Movies with great cinematography

For superb use of light, anything by Michael Mann I think.

Also, Drive is excellent for night photography.

Agree with Lost in Translation too.
 
Federico Fellini's 'Roma'. The scene of the Papal fashion show. So wonderfully Lit and composed. It absorbed me into the film.
 
Anton Corbijn's "Control" from 2007 really impressed me with it's cinematography. Apparently shot with color stock and printed to B/W, Corbijn is notable for being the photographer for many of U2's albums.
 
One of my favorites is 'Out of the Past' by Nicholas Musuraca, and a great one for scenes of New York is called 'The Naked City' by William Daniels. And, though its not a great movie, 'Arrowsmith' (1931) has some amazing shots in it.
 
German Expressionism of the 1920's & Italian Neo-Realism of the post 2nd World War era for B&W photography. The former spent enormous effort in lighting for affect while the later used natural light.
 
Two films that haven't been mentioned:
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, cinematographer - Leo Tover)
A Man for All Seasons (1966, cinematographer - Ted Moore)

Also the beautifully filmed Lawrence of Arabia (1962, cinematographer - F. A. Young)
 
redisburning said:
some fantastic films mentioned, and I was pleasantly surprised to see The Seventh Seal and The Twilight Samurai, two of my favorites. Blade Runner too, but that wasn't a surprise.

I'd like to call attention to director Masaki Kobayashi's films, especially Harakiri. it is an UNBELIEVABLY well shot film.

I'm personally a fan of Nicholas Winding Refn's movies and Only God Forgives really outdid itself IMO. Valhalla Rising is a tough act to follow from a visual standpoint!

I'm surprised to not see mention of the 3 big epics (Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Bridge Over the River Kwai), maybe I missed them? Lawrence is my favorite both visually and as a film.

It might be cheating but many Japanese animated films are great. I'd give the nod to Tenshi no Tamago, Kanashimi no Belladonna and Ghost in the Shell. More cheating is the TV show Kaiba, but if it were a movie it might be at the top of my list!

but probably my favorite film of all time excluding two of the ones in my last little paragraph is Alien. The cinematography really plays up Gieger's transcendent aesthetic work. While I think photographically this film is a bit weaker than some of the others I've mentioned, the overall visual effect of this film is so strong that I feel it deserves mention.
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Twilight Samurai. Glad to find another afficianado. Isn't it just great! Its kind of melancholy and sad but beautiful. And the attention to detail.......wow!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-NlkGBWPc

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-twilight-samurai

The other two movies in Yoji Yamadas great samurai trilogy are "Hidden Blade" and "Love and Honour" All are excellent but Twilight is the best. All involve similar themes about low cast samurai defending women who have been used and abused. Men of honour who live the real values of a samurai in a time when all that was dying away. If you have not seen the other two movies seek them out as well. The third in the trilogy, Love and Honour I place well behind the other two but its still worth watching. All are made with the same wonderfull attention to detail that immerses you in the world of a late Edo Period samurai and the same melancholy style - sadness for a time passing and love lost etc.
 
Notorious. Sunset Boulevard. Pale Rider

Notorious. Sunset Boulevard. Pale Rider

Hitchcock used to mentally walk-through every single camera-placement, camera-angle in every frame, every movie. Sunset Boulevard? a bit self-consciously so, but a movie within a movie, about movies. In color: Pale Rider, Reservoir Dogs.

B&W: most of the early-middle Charlie Chan movies. Yes, film noir, more noir than blanc, and in an era when even the audiences had developed an "eye' for the "eye". Some of the other 'tec flicks were good as well - Double Indemnity?

Until the late Sixties cinematographers preferred to work in B&W - the color dyes of the day weren't good for much beyond bright costumes & huge scenery. Black and white emulsions were "more realistic" because they had better spectral response.
 
peterm1 said:

Twilight Samurai. Glad to find another afficianado. Isn't it just great! Its kind of melancholy and sad but beautiful. And the attention to detail.......wow!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-NlkGBWPc

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-twilight-samurai
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No lose to check out all the movies by the same director, a living legend, Yamada Yoji/ 山田洋次 movies...Yellow Handkerchief, Love and honor/武士の一分, and all his Tora San (Otoko wa Tsurai yo) movies..
Mr. Kimura/ 木村拓哉 in 'Love and Honer' '武士の一分', is also Nikon D600, D800, D7100 spokes person...
 
To my mind the best examples of cinematography, by which I mean films where the visuals are most effectively used as integral parts of the overall experience, are The Third Man (B&W) and Lawrence of Arabia (color). Both visually stunning in their own right, but so effective in enhancing the feeling of the respective storylines.
 
Originally Posted by JSU
Manhattan, Easy Rider, The Shining, Psycho, Battleship Potemkin, Amelie, Barry Lyndon, (Paris, Texas), Days of Heaven, Stagecoach (1939),

there are more but this is what comes to mind right now.

Others come to mind for great computer effects and other computer generated imagery, and as much as I like Blade Runner, I feel too much of it is computer generated, and not actual cinematography.
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grapejohnson said:
it was 1982, they barely had CGI in that movie if any. they used a lot of models. it's an amazing movie.
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I love the movie Blade Runner, as well as Philip K. Dick's book: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

As you state, it was not an example of CGI and more so of model making. I stand by my point, regardless of specifics, that a movie with that much content originating in a model shop or done against a green screen is not in the same class as those I mentioned in my list.
 
Another not yet mentioned:

John Frankenheimer's 1966 production: Grand Prix, done in Cinerama. I recall a Ford GT 40 was used as a camera car.
 
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