One Battle After Another’s Michael Bauman has won the American Society of Cinematographers’ top prize for work on a theatrical feature-film, setting the Oscar nominee up as the front-runner to win the Academy Award in exactly one week. To this point, the race has been considered a nailbiter: Bauman also won the BAFTA, Train Dreams’ Adolpho Veloso won the Spirit Award, and Sinners’ Autumn Durald Arkapaw dominated the critics’ awards circuit (she’d be the first woman ever to win the cinematography Oscar). The list of nominees was rounded out by Frankenstein’s Dan Laustsen and Marty Supreme’s Darius Khondji, both of whom are also nominated at the Oscars.
This is the second time in three years that the ASC Awards and the Academy landed on the same lineup of cinematography nominees. (Last year, the guild oddly expanded its nominations slate from the usual five to seven, but still blanked the Oscar-favored Emilia Pérez.) When it comes to winners, however, the voting bodies have matched for best cinematography only six out of the last 10 years, going their separate ways just last year when the guild honored legend Edward Lachman’s work on Maria before the Oscars went with the stronger overall contender, Lol Crawley of The Brutalist.
This means that all is not lost, particularly, for Sinners and Train Dreams, who remain in the hunt. It’s also worth noting that, unlike the Academy, the ASC already ended its dreadfully overdue streak of male-only winners in the feature-film category: Mandy Walker became the first woman to win the award three years ago for Elvis, before going on to lose the Oscar to All Quiet on the Western Front’s James Friend. For Durald Arkapaw and Sinners, that breakthrough remains very much on the table for next week.
The documentary category featured only one Oscar-nominated film, Come See Me in the Good Light, but it lost to 2000 Meters from Andriivka, which used body-cam footage in its visceral wartime portrait. The TV winners meanwhile went in a different direction from the rest of guild season: The Studio won for half-hour series (Adam Newport-Berra for the episode “The Oner”), but Andor (Christophe Nuyens) and Task (Alex Disenhof) tied for one-hour series, defeating Emmy winner Severance (The Pitt was not nominated). There was an even bigger upset in limited series: The one-take wonder Adolescence lost to the Netflix noir Black Rabbit (Pete Konczal).
The awards ceremony was held at The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, and hosted by The Four Seasons star Kerri Kenney-Silver. Presenters included Jason Reitman, Owen Wilson and Rachel Brosnahan, with special awards being presented to Guillermo del Toro, Robert Yeoman and more. See the full list of winners below.
Theatrical Feature Film
Autumn Durald Arkapaw, ASC for “Sinners”
WINNER: Michael Bauman for “One Battle After Another”
Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC for “Marty Supreme”
Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF for “Frankenstein”
Adolpho Veloso, ABC, AIP for “Train Dreams”
Episode of a Half-Hour Series
Adam Bricker, ASC for “Hacks” (“I Love LA”)
Fraser Brown, CSC for “Twisted Metal” (“NUY3ARZ”)
Paul Daley for “The Righteous Gemstones” (“Prelude”)
Daniel Grant for “Murderbot” (“Escape Velocity Protocol”)
Matthew J. Lloyd, ASC for “Government Cheese” (“Trial and Error”)
WINNER: Adam Newport-Berra for “The Studio” (“The Oner”)
Limited/ Anthology Series/ Motion Picture Made for TV
Michael Bauman for “Monster: The Ed Gein Story” (“Buxum Bird”)
Sam Chiplin for “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” (“Episode One”)
WINNER: Pete Konczal, ASC for “Black Rabbit” (“Isle of Joy”)
Matthew Lewis for “Adolescence” (“Episode Two”)
Igor Martinović for “Black Rabbit” (“Attaf**kinboy”)
Episode of a One-Hour Regular Series
WINNER (tie): Alex Disenhof, ASC for “Task” (“Crossings”)
Jessica Lee Gagné for “Severance” (“Hello, Ms. Cobel”)
Dana Gonzales, ASC for “Alien: Earth” (“Neverland”)
Ben Kutchins, ASC for “The White Lotus” (“Killer Instincts”)
WINNER (tie): Christophe Nuyens, SBC for “Andor” (“I Have Friends Everywhere”)
Spotlight Award
Steven Breckon for “The Plague”
WINNER: Mátyás Erdély, ASC, HSC for “Orphan”
Karl Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK for “Amrum”
Documentary Award
Mstyslav Chernov and Alex Babenko for “2000 Meters from Andriivka”
WINNER: Brandon Somerhalder for “Come See Me in the Good Light”
Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo and Tor Edvin Eliassen for “Folktales”
ASC Music Video Award
Jeff Cronenweth, ASC for “Supernatural” (Performed by Ariana Grande)
Jon Joffin, ASC and Mitchell Baxter for “False Prophet” (Performed by Pillars of a Twisted City)
Jon Joffin, ASC for “Visiting Hours” (Performed by Jon Bryant)
Juliette Lossky for “Altamaha-ha” (Performed by Stacy Subero)
WINNER: Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC for “The Fate of Ophelia” (Performed by Taylor Swift)
Honorees
Guillermo del Toro — Board of Governors Award (presented by Jason Reitman)
Robert Yeoman, ASC — Lifetime Achievement Award (presented by Owen Wilson)
M. David Mullern, ASC — Career Achievement in Television Award (presented by Rachel Brosnahan )
Cynthia Pusheck, ASC — Presidents Award (presented by Baz Iodine, ASC and John Simmons, ASC)
Stephen Pizzello — Award of Distinction (presented by Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS, AM)
Kodak — Curtis Clark ASC Technology Award (presented by Giovanni Ribisi)
