Days of Heaven

Before coming to the United States and joining the ASC, Néstor Almendros cut his teeth as a go-to cinematographer for François Truffaut and Éric Rohmer; his first Hollywood film was Terrence Malick’s anticipated follow-up to his debut, Badlands. Almendros promptly won a 1979 Academy Award for his work. (Haskell Wexler, who received an Additional Photography credit, stepped in to help finish the film.) Hired by Malick for his sure hand with natural lighting, Almendros ravishingly draws out and amplifies the inherent beauty and poetry of Malick’s 1916-set story, concerning a laborer (Richard Gere) who accidentally kills his boss and flees Chicago for the Texas Panhandle with his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) and younger sister (Linda Manz), where they find work with a farmer (Sam Shepard).