Since film is above all a visual medium, great directors along with their cinematographers often create images that mirror other forms of art like photography and even painting. I consider myself a minor film and art historian, but instead of looking at these two entities separately, I wanted to try to combine them.

Here are 50 still images out of some beautifully shot films. However, each of these images is only a snap shot, one frame that is part of a whole. However, viewing them alone we can behold their composition as we would a photograph. Notice how light and structure are used in the same way as photography and painting. You can still see the effects of Rembrandt's work in the film art of Kubrick and Godard. In a way, these are hidden gems inside the films of our most visually talented filmmakers.



Metropolis (1927) - Director Fritz Lang - Cinematographers Karl Freund, Gunther Rittau, Walter Ruttmann



Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) - Director F.W. Muranu - Cinematographers Charles Rosher, Karl Struss



L’Atalante (1934) - Director Jean Vigo - Cinematographer Boris Kaufman



Gone with the Wind (1939) - Director Victor Fleming - Cinematographer Ernest Haller



Citizen Kane (1941) - Director Orson Welles - Cinematographer - Gregg Toland



Casablanca (1943) - Director Michael Curtiz - Cinematographer Arthur Edeson



Out of the Past (1947) - Director Jacques Tourneur - Cinematographer - Nicholas Musuraca



The Red Shoes (1948) - Directors Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger - Cinematographer Jack Cardiff



The Third Man (1949) - Director Carol Reed - Cinematographer Robert Krasker



Rashomon (1950) - Director Akira Kurosawa - Cinematographer - Kazui Miyagawa



Singin’ in the Rain (1952) - Directors Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly - Cinematographer - Harold Rosson



Night of the Hunter (1955) - Director Charles Laughton - Cinematographer Stanley Cortez



The Big Combo (1955) - Director Joseph L. Lewis - Cinematographer John Alton



All That Heaven Allows (1955) - Director Douglas Sirk - Cinematographer Russell Metty



The Searchers (1956) - Director John Ford - Cinematographer Winton C. Hoch



Sweet Smell of Success (1957) - Director Alexander Mackendrick - Cinematographer James Wong Howe



Vertigo (1958) - Director Alfred Hitchcock - Cinematographer - Robert Burks



North by Northwest (1959) - Director Alfred Hitchcock - Cinematographer Robert Burks



Breathless (1960) - Director Jean-Luc Godard - Cinematographer - Raoul Coutard



Through a Glass Darkly (1961) - Director Ingmar Bergman - Cinematographer Sven Nykvist



Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - Director David Lean - Cinematographer F. A. Young



8½ (1963) - Director Federico Fellini - Cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo



Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) - Director Jacques Demy - Cinematographer Jean Rabier



Blow-Up (1966) - Director Michelangelo Antonioni - Cinematographer - Carlo Di Palma



Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) - Director Mike Nichols - Cinematographer Haskell Wexler



Pierrot Le Fou (1966) - Director Jean-Luc Godard - Cinematographer Raoul Coutard



Playtime (1967) - Director Jacques Tati - Cinematographers Jean Badal and Andreas Winding



2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Director Stanley Kubrick - Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth



Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) - Director Sergio Leone - Cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli



The Conformist (1970) - Director Bernardo Bertolucci - Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro



The Godfather (1972) - Director Francis Ford Coppola - Cinematographer Gordon Willis



Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) - Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Cinematographer Jurgen Jurges



Taxi Driver (1976) - Director Martin Scorsese - Cinematographer Michael Chapman



Days of Heaven (1978) - Director Terrence Malick - Cinematographer Nestor Almendros



Manhattan (1979) - Director Woody Allen - Cinematographer Gordon Willis



Apocalypse Now (1979) - Director Francis Ford Coppola - Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro



Raging Bull (1980) - Director Martin Scorsese - Michael Chapman



The Shining (1981) - Stanley Kubrick - Cinematographer John Alcott



Blade Runner (1982) - Director Ridley Scott - Cinematography Jordan Cronenweth



Wings of Desire (1988) - Director Wim Wenders - Cinematographer Henri Alekan



Double Life of Veronique (1991) - Director Krzysztof Kieslowski - Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak



Schindler’s List (1993) - Director Steven Spielberg - Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski



Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - Director Peter Jackson - Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie



Amelie (2001) - Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet - Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel



There Will Be Blood (2007) - Director Paul Thomas Anderson - Cinematographer Robert Elswit



Inception (2010) - Director Christopher Nolan - Cinematographer Wally Pfister



Tree of Life (2011) - Director Terrence Malick - Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki



Moonrise Kingdom (2012) - Director Wes Anderson - Cinematographer Robert Yeoman



Her (2013) - Director Spike Jonze - Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema



Gravity (2013) - Director Alfonso Cuaron - Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki