Something seems out of focus: Best picture and best cinematography winners rarely overlap

A week ago, "Slumdog Millionaire" won both best picture and cinematography at the Academy Awards. While that might not strike you as particularly noteworthy, since cinematography is such an integral part of any film, it is actually a rather uncommon overlap -- one that hadn't had happened since "American Beauty" (1999) a decade before and only the 27th of its kind over the 81 years of the Academy Awards. (Believe it or not, there have actually been 31 instances over the 81 years of the Academy Awards in which the film that won best picture was not even nominated for cinematography.)

Both categories seem drawn to similar sorts of films (epic dramas, period pieces, costume dramas, etc.), so why does this happen? It's hard to say. Maybe voters just like to split up pieces of the proverbial pie among films and this feels like a category they can throw at their second favorite film, but really, who knows?

Anyway, here is a list of all 54 instances in which the two categories rewarded different films over the 81 years of the Academy Awards (67%):

• 1928/29 "The Broadway Melody" wins best picture, but "White Shadows in the South Seas" wins best cinematography
• 1929/30 "All Quiet on the Western Front" wins best picture, but "With Byrd at the South Pole" wins best cinematography
• 1930/31 "Cimarron" wins best picture, but "Tabu: A Story of the South Seas" wins best cinematography
• 1931/32 "Grand Hotel" wins best picture, but "Shanghai Express" wins best cinematography
• 1932/33 "Cavalcade" wins best picture, but "A Farewell to Arms" wins best cinematography
• 1934 "It Happened One Night" wins best picture, but "Cleopatra" wins best cinematography
• 1935 "Mutiny on the Bounty" wins best picture, but "A Midsummer Night's Dream" wins best cinematography
• 1936 "The Great Ziegfeld" wins best picture, but "Anthony Adverse" wins best cinematography
• 1937 "The Life of Emile Zola" wins best picture, but "The Good Earth" wins best cinematography
• 1938 "You Can't Take It with You" wins best picture, but "The Great Waltz" wins best cinematography
• 1943 "Casablanca" wins best picture, but "The Song of Bernadette" and "Phantom of the Opera" win best cinematography
• 1944 "Going My Way" wins best picture, but "Laura" and "Wilson" win best cinematography
• 1945 "The Lost Weekend" wins best picture, but "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Leave Her to Heaven" win best cinematography
• 1946 "The Best Years of Our Lives" wins best picture, but "Anna and the King of Siam" and "The Yearling" win best cinematography
• 1947 "Gentleman's Agreement" wins best picture, but "Great Expectations" and "Black Narcissus" win best cinematography
• 1948 "Hamlet" wins best picture, but "The Naked City" and "Joan of Arc" win best cinematography
• 1949 "All the King's Men" wins best picture, but "Battleground" and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" win best cinematography
• 1950 "All About Eve" wins best picture, but "The Third Man" and "King Solomon's Mines" win best cinematography
• 1952 "The Greatest Show on Earth" wins best picture, but "The Bad and the Beautiful" and "The Quiet Man" win best cinematography
• 1960 "The Apartment" wins best picture, but "Sons and Lovers" and "Spartacus" win best cinematography
• 1963 "Tom Jones" wins best picture, but "Hud" and "Cleopatra" win best cinematography
• 1965 "The Sound of Music" wins best picture, but "Ship of Fools" and "Doctor Zhivago" win best cinematography
• 1967 "In the Heat of the Night" wins best picture, but "Bonnie and Clyde" wins best cinematography
• 1968 "Oliver!" wins best picture, but "Romeo and Juliet" wins best cinematography
• 1969 "Midnight Cowboy" wins best picture, but "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" wins best cinematography
• 1970 "Patton" wins best picture, but "Ryan's Daughter" wins best cinematography
• 1971 "The French Connection" wins best picture, but "Fiddler on the Roof" wins best cinematography
• 1972 "The Godfather" wins best picture, but "Cabaret" wins best cinematography
• 1973 "The Sting" wins best picture, but "Cries and Whispers" wins best cinematography
• 1974 "The Godfather, Part II" wins best picture, but "The Towering Inferno" wins best cinematography
• 1975 "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" wins best picture, but "Barry Lyndon" wins best cinematography
• 1976 "Rocky" wins best picture, but "Bound for Glory" wins best cinematography
• 1977 "Annie Hall" wins best picture, but "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" wins best cinematography
• 1978 "The Deer Hunter" wins best picture, but "Days of Heaven" wins best cinematography
• 1979 "Kramer vs. Kramer" wins best picture, but "Apocalypse Now" wins best cinematography
• 1980 "Ordinary People" wins best picture, but "Tess" wins best cinematography
• 1981 "Chariots of Fire" wins best picture, but "Reds" wins best cinematography
• 1983 "Terms of Endearment" wins best picture, but "Fanny and Alexander" wins best cinematography
• 1984 "Amadeus" wins best picture, but "The Killing Fields" wins best cinematography
• 1986 "Platoon" wins best picture, but "The Mission" wins best cinematography
• 1988 "Rain Man" wins best picture, but "Mississippi Burning" wins best cinematography
• 1989 "Driving Miss Daisy" wins best picture, but "Glory" wins best cinematography
• 1991 "The Silence of the Lambs" wins best picture, but "JFK" wins best cinematography
• 1992 "Unforgiven" wins best picture, but "A River Runs Through It" wins best cinematography
• 1994 "Forrest Gump" wins best picture, but "Legends of the Fall" wins best cinematography
• 1998 "Shakespeare in Love" wins best picture, but "Saving Private Ryan" wins best cinematography
• 2000 "Gladiator" wins best picture, but "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" wins best cinematography
• 2001 "A Beautiful Mind" wins best picture, but "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" wins best cinematography
• 2002 "Chicago" wins best picture, but "Road to Perdition" wins best cinematography
• 2003 "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" wins best picture, but "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" wins best cinematography
• 2004 "Million Dollar Baby" wins best picture, but "The Aviator" wins best cinematography
• 2005 "Crash" wins best picture, but "Memoirs of a Geisha" wins best cinematography
• 2006 "The Departed" wins best picture, but "Pan's Labyrinth" wins best cinematography
• 2007 "No Country for Old Men" wins best picture, but "There Will Be Blood" wins best cinematography

Note

Since the establishment of the best film editing category in 1934 (noting that there were two winners -- one for black-and-white cinematography and one for color cinematography -- every year from 1939 to 1966, except 1957) ...

• There have been 28 years in which the winner of best picture was not even nominated for best cinematography: 1928/29, 1931/32, 1932/33, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1963, 1967, 1969, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1989, 1991, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
• There have been 31 years in which the/a winner of best cinematography was not even nominated for best picture: 1928/29, 1929/30, 1930/31, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1952, 1955, 1956, 1960, 1963, 1964, 1970, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1989, 1992, 1994, 2002, 2005, 2006

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Photo: "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight)

Comments

[Robert Hamer]

It's pretty unusual when you think about it. I mean, cinematography is one of the biggest things that seperate films from other mediums. You can get great performances and sets on the stage, and you can get great stories from books and so on, but movies give you that VISUAL experience that cinematography provides. That would imply that many of the best films of the year are - by extension - the best shot films of the year, but like always it seems the Academy disagrees with me.

I also noticed that quite a few of the Best Cinematography winners have stood the test of time better than their Best Picture counterparts. The Third Man is arguably better than All About Eve, and The Quiet Man is a better film than The Greatest Show on Earth. The same is true for In the Heat of the Night and Bonnie and Clyde, The Deer Hunter and Days of Heaven, Kramer vs. Kramer and Apocalypse Now, Terms of Endearment and Fanny and Alexander, Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, A Beautiful Mind and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and so on.