Well, speaking personally, I'm not really attracted to lists of movies, so I wasn't going to engage with this thread in that way. I'd be interested in a discussion of what constitutes great cinematography beyond pretty shots and technical skill, which are nice things but common enough. Indeed, I think that there are some films that look kind of shitty and aren't very skillful that I'd think of as having great cinematography (John Cassavetes's films come to mind). To me, it's more a matter of how the image/camera observes and engages with the content of the movie, and how it works together to create the cinematic experience. The camera has an attitude and is saying its own things, at least in a thoughtfully and sensitively shot film. But this is separate from obvious beauty.
I'm also not that interested in whether it's the cinematographer or director that makes a movie beautiful. I find myself caring more about what was done and less about who did it, unless we're really gonna talk about what it is that the individual brings to the collaborative process... though we can only guess. Even hearing PTA talk about it, he seems to forget who brought what to the table... eventually you just have to say that the team did it.
But I don't think you're doing the thread wrong, (in fact, I think you did it just right) and I don't think you killed it; I just think it's not a very interesting thread, if all we're gonna do is say that these movies were pretty and these cinematographers were good.
With all that said, I just remembered that there's this thread:
Evolving Shooting Styles Even though it's not titled "What Makes Great Cinematography?," it's the closest thread I could think of that I remember seeing here.
The other thing is that if we DO go into those kinds of conversations, they're more time-demanding, which is probably why that thread also died. But it'd be nice to revive it.
Sorry, I realize that I've come into a thread and yelled at it for not being something else.
