Introduction

When I looked at the 31 Days of Oscar Blogathon announcement for this year what came to mind as a good idea for crafts would be to examine Cinematographers who were at the Oscars for work in black-and-white and color cinematography. If I decided to just feature those who had won in both it’d have been a smaller club (60 cinematographers are in it by my count). However, as I say with my own awards: the process is more about what’s nominated.

Furthermore, as my motivation was for the last posts on actors and defunct categories I wanted to learn in the process of writing and chronicling all the cinematographers (most past but thankfully a few present) who have been honored for chromatic and monochromatic work alike.

The Cinematographers

One thing that was surprising to learn is that there are many cinematographers who have gotten tons of nominations. There are 10 who have each had more than 10 each. Granted in the more than quarter-century where color and black-and-white photography were honored separately that’s well in excess of 260 potential nominations (there have been loose limits on total number of nominees in the past), but if you look at actors only five (Streep, Hepburn, Nicholson, Davis and Olivier) have reached that mark.

It makes more sense when you also include that working behind the scenes more often a cinematographers images speak for themselves.

Below you will see those who have been nominated in both and the occasional notes about it.

Please note:

-Some titles appear multiple times because early Color cinematography was often a team endeavor.
-This list was assembled manually so if I am missing a name, or am incorrect about the color palette please let me know in the comments.

1. Ernest Haller

Color – Gone with the Wind, The Flame and the Arrow
Black and White – Jezebel; All this and Heaven, Too; Mildred Pierce, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Lillies of the Field

2. Freddie Francis

Color– Glory
Black and White– Sons and Lovers

3. Joseph A. Valentine

Black and White – Mad About Music, First Love, Spring Parade,
Color– Joan of Arc

4. Karl Freund

Black and White– The Good Earth, The Chocolate Soldier
Color– Blossoms in the Dust

5. Leon Shamroy

Black and White– The Young in Heart, Ten Gentlemen from West Point, Prince of Foxes
Color– Down Argentine Way, The Black Swan, Wilson, Leave Her to Heaven, David of Bathsheba, Snows of Kilamanjaro, The Robe, The Egyptian, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, The King and I, South Pacific, Porgy and Bess, Cleopatra, The Cardinal, The Agony and the Ecstasy

6. Joseph Ruttenberg

Black and White– The Great Waltz, Waterloo Bridge, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mrs. Miniver, Madame Curie, Gaslight, Julius Caesar, Somebody Up There Loves Me
Color– Gigi, BUtterfield 8

7. Robert Surtees

Black and White– Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, The Bad and the Beautiful
Color– King Solomon’s Mines, Quo Vadis?, Oklahoma!, Ben Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Graduate, Dr. Doolittle, The Last Picture Show, Summer of ’42

Won in each medium.

8. Conrad Hall

Black and White– Morituri, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Day of the Locust, Tequila Sunrise, Searching for Bobby Fisher, A Civil Action, American Beauty, Road to Perdition
Color– The Professionals, In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood nomination was after Black-and-White cinematography after category ended.

9. Arthur C. Miller

Black and White– The Rains Came, How Green Was My Valley, This Above All, The Song of Bernadette, The Keys of the Kingdom, Anna and the King of Siam
Color– The Blue Bird

10. Harry Stradling

Black and White– The Human Comedy, The Picture of Dorian Gray, A Streetcar Named Desire, Some Like it Hot, The Young Philadelphians
Color– She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Hans Christian Andersen, Guys and Dolls, The Eddie Duchin Story, Auntie Mame, A Majority of One, Gypsy, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly!

11. James Wong Howe

Black and White– Algiers, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Kings Row, Air Force, The North Star, The Rose Tattoo, Hud, Seconds
Color– The Old Man and the Sea, Funny Lady

12. Charles Rosher

Black and White– Sunrise, The Affairs of Cellini
Color– Kismet, The Yearling, Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat

13. Burnett Guffey

Black and White– From Here to Eternity, The Harder They Fall, The Birdman of Alcatraz, King Rat
Color– Bonnie and Clyde

14. Haskell Wexler

Black and White – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Color– One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bound for Glory, Matewan, Blaze

15. William C. Mellor

Black and White– A Place in the Sun, The Diary of Anne Frank
Color– Peyton Place, The Greatest Story Ever Told

16. Hal Mohr

Black and White– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Four Poster
Color– Phantom of the Opera

Only write-in nomination for cinematography, back in the wild early days of the Awards.

17. Charles Lang

Black-and-White: The Right to Love; A Farewell to Arms; Arise, My Love; Sundown, So Proudly We Hail!; The Uninvited, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir; A Foreign Affair; Sudden Fear; Sabrina; Queen Bee; Separate Tables; Some Like it Hot; The Facts of Life
Color:One-Eyed Jacks, How the West Was Won, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Butterflies are Free

After 14 nominations for black-and-white cinematography was nominated for color in the following years and for the following films: 1961 One-Eyed Jacks; 1963 How the West Was Won; 1969 Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice
1973 Butterflies Are Free

18. Victor Milner

Black-and-White– The Love Parade, Cleopatra, The Crusades, The General Died at Dawn, The Buccaneer, The Great Victor Herbert, The Furies
Color– North West Mounted Police, Reap the Wild Wind

Six black-and-white nominations before 1940.

19. George Barnes

Black-and-White– The Devil Dancer, The Magic Flame, Sadie Thompson, Our Dancing Daughters, Rebecca, Spellbound,
Color– The Spanish Main, Samson and Delilah

Four nominations in first ceremony; Six total before 1945 The Spanish Main.

20. Joseph LaShelle

Color– How the West Was Won, Irma La Douce
Black-and-White– Laura, Come to the Stable, My Cousin Rachel, Marty, Career, The Apartment, Fortune Cookie.

Six nominations before 1963 How The West Was Won.

21. Ernest Laszlo

Black-and-White– Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, Ship of Fools,
Color– It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; Fantastic Voyage, Star, Airport, Logan’s Run

Third Nomination in 1963 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was first in color.

22. Daniel L. Fapp

Black-and-White– Desire Under the Elms; One, Two, Three
Color– The Five Pennies, West Side Story, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Ice Station Zebra, Marooned.

23. Tony Gaudio

Black-and-White– Hell’s Angels, Anthony Adverse, Juarez, The Letter, Corvette K-225
Color– A Song to Remember

Final nomination of six in Color.

24. Milton Krasner

Color– All About Eve, Three Coins in the Fountain, An Affair to Remember, How the West Was Won
Black-and-White– Arabian Nights, Love with a Proper Stranger, Fate is a Hunter

1950 Second nomination was in Black-and-White for All About Eve.

25. Harold Rosson

Color– The Garden of Allah, The Wizard of Oz
Black-and-White– Boom Town, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, The Asphalt Jungle, The Bad Seed

Third nomination was his first in black-and-white (Boom Town, 1940).

26. Janusz Kaminski

Black-and-White – Schindler’s List
Color – Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, War Horse, Lincoln

First nomination in black-and-white.

27. Joseph Valentine

Black-and-White– Wings Over Honolulu, Mad About Music, First Love, Spring Parade
Color– Joan of Arc

Fifth nomination was his first for color. (Joan of Arc, 1948).

28. Robert Burks

Black-and-White: Strangers on a Train, A Patch of Blue
Color: Rear Window, To Catch a Thief

Three of four nominations in Hitchcock films.

29. William H. Daniels

Black-and-White: Anna Christie, The Naked City,
Color: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, How the West Was Won

30. Lee Garmes

Black-and-white: Morocco, Shanghai Express, Since You Went Away
Color: The Big Fisherman

31. Loyal Griggs

Color: Shane, The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told,
Black-and-White: In Harm’s Way

32. Ernest Palmer

Black-and-White: Four Devils, Street Angel
Color: Blood and Sand, Broken Arrow

33. Karl Struss

Black-and-White: Sunrise, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Sign of the Cross
Color: Aloma of the South Seas

34. Sam Leavitt

Black-and-white: The Defiant Ones, Anatomy of a Murder
Color: Exodus

35. Lionel Lindon

Black-and-White: Going My Way, I Want to Live!
Color: Around the World in 80 Days

36. Arthur E. Arling

Color: The Yearling
Black-and-White: I’ll Cry Tomorrow

37. Joseph F. Biroc

Black-and-white: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte B & W
Color: Towering Inferno

38. Robert Elswit

Black-and-White: Good Night, And Good Luck
Color: There Will Be Blood

39. Paul Vogel

Black-and-White: Battleground
Color: The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

40. George J. Folsey

Black-and-White: Reunion in Vienna, The Affairs of Cellini, The Gorgeous Hussy, The White Cliffs of Dover, Executive Suite, The Balcony
Color: Thousands Cheer, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Green Years, Green Dolphin Street, Million Dollar Mermaid, All the Brothers Were Valiant, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Four nominations before a color nomination; no wins.

41. Roger Deakins

Black-and-White: The Man Who Wasn’t There,
Color: The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, Kundun; O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No Country for Old Men, The Reader, True Grit, Skyfall, Prisoners

42. Edward Cronjager

Black-and-White: Cimarron, Sun Valley Serenade, The Pied Piper
Color: To the Shores of Tripoli, Heaven Can Wait, Home in Indiana, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef

Fourth nomination was first in color.

43. Joseph F. Seitz

Black-and-white: The Divine Lady, Five Graves to Cairo, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Rogue Cop
Color: When Worlds Collide

Sixth nomination in color.

44. Russell Harlan

Black-and-White: The Big Sky, The Blackboard Jungle, To Kill a Mockingbird,
Color: Hatari!, The Great Race, Hawaii

Fourth nomination in color .

45. Ruldolph Maté

Black-and-White: Foreign Correspondent, That Hamilton Woman, The Pride of the Yankees, Sahara
Color: Cover Girl

Fifth and final nomination in color for Cover Girl. Shared.

46. Franz Planer

Black-and-White: Champion, Death of a Salesman, Roman Holiday, The Children’s Hour
Color: The Nun’s Story

Fourth nomination in color.

47. Charles G. Clarke

Black-and-White: The Magnificent Ambersons
Color: Hello, Frisco, Hello, Green Grass of Wyoming, Sand

Second nomination in color, shared.

48. Joseph Walker

Black-and-White: You Can’t Take It With You, Only Angels Have Wings, Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Color: The Jolson Story

Fourth nomination color The Jolson Story.

49. Bert Glennon

Black-and-White: Stagecoach
Color: Drums Along the Mohawk

50. Ray June

Black-and-White: Arrowsmith, Barbary Coast
Color: Funny Face

Final nomination in color.

51. Joseph MacDonald

Black-and-White: The Young Lions, The Sand Pebbles
Color: Pepe

52. Ted D. McCord

Black-and-white: Johnny Belinda, Two for the Seesaw
Color: The Sound of Music

Final nomination was in color.

53. Sol Polito

Color: The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Captains of the Clouds
Black-and-White: Sergeant York,

Sergeant York black-and-white second nod.

54. Michael Chapman

Black-and-White: Raging Bull
Color: The Fugitive

55. Edward Colman

Black-and-White: The Absent-Minded Professor
Color: Mary Poppins

Both Disney films, the second famously being a live-action/animation hybrid.

56. Philip H. Lathrop

Black-and-White: The Americanization of Emily
Color: Earthquake

57. J. Peverell Marley

Black-and-White: Suez
Color: Life with Father

Second nomination in color, shared.

58. Sidney Wagner

Color: Northwest Passage
Black-and-white: Dragon Seed

59. Gordon Willis

Black-and-White and Color: Zelig
Color: The Godfather Part III

60. Robert Richardson

Color – Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Snow Falling on Cedars, The Aviator, Hugo, Django Unchained
Partially Black and White– JFK, Inglourious Basterds

All-Color in the Split Era

Just a footnote that the following cinematographers earned ONLY color nominations in the Split Era.

Leonard Smith
Allen M. Davey
Joseph Planck
William V. Skall
W. Howard Greener

All 10 nominations in color cinematography

Oddities

Sven Nyqvist

No black and white nominations. WTF?

Gordon Willis wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for the Godfather, The Godfather Part II or Manhattan. What?

Conclusion

Clearly many cinematographers have proven themselves adept in both styles. Perhaps this will keep black and white occasionally kicking every so often when needed.