Oscars 2023: Best Cinematography Predictions

We’ll be updating all of our Oscar predictions throughout the season, so stay tuned to IndieWire for the latest news on the 2023 Oscar race. The nomination round of voting will run from January 12 to January 17, 2023, and the official Oscar nominations will be announced on January 24, 2023. The final vote will take place between March 2 and 7, 2023. Finally, the 95th Academy Awards will be broadcast. on Sunday, March 12 and live on ABC at 8:00 PM ET/ 5:00 PM PT.

Check out our initial thoughts on what to expect at the 95th Academy Awards.

Roger Deakins (“Empire of Light”), James Friend (“Quiet on the Western Front”), Florian Hoffmeister (“THE LIBRARY”), Darius Khondji (“Bardo, The False Chronicle of a Handful of Truth”) and Mandy Walker (“Elvis”) was nominated for an Oscar for best cinematography on Tuesday. In a field where three first-time nominees missed out on the category’s perennials, it looks like a race between Walker (who can finally make history by breaking the Oscar glass ceiling in his branch) and Friend.

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Three of the five nominees — Deakins, Khondji and Walker — were also nominated at the 37th Annual ASC Awards (held March 5 at the Beverly Hilton and broadcast live). As a forecast, the ASC winner has won the Oscar for best cinematography in seven of the past 11 years, though there’s still a chance it could be someone not considered by the Academy: ASC nominees include last year’s Oscar winner. , Greig Fraser (“The Batman”) and Claudio Miranda (“Top Gun: Maverick”). Miranda’s omission is the biggest shocker among the Oscar nominees, given that she was the favorite for her groundbreaking work in the high-octane “Maverick.” Miranda brought visceral realism and, thanks to the Sony Rialto Camera Extension System, took us thrillingly into the cockpits of the Navy with Tom Cruise. Apparently it wasn’t enough to get the account to vote for him.

By contrast, the nominations for Friend and Hoffmeister were a pleasant surprise: Friend digitally shot Edward Berger’s acclaimed anti-war drama (nominated for Best Picture, as well as Germany’s for International Film) as a gripping horror film with a mix of large-format cameras. Through a series of long takes on the battlefield and in the trenches of the First World War, he captured the sheer scope of relentless artillery attacks and massive carnage.

Hoffmeister (who won the top prize at Poland’s Cameraimage International Film Festival) digitally shot Todd Field’s Best Picture nominee about uncompromising composer-conductor Lydia Tár (Best Actress favorite Cate Blanchett) as a clinical dance between subjectivity and reality. He was particularly inspired by the German New Objectivity, especially the photographers Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth.

Walker presented Baz Luhrmann’s dazzling picture of Elvis Presley’s life with carnival excitement. She is only the third woman to be nominated for the Oscar for best cinematography, after Ari Wegner (“The Power of the Dog”) last year and Rachel Morrison (“Muddy”) in 2018, and her work “Elvis” has already collected the Audience Award and festival directors award at Camerimage and Best Cinematography at the Australian Academy of Film and Television Arts.

“Bardo” is Khondji’s first nomination since his initial collaboration with director Alejandro González Iñárritu for “Evita.” In Iñárritu’s mind-bending, semi-autobiographical journey back to Mexico City, Khondji (Camerimage runner-up and winner of the festival’s International Film Critics Association Award) conjures the city as a wildly imaginative mindscape through the blurring of reality and memory. .

The legendary Deakins (Oscar winner for “1917” and “Blade Runner 2049”) earns his 16th nomination, but finds himself in the dark horse position for his excellent portrayal of Sam Mendes’ underrated love letter to 1980s English seaside cinema . which offered the right scenery with a beautiful sky and gray sea.

In addition to Miranda and Fraser, other notable absences include two-time Oscar winner Janusz Kamiński (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Schindler’s List”) for his colorful, multi-textured period work on Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans”; Hoyte van Hoytema for his innovative large-format day-for-night sequences and IMAX action set pieces for Jordan Peele’s Nope (which led IndieWire’s Best Cinematography of 2022 list); and “Titanic” Oscar winner Russell Carpenter, whose brilliant blend of practical and virtual visuals in James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” probably leaned too much on the latter to please voters.

Below is a list of the candidates in order of probability of victory:

Mandy Walker (“Elvis”)
James Friend (“All Quiet on the Western Front”)
Roger Deakins (“Empire of Light”)
Darius Khondji (“Bardo, the False Chronicle of a Handful of Truth”)
Florian Hoffmeister (“LIBRARY”)

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