Amazing Movie Stills That Could Be Photographs or Paintings

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