‘Nosferatu’ and ‘Dune: Part Two’ Among Oscar Nominees for Best Cinematography

Jan 23, 2025

Pesala Bandara

A woman with a surprised expression stands in front of a window with curtains. The image is captured in a dim, blue-toned light, highlighting the details of her patterned clothing and earrings. — A still from ‘Nosferatu’

The 2025 Academy Award nominations were announced today with films including Nosferatu and Dune: Part Two up for the Oscar for Achievement in Cinematography.

Comedians Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott announced the nominations for the 2025 Academy Awards on Thursday morning in a live broadcast from Beverly Hills.

The five nominees for the Academy Award for Achievement in Cinematography were revealed as: The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, Maria, Nosferatu, and Dune: Part Two.

A person in a checkered suit is gazing downward, surrounded by glowing streaks of light against a backdrop of a twilight sky. — A still from ‘The Brutalist’

Lol Crawley is the cinematographer behind The Brutalist, a three-and-a-half-hour epic biopic about an imaginary Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor. The Brutalist has been described as one of the most visually striking films in years — with Crawley’s immersive cinematography particularly praised.

For The Brutalist, which was shot on film, Crawley and director Brady Corbet researched architecture photography and examined how it had been photographed.

“One thing that came across in photographing any sort of architecture, you tend to want to have minimal distortion from the lenses,” Crawley tells Variety. “You may want to use rectilinear lenses so that you don’t get the same sort of distortion when you shoot a wide-angle lens.”

This idea led Crawley and Brady to select the seldom-used VistaVision film, a large-format stock developed by Paramount Pictures in the 1950s to enhance image quality.

Two people, wearing backpacks, sit closely together on a sunlit sand dune in a vast desert landscape. The sand is smooth, with gentle ridges and footprints leading up to where they rest, creating a serene scene. — A still from ‘Dune: Part Two’

Meanwhile, cinematographer Jarin Blaschke earned a nomination for his brilliantly moody and atmospheric visuals on the gothic horror film Nosferatu.

As my colleague Matt Growcoot writes in a piece for PetaPixel, Nosferatu is a cinematography treat. Shot entirely on film, the movie uses candlelight and firelight to create unnerving scenes that are truly masterful in their execution.

Greig Fraser, the Oscar winner for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune in 2021, has been nominated for Best Cinematography again for his work in the sequel. In doing so, Fraser has achieved a historic feat as no sequel to a film that previously won an Academy Award cinematography has ever been nominated in the category.

Fraser’s work on Dune: Part Two builds upon the aesthetic foundation of its predecessor, elevating sci-fi cinematography to new heights. Through striking desert vistas, masterful interplay of light and shadow, and an otherworldly approach to illumination, he has crafted visuals that critics are hailing as among the year’s most stunning.

A person with curly hair stands in a dimly lit room, surrounded by neon red and blue lights. They wear a floral-patterned outfit. The ambient lighting creates a dramatic atmosphere. — A still from ‘Emilia Pérez’

Paul Guilhaume was nominated for his work in the musical thriller Emilia Perez. Meanwhile, veteran cinematographer Edward Lachman was his transporting visual designin the biopic Maria which stars Angelina Jolie as opera singer Maria Callas.

The Oscars ceremony, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will air live from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 2 at 7 p.m. ET on ABC and Hulu.

Last year, Oppenheimer cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work in Oppenheimer — beating out the likes of Maestro, Poor Things, and Killers of The Flower Moon for the accolade.

In his Oscars acceptance speech, van Hoytema urged aspiring filmmakers to shoot with old-school film formats.