Top 10 Horror Cinematographers of the last Decade! (2021 edition)
Below are the Top 10 horror movie cinematographers of the last decade - 2011 - 2020.
Special Mention: Jacques Jouffret. He needs a big break beyond Michael Bay productions. As he grows into the industry after The Purge franchise, that break is not far off.
Special Mention: Jacques Jouffret. He needs a big break beyond Michael Bay productions. As he grows into the industry after The Purge franchise, that break is not far off.
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- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Toby Oliver ACS is an award-winning cinematographer whose career extends from his native Australia to the United States and internationally. Named as one of Variety's 10 Cinematographers to Watch in 2017, Toby now divides his time between Los Angeles and Sydney and has forged a remarkable and varied range of credits on feature films, documentaries and television.
In the United States Toby shot Jordan Peele's racially-charged thriller horror Get Out in early 2016. Get Out premiered at a midnight screening at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, and went on to score a rare 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, ranking #1 at the US Box Office on its opening weekend. Nominated for four Academy Awards, Get Out won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and has become a cultural phenomenon, to date earning over $258m worldwide. Subsequently Toby lensed writer/director Christopher Landon's time-loop thriller Happy Death Day for Universal. The comedy/horror achieved #1 at US Box Office on release in Oct 2017, going on to earn $125m worldwide while Toby's next Blumhouse movie, franchise favorite Insidious the Last Key opened in Jan 2018 to #2 at the US Box Office. Toby then shot director James McTiegue's (V for Vendetta) home-invasion thriller Breaking In for producer Will Packer (Straight Outta Compton).
Toby also shot the Universal sequel Happy Death Day 2U, again teaming with director Chris Landon and the original cast. In early 2018 he shot the Netflix movie The Dirt, the biopic on the notorious 80's metal band Motley Crue for director Jeff Tremaine (Jackass and Bad Grandpa), released on the streaming service in March 2019.
2019 became a busy year shooting for Toby, completing the Blumhouse thriller Fantasy Island for director Jeff Wadlow, the Kristin Wiig comedy/adventure Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar for Lionsgate, and finishing the year with Season 2 of the Netflix black comedy Dead To Me with stars Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. Dead To Me Season 2 was the #1 show on Netflix in the United States for a week upon its release in 2020 and went on to receive three Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series.
In 2016 Toby had continued his documentary cinematography work shooting the award-winning indie doc Roller Dreams in and around Los Angeles' Venice Beach, while previously he shot the Blumhouse thriller The Darkness for director Greg Mclean, starring Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell; and in New York he shot the indie fantasy creature-feature Wildling for Maven Pictures and director Fritz Bohm with Liv Tyler, Bel Powley and Brad Dourif. Wildling premiered at SXSW 2018 to universal critical acclaim, with a place in the Best 10 of the festival.
A graduate of Melbourne's renowned Swinburne Film School, in his early career in Australia Toby created many notable film images, from the 'beautifully lit' gritty black and white of his prison film debut feature Everynight... Everynight which premiered at Venice, to the box-office hit teen movie and AFI (Australian Film Institute) winner Looking For Alibrandi; and the 'painterly approach' of Tom White, winner of the ACS (Australian Cinematographers Society) Golden Tripod Award in 2005. His work has been seen at major festivals around the world, including Venice, Sundance, Sydney, Melbourne, Busan, Montreal, Tokyo, Shanghai and Toronto. Toby was a guest of the Camerimage Festival in Poland in 2017 for the screening of Get Out and participation in seminars and panels.
Toby's work on the Australian WW1 suspense war drama Beneath Hill 60 in 2010 earned him his third Australian Academy nomination, and the TV movie Beaconsfield about a pair of miners trapped over a kilometer underground in a tiny cage, won many awards including a Gold ACS Award and the ACS Best in Show. Toby picked up another ACS Gold Award for his dynamic and vivid outback cinematography on Greg Mclean's action-horror sequel Wolf Creek 2, and he gathered another Australian Academy nod for the glamorous showgirls of the TV movie Carlotta. Toby has also worked extensively in mainland China, shooting the hit Chinese language rom-com Waiting Alone in Beijing and also the Australia/China co-production 33 Postcards starring Guy Pearce.
Toby also devotes time to encouraging and giving back to the next generation of filmmakers, having participated in workshops, talks and presentations at many institutions and events including AFI (American Film Institute), AFTRS (Australian Film TV and Radio School), Camerimage Film Festival, New York Film Academy, Florida State University, Victoria Film Festival (Canada), ACS (Australian Cinematographers Society) and others.
Toby has a BA (Film & TV) from Swinburne University of Technology, and is an accredited member of the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) since 2004. He is also a member of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) and IATSE Local 600.Must Watch:
Happy Death Day 2U
Happy Death Day
Get Out
Wolf Creek 2- Director
- Cinematographer
- Producer
Michael Fimognari is an American director, producer, and cinematographer, best known for his work on the To All the Boys trilogy (To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018), To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020), and To All the Boys: Always and Forever (2021)) and his collaboration with Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House (2018), Doctor Sleep (2019), and Midnight Mass (2021) among others).
A graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Michael directed an Emmy Award-winning short film before beginning his career as a cinematographer.Must Watch:
Doctor Sleep
Gerald's Game
Before I Wake
Ouija: Origin of Evil
Oculus- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Pawel Pogorzelski was born on 30 July 1979 in Wloclawek, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Poland. He is a cinematographer and producer, known for Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019) and Nobody (2021).Must Watch:
Midsommar
Hereditary
Tragedy Girls- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Brian Pearson was born in 1967. He is a cinematographer, known for From Scratch (2022), See (2019) and Into the Storm (2014).Must Watch:
Insidious: Chapter 3
American Mary- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Art Department
Must Watch:
Us
It Follows
John Dies at the End- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Jarin Blaschke was born on 28 September 1978 in Westminster, California, USA. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for The Lighthouse (2019), The Northman (2022) and The Witch (2015).Must Watch:
The Lighthouse
The Witch- Cinematographer
Maxime Alexandre was born in Renaix, Belgium, 1971. At five years old, he moved to Rome, Italy, with his mother, sisters, and brother. His stepfather, Inigo Lezzi (during that period A.D. for Marco Bellocchio, Gianni Amelio, and Nanni Moretti), let Maxime discover the Italian cinema sets one by one. Maxime soon worked as a young actor in several movies, including "Une Page d'Amour" directed by Elie Chouraqui, with Anouk Aimée and Bruno Cremer and Nanni Moretti's "Bianca" in 1984. A few years later, Maxime discovered his Photography passion on a set of a short-movie directed by his stepfather. In the late 1980s, Maxime moved with his family to Paris, where he began his career in the camera department working in commercials, learning from great Cinematographers like Darius Kondji, J.Y. Escoffier, P. Lhomme, Vilko Filak, and Italian cinematographers including Tonino Delli Colli and Franco Di Giacomo. His earliest work as a Director of Photography was shooting the second unit of a commercial for Michel Gondry. In 2001, Maxime met Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur, working in the second unit for Aja's father, Alexandre Arkadi, on the movie "Break of Dawn" written by Aja and Levasseur. The three collaborated on Aja's directorial debut, "High Tension," two years later. The movie was internationally recognized as the beginning of the French New Wave of horror in the 2000s and was picked up for distribution by Lions Gate Films.
Maxime, Alexandre, and Gregory collaborated again on the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Mirrors." During the making of Hills Have Eyes, Maxime met Wes Craved, with whom he worked on "Paris, Je T'aime," an anthology film that grouped works from Alexander Payne, The Coen Brothers, Vincenzo Natali, and others, and the film was selected to screen at Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, the second time for Maxime after "Marock," a movie directed by Laila Marrakchi in 2005.
In 2006, Maxime was recognized by Variety as one of its Ten Cinematographers to Watch.
Several other films have followed, including P2, directed by Franck Khalfoun; The Crazies, by Breck Eisner; The Voices, directed by Marjane Satrapi; The Crawl, by Alexandre Aja; Shazam, by David F. Sandberg and soon-to-be-release Never let go by Alexandre Aja and Paris Paradis by Marjane Satrapi.Must Watch:
Come Play
Crawl
The Domestics
Annabelle: Creation
Maniac- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Must Watch:
Freaky
A Field in England
Kill List- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Must Watch:
Possessor
We Are Still Here
Antiviral- Director
- Cinematographer
- Producer
Aaron Moorhead was born on 17 December 1987. He is a director and cinematographer, known for The Endless (2017), Spring (2014) and Synchronic (2019).Must Watch:
The Endless
Spring
Resolution