Every Best Cinematography Nominee at the 2026 Oscars, Ranked

Already, Autumn Durald Arkapaw has made history by being the first woman of color ever nominated in this category — which is truly absurd. In recent years, Arkapaw has worked with a tremendous number of great musicians on projects, including Haim, Blood Orange, Arcade Fire, SZA, The Weeknd, and Rihanna. She’s also lately been a part of some fairly major films and TV shows, working on Loki, last year’s The Last Showgirl, and Ryan Coogler’s last film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But Arkapaw’s work in Sinners is truly her most exceptional so far.

Sinners is all about handling a very delicate balance of tones, from a drama at first, twisting into a musical celebration, followed quickly by a vampire-focused horror film. It’s hard to imagine Coogler managing this approach quite as effectively without Arkapaw’s cinematography. Every shot of Sinners sings — no pun intended — with Arkapaw knowing how to present the darkness in a way that’s beautiful to behold, as fires blow in the distance, or as vampires’ eyes burn red in the shadows. The entire film looks far more sumptuous than we’ve come to expect from horror films, and even just the “I Lied To You” musical number earns Arkapaw a place on this list of nominees. Few major theatrical releases look like a true work of art, but thanks in no small part to Arkapaw, Sinners is one such film.

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams doesn’t just manage to feel like we’re getting the encapsulation of a man’s life; in the story of logger Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), it also feels like we’re seeing a collection of the memories that created him. Every scene and shot in Train Dreams is like a precious moment, preserved with the same amount of beauty that Robert holds dear. With almost every frame, Train Dreams takes your breath away, and cinematographer Adolpho Veloso knows exactly how to give us that feeling over and over, without minimizing the power of these moments.

Veloso worked with Bentley on his first film, Jockey, and beyond that, Veloso was also the cinematographer for Starz’s series, Becoming Elizabeth. Train Dreams is, without a doubt, Veloso’s biggest project so far, but it’s an extraordinary glimpse at what he’s able to do with the camera and tone of a project. He knows exactly where to place the camera, whether it's showing us a tree falling from the tree’s perspective, or the overwhelming shot of Robert taking a plane ride for the first time, so we can see the joy in his face. Both the darkness of the long nights spent in the woods and the long nights spent in his cabin alone after losing his family manage to have completely different feelings in how they present Robert’s loneliness in this story. Train Dreams is one of the most stunning films of 2025, and it’s going to be great to see more from Veloso going forward.

Dan Lausten and Guillermo del Toro are a perfect match, and Lausten knows how to elegantly craft del Toro’s Gothic stories to perfection. The pair first collaborated on del Toro’s Crimson Peak, and their last three collaborations — the Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, and now, Frankenstein — have all earned Lausten well-deserved nominations in the Cinematography category. Beyond his work with del Toro, Laustsen has also worked on 2023’s The Color Purple and every John Wick film since John Wick: Chapter 2.

For a film so reliant on shadows and darkness, as we enter the castle of Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) and the chambers in which his monster (Jacob Elordi) is kept, so much of this film’s effectiveness relies on Laustsen providing style and mood, which he does here beautifully. From a group carrying torches in the middle of the night to the oppressive brightness of the North Pole, Frankenstein is a film that’s truly stunning to look at in every frame. We’ve seen plenty of Frankenstein adaptations in the last century of movies, but Laustsen’s work in del Toro’s latest might be the most gorgeous of them all.

It’s remarkable that One Battle After Another is only the second film for cinematographer Michael Bauman, but he’s already made a name for himself with his incredible work in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest. Bauman’s first film was also with Anderson in Licorice Pizza, and previously, he’s worked on such Ryan Murphy shows as American Horror Stories, Feud, and Monster. Yet it’s safe to say his finest work so far comes in the best film of 2025.

One Battle After Another takes the viewer on a true journey throughout California over the decades, and it all works largely because of Bauman’s ability to get every new location just right in terms of its look and feel. When we follow the French 75 in the first segment of the film, getting the tone perfect makes this sequence tense and unsettling. As Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) makes his way to his daughter, OBAA is full of tremendous shots, like kids jumping from rooftop to rooftop, or the uncomfortable meetings of the Christmas Adventurers Club. But the film’s pièce de résistance is the final chase down a hilly road. The way Bauman moves the camera, like when Willa (Chase Infiniti) gets into a car, or how the sun feels especially blinding, all speak to the great choice Bauman makes that elevates this story immensely. Hopefully, we'll see more of Bauman and Anderson working together in the future.

In Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, there’s a scene where Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) points out how hard it is to see a white ping-pong ball on a white surface, suggesting his orange ball, which stands out regardless of where it is. In Marty Supreme, cinematographer Darius Khondji shoots Chalamet’s Marty like this orange ball you can’t take your eyes off, a brightness in a darker world he’s trying to burst out of. Khondji’s work makes us feel the griminess of ‘50s New York City, as well as the elegance of those in a better position than Marty that he strives for. From the darkly-lit ping-pong tournaments that present these matches like a massive sporting event, to the harsh lighting of the hospital at the film’s end, Khondji always finds just the right feel for what this film needs.

Khondji has been nominated in this category three times, previously for Evita in 1997 and Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths in 2023, and it’s honestly shocking he hasn’t been nominated more, considering his work. Of all the nominees this year, Khondji might’ve had the most impressive 2025, as he also shot both Ari Aster’s Eddington and Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17. Beyond that, it’s even more surprising Khondji hasn’t been nominated more often, as his work is truly staggering. He first worked with Safdie on Uncut Gems, and he was the cinematographer for such films as Se7en, Okja, Panic Room, Midnight in Paris, and Michael Haneke’s 2007 remake of Funny Games. Based simply on their filmography so far, Khondji is arguably the cinematographer on this list who deserves this award the most, given his history, but it’s still probably not going to be his year, considering the strength of the other nominees.