When Is Roger Deakins Going to Win a Best Cinematography Oscar?

Among cinematographers, Roger Deakins is something of a living legend. He's best known as the long-running Director of Photography for the Coen brothers -- he's been with them since "Barton Fink" -- but he's also shot everything from "The Shawshank Redemption" to "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." He's won a ton of awards and will be receiving a Lifetime Achievement honor from the American Society of Cinematographers. But amazingly, he's never won an Oscar.

We were reminded of this while reading a brief interview he did with the Carpetbagger in which it was pointed out that he's been nominated for an Oscar eight times and has gone home empty-handed every time, making him, according to the blog, the Susan Lucci of Oscar nominees. (Of course, that honor would have to go to Kevin O'Connell, a sound mixer who hasn't won in 20 tries.) Deakins' ninth nomination is for "True Grit," and while the Academy Award handicappers known as the Gurus o' Gold think he's got a decent chance of finally winning, it's no sure thing. So we decided to look at his previous nominations just to see who he eventually lost out to:

*** 1995
Nominated for: "The Shawshank Redemption"
Lost to: John Toll, "Legends of the Fall"
Deakins shouldn't feel too bad on this one: "Shawshank" was nominated for seven Oscars (including Best Picture) and didn't win a single one. As for Toll, this would be the first of two back-to-back Oscars he'd snag: The following year, he got it for "Braveheart."

*** 1997
Nominated for: "Fargo"
Lost to: John Seale, "The English Patient"
Though it's hardly a hard and fast rule, a movie that's heavily favored to win Best Picture that's also visually sweeping will almost always win Best Cinematography. This was Deakins' first Coen-related nomination. It definitely wouldn't be his last.

*** 1998
Nominated for: "Kundun"
Lost to: Russell Carpenter, "Titanic"
As with the year before, Deakins didn't have a chance against an Oscar-winning juggernaut like "Titanic." Plus, it surely didn't help that very few people saw Deakins' one and only collaboration with director Martin Scorsese. (Which, by the way, is a pretty astounding-looking movie.)

*** 2001
Nominated for: "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
Lost to: Peter Pau, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
Though the Academy gave this Coens comedy two nominations, it was clearly not one of their films that was beloved by the organization as a whole. Once again, Deakins was up against some stiff Best Picture candidates: Both "Crouching Tiger" and "Gladiator" were up for the same prize.

*** 2002
Nominated for: "The Man Who Wasn't There"
Lost to: Andrew Lesnie, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"
Amazingly, this was the only one of the three "Rings" films that Lesnie even received a nomination for. And while we don't want to diminish Lesnie's achievement, we feel that "The Man Who Wasn't There" was the most soulful and exceptional work that Deakins has ever done, which is saying something. But this was the movie's only nomination, and people generally think very little of this particular Coens film, which is a shame.

*** 2008
Nominated for: "No Country for Old Men" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Lost to: Robert Elswit, "There Will Be Blood"
Was this the greatest year for cinematography ever? The other two Cinematography nominees were "Atonement" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," which all adds up to a pretty stellar group of candidates. Is there any possibility that Deakins split votes between his two equally gorgeous movies? Maybe. Honestly, who would you have given the prize to? For us, it's a toss-up between Deakins' two movies and Elswit's great work in "There Will Be Blood." We wouldn't have been upset with any of the three winning.

*** 2009
Nominated for: "The Reader" (with Chris Menges)
Lost to: Anthony Dod Mantle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Again, Deakins loses to the Best Picture winner. But it's interesting to point out that by this point he had shot two Best Picture winners already: "No Country" (which he lost) and "A Beautiful Mind" (where he wasn't even nominated).

*** 2011
Nominated for: "True Grit"
He's up against the DPs responsible for "Black Swan," "Inception," "The King's Speech" and "The Social Network." Deakins has the most visually sweeping of the five films, which always helps. But he is squaring off with the two front-runners for Best Picture. It looks like one of the tougher categories to pick this year. But if he does end up losing yet again, we feel relatively confident he'll get ample chances to win one in the near future.

Roger Deakins, the Susan Lucci of Cinematography [The Carpetbagger/New York Times]