Women Cinematographers From ‘Sinners,’ ‘Song Sung Blue’ and ‘Wicked: For Good’ Could Make Oscar History

This is the first year that cinematography has been included in the Oscar shortlist, and on the list are such familiar names as Dan Laustsen, Guillermo del Toro’s go-to DP, and Robbie Ryan, who works regularly with Yorgos Lanthimos.

But there’s a trend: three women made the cut: Autumn Durald Arkapaw (“Sinners”), Alice Brooks (“Wicked: For Good”) and Amy Vincent (“Song Sung Blue”).

In the history of the category, no woman has ever won the Oscar for cinematography, and only three women have ever been nominated: Rachel Morrison in 2018 for “Mudbound,” Ari Wegner in 2021 for “The Power of the Dog” and Mandy Walker in 2022 for “Elvis.”

This year, Arkapaw made history as the first female cinematographer to shoot on Imax 65mm and Ultra Panavision for “Sinners,” and looks like a front-runner. With a win, she would not only be the first woman
to win the category, she would also be the first Filipina/African American to win an Oscar for cinematography.

Arkapaw and Coogler went out to the desert near Lancaster, Calif., and tested IMAX 35mm and 65mm, with Coogler showing a keen interest in showcasing the landscape — an idea inspired by Quentin Tarantino‘s “The Hateful Eight,” which was shot on 65mm film using Ultra Panavision 70mm. “We screened those tests at FotoKem and the headquarters of IMAX. After you see what you created, you can’t unsee that stuff,” Arkapaw said.

Emotions were key to “Wicked” and its conclusion, “Wicked: For Good.” “The first movie would live in this effervescent daylight and the second film would be steeped in maturity and density and have a weight to it,” Brooks says. “As we were designing it, ‘Wicked: For Good’ has this handmade feel to it, but it also feels textured and raw and edgy.”

Brooks used every color of the rainbow to light the movie. Each scene, color meant something. “Red is when you make the wrong choice. You see that in a lot in the governor’s mansion. Orange is the color of Elphaba’s transformation, and you see it with the flames and with ‘No Dood Deed.'” And blue, Brooks says is the color of love between the two. You first see in the Ozdust Ballroom surrounding and then you see it for the color of the moonlight in ‘For Good.”

But, it’s going to be a tough choice for voters to whittle down the field, given the levels of achievement on display. Among the familiar artisans on the shortlist are two-time Oscar nominee Seamus McGarvey for “Die My Love”; Łukasz Żal, also a two-time nominee, for “Hamnet”; Darius Khondji returns to the race looking for a third nomination with “Marty Supreme”; “One Battle After Another’s” Michael Bauman, who looks to be a front-runner for a nom, as does Oscar-winner Claudio Miranda for his work on “F1.” “All Quiet on the Western Front” Oscar-winner James Friend returns to the race with “Ballad of a Small Player.”

New to the Oscar campaign are David Chambille, who shot “Nouvelle Vague” in black and white on the streets of Paris; Kasper Tuxen’s interiors for “Sentimental Value,” which added to the secrets and untold emotions of the film’s main family; “Sirât,” in which Mauro Herce shot raves and majestic landscapes in the North African desert; Fabian Gamper’s work on “Sound of Falling,” which translates the generational trauma in the film; and “Train Dreams,” in which Adolpho Veloso, who just won the Critics Choice Award for best cinematography, let the magnificent landscape of the Pacific Northwest speak for itself.