards
  New York Film Critics' Circle Awards are given annually to honor excellence in cinema worldwide by an organization of film reviewers from New York City-based publications. It is considered one of the most important precursors to the Academy Awards....
  
  : NYFCC Award; Best Documentary; 1993.
• Boston Society of Film Critics Awards: BSFC Award Best Documentary; 1993.
• National Society of Film Critics Awards: NSFC Award; Best Documentary; 1994.

Nominations

• American Cinema Editors
  American Cinema Editors
  Founded in 1950, American Cinema Editors is an honorary society of film editors that are voted in based on the qualities of professional achievements, their education of others, and their dedication to editing itself. The society is not to be confused with an industry union, such as the I.A.T.S.E...
  
  : Eddie; Best Edited Documentary, Arnold Glassman; 1994.

See also

• Cinematographer Style
  Cinematographer Style
  Cinematographer Style is a 2006 documentary by Jon Fauer, ASC, about the art of cinematography. In it, he interviews some 110 cinematographers from around the world, asking them about their influences and how they create the cinematographic style they do...
  
  (2006)
• No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos
  No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos
  No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos is an American documentary written and directed by James Chressanthis.-Synopsis:This documentary traces the careers of cinematographers László Kovács and Vilmos Zsigmond. These lifelong friends are Hungarian expatriates who had been studying cinematography...
  
  (2006)

External links

• Visions of Light at Box Office Mojo
  Box Office Mojo
  Box Office Mojo is a website that tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. Brandon Gray started the site in 1999. In 2002, Gray partnered with Sean Saulsbury and they grew the site to nearly two million readers when, in July 2008, the company was purchased by Amazon.com through...