2021 Oscar Predictions: CINEMATOGRAPHY (September)

This year’s batch of cinematography Oscar hopefuls is a surprising mix of names we know, like Greig Fraser (a previous nominee for Lion) who has the Denis Villeneuve sandy space saga Dune and 6-time nominee and two-time Academy Award winner Janusz Kaminski with Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, with what looks to be a lot of newcomers to the Oscar conversation. Erik Messerschmidt, an Emmy nominee this year for David Fincher’s Mindhunter, lenses Fincher’s long-awaited Mank and Joshua James Richards’ gorgeous landscapes in Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland are ready to make some waves this season.

Here are my ranked 2021 Oscar predictions in Cinematography for September. [UPDATED to reflect the just announced move of West Side Story to December 2021]

1. Mank (Netflix)
Erik Messerschmidt

2. Dune (Warner Bros) [moved to October 2021]
Greig Fraser

3. Nomadland (Searchlight Pictures)
Joshua James Richards

4. News of the World (Universal Pictures)
Dariusz Wolski

5. Judas and the Black Messiah (Warner Bros)
Sean Bobbitt

Other Contenders (alphabetical)

Da 5 Bloods (Netflix)
Newton Thomas Sigel

The Father (Sony Pictures Classics)
Ben Smithard

Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix)
Maryse Alberti

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)
Tobias A. Schliessler

Mulan (Walt Disney Pictures)
Mandy Walker

No Time to Die (MGM/UA)
Linus Sandgren

One Night in Miami… (Amazon Studios)
Tami Reiker

Tenet (Warner Bros)
Hoyte van Hoytema

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)
Phedon Papamichael

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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