Since the dawn of cinema, despite a few early attempts at color images, movies were locked in a haze of black-and-white photography. But in 1939, Dorothy opened her sepia-toned doorway to that land over the rainbow in The Wizard of Oz, and Hollywood began its long march to technicolor glory.
By the 1960s, black-and-white cinematography largely fell by the wayside in favor of big, cinemascope spectacles like Ben Hur. Yet many modern filmmakers haven’t abandoned the unique look that those greyscale images can provide. When used correctly, black-and-white films convey a specific tone and atmosphere that can help the storytelling process. The great indie director Sam Fuller described it best: “Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.”
Below, find movies that embraced the silver screen aesthetic to great effect in the post-1960 modern era of Hollywood.
Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking horror masterpiece that birthed the slasher film had to be in black and white due to its lurid subject matter. The story of Norman Bates and his overbearing “mother” features several gruesome sequences that shocked audiences and the censors alike.
Hitch famously shot the film quickly and cheaply, using the crew from his popular TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Psycho has little of the director’s flashy camerawork, resulting in a stark tone reminiscent of a snuff film. When paired with the “a boy’s best friend is his mother” plot twist, it makes for an unsettling viewing experience.
Ed Wood (1994)
Tim Burton’s love letter to two of his horror icons shows the quirky director tackling meaty dramatic material, resulting in one of his most powerful films. The picture explores the odd relationship between fading horror star Bela Lugosi and Edward Wood Jr, dubbed one of the worst directors in Hollywood when they collaborated on the B-movie Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Martin Landau won a well-deserved Oscar for his performance as Lugosi, bringing deeply resonant humanity to this stylized movie. Burton lensed Ed Wood in monochrome black and white to capture the look and tone of the classic horror features, a perfect fit for this story of Lugosi’s swan song.
Raging Bull (1980)
Director Martin Scorsese cemented his status as one of cinema’s great auteurs with this audacious biopic of hot-tempered boxer Jake LaMotta. Raging Bull stars Robert DeNiro as LaMotta, giving an ultra-methody performance that included extensive physical training and gaining weight to play the boxer in his elder years. Scorsese takes many wild creative swings with a film filled with immersive camera work and shooting the picture in black and white. Reportedly, the main reason for the non-color photography was to differentiate it from a glut of boxing movies spawned from the success of Rocky.
The stark black-and-white picture remains one of Scorsese’s most visually striking films. Raging Bull also swept the Academy Awards that year with eight nominations, including Robert DeNiro winning Best Actor.
Pleasantville (1998)
It’s difficult to recreate The Wizard of Oz’s innovative mixing of sepia with color photography, but Pleasantville comes close. This modern-day fable stars Tobey Maguire as David, a nerdy teen obsessed with an Ozzie & Harriet-style sitcom, Pleasantville. Thanks to a magic remote control from a mysterious TV repairman (played by a charming Don Knotts), both David and his “mean-girl” sister Jennifer (a fantastic Reese Witherspoon) are transported into the black-and-white world of Pleasantville. But soon, the 90s teens' free-thinking worldview brought color and passion to this drab and complacent small-town America.
Director Gary Ross shines here, perfectly recreating the austere atmosphere of the 1950s classic sitcoms and then adding splashes of color as the citizens’ embrace of forbidden passions grows. The simple coloring effects really pop and don’t feel gimmicky since they’re baked into the storytelling.
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
This rare comedy from director Stanley Kubrick features comedic icon Peter Sellers in not one but three different roles in this sharp political satire. The film follows a war room of politicians and generals as they frantically stop an insane American general from bombing the Soviet Union. Kubrick frames Seller’s tour de force performance with his visually striking camerawork that utilizes crisp black-and-white cinematography to significant effect.
Much of Dr. Strangelove’s action takes place in the central war room lit by giant overhead lights resembling a casino where the political establishment plays fast and loose with the fate of the world. In addition to Sellers, the stacked cast includes George C. Scott, Slim Pickens, and an early appearance by James Earl Jones. Sadly, this would be Kubrick’s final black-and-white film.
Schindler’s List (1993)
It’s hard to believe that in the same year that Steven Spielberg directed the crowd-pleasing Jurassic Park, he also helmed this bleak holocaust drama, proving that he was a serious filmmaker. Schindler’s List chronicles how industrialist Oskar Schindler protected his Jewish workforce in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The famous director switched up his populist filmmaking style, bringing a sharp focus to the horrors of the Holocaust.
Spielberg used monochromatic photography in various ways, utilizing grainy film stock for the holocaust sequences. Yet he also brought an air of romanticism reminiscent of Casablanca when Schindler parties with his wealthy elite circle. Spielberg stated in interviews that the black-and-white presentation came to represent the holocaust itself: “The Holocaust was life without light.” No wonder it lands on every list of the best black-and-white films…or best films of all time.
The Last Picture Show (1971)
This gritty coming-of-age drama remains director Peter Bogdanovich’s best film, the success of which he could never match. The Last Picture Show follows a group of high schoolers growing up in an isolated and dying North Texas town in 1951. Bogdanovich hand-picked many young and upcoming actors like Jeff Bridges, Randy Quaid, Timothy Bottoms, and most notoriously, Cybil Shepherd, with whom the married director had an affair during filming.
The bleached black and white cinematography gives the film the perfect desolate look that represents these teenagers’ bleak prospects in life. Orson Welles, who befriended the upstart director in his later years, encouraged Bogdanovich to make the film as a modern black-and-white piece. Two years later, the director would again embrace black and white with his other masterpiece, Paper Moon, starring Ryan O’Neil.
Mank (2020)
One of the most recent black-and-white films, director David Fincher brought his passion project to life by helming his father’s script that explores 1930’s Hollywood through the eyes of writer Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane. Fincher filters his visually striking style through luminescent black and white, matching the look of Orson Welles’ original classic. The film features Oscar-nominated performances from Gary Oldman as Mankiewicz and Amanda Seyfried as screen siren Marion Davies.
Fincher does an impressive job of recreating Hollywood’s golden age through the prism of Citizen Kane’s groundbreaking film language. Mank plays like a companion to Welles’ 1941 classic, filled with homages that capture the unique depth of field only black and white can offer. If anything, Mank shows how closely Welles utilized the life of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst to craft his magnum opus.
Eraserhead (1977)
No one does the surreal quite like director David Lynch. His dreamlike style and nightmarish visuals influenced such filmmakers as Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, and Guillermo Del Toro. Lynch made quite the splash in 1977 with Eraserhead, his debut feature, which has become the ultimate cult classic (and best viewed when smoking potent weed). The storyline follows Henry Spencer struggling to survive his industrial environment punctuated by his angry girlfriend and the cries of his (possibly) mutant child.
Viewer mileage may vary regarding Lynch’s idiosyncrasies as a director, but Eraserhead finds the artist in peak surreal form. The evocative black-and-white photography creates an unsettling atmosphere as you witness Spencer’s mental breakdown from the forces pulling him apart. And the greyscale look brings subjectivity to this abstract tale of a father’s despair.
Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
George Clooney’s sophomore directing effort netted the actor/filmmaker six Oscar nominations, including Best Director. Good Night, and Good Luck explores CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow challenging Senator Joseph McCarthy as he exploited the fear of communism by spreading lies and paranoia. In this age of misinformation and conspiracy theories, the film’s themes are more potent than ever.
Clooney filmed Good Night, and Good Luck in grainy black and white to match how audiences viewed Murrow during his nightly broadcasts in the 1950s. Through this colorless prism, Clooney recreates the tense environment fueling the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The black and white look also helped actor David Strathairn, in an Oscar-nominated performance, bear an uncanny resemblance to the heroic Murrow.
Roma (2018)
For the last 30 years, Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón has produced an eclectic and diverse filmography ranging from franchise blockbusters (Harry Potter & The Prisoner and Azkaban) to the controversial (Y Tu Mama Tambien). But in 2018, the director made his most personal work drawing from his childhood experiences with Roma. Set in the 1970s, the film chronicles a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City, as seen through the eyes of Cleo, the family’s domestic worker.
While Roma was intended as an intimate work, Cuarón shot the film using wide angles in bold black and white. The director wanted every frame to look like an Ansel Adams photograph, resulting in many stunning images that never distract from Cleo’s emotional journey. It’s a shame this was a Netflix production, as Roma’s visuals deserved a large-screen theatrical release.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Director Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder reteamed for this spoof of the classic movie monster Frankenstein. Playing like a comedic sequel to the iconic creature feature, Young Frankenstein follows Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, the American grandson of the infamous scientist attempting to recreate the process of reanimating a corpse. Frederick hopes he can prove his grandfather wasn’t insane but instead unleashes chaos embellished by Brooks' screwball antics.
Brooks does an impressive job of recreating the look of the original Frankenstein with atmospheric photography. But Brooks tamps down his directorial flourishes, letting his talented actors bring the laughs with their impressive comedic chops. In addition to Wilder, the stacked cast includes Madeline Khan, Teri Garr, Peter Boyle, and Cloris Leachman.
Manhattan (1979)
Woody Allen’s black-and-white love letter to his beloved New York City has not aged well since its 1979 release. Allen plays a (what else) neurotic divorced television writer who falls in love with his best friend’s mistress while dating a teenage girl. Despite a talented (and Oscar-nominated) performance from a then 16-year-old Mariel Hemingway, her icky romantic subplot with the 40ish Allen will revolt modern audiences.
Thankfully, the main storyline with Diane Keaton remains charming thanks to her and Allen’s fantastic chemistry. As a director, Allen worked with cinematographer Gordon Willis to capture the elegance and grit of late 1970s New York in gorgeous black-and-white. The famous shot of Allen and Keaton sitting on the bench gazing at the Queensboro Bridge remains one of the most romantic images in film history.
The Artist (2011)
This brilliant celebration of silent cinema cleaned up at the Academy Awards, winning Oscars for Best Actor and Picture. This mostly French production takes the A Star is Born formula and channels it through 1920s Hollywood, following matinee idol George Valentin, who falls for rising starlet Peppy Miller. The Artist nails the visual language of the classic cinema and has some meta-fun moments when it breaks the “sound” barrier in a few select scenes.
While The Artist features classic black and white photography, French director Michael Hazanavicius shot the film in the “Academy ratio” of 1.33:1 to match the silent films of the era, giving viewers an immersive experience. The performances by a cast that includes Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, Joon Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller, and James Cromwell strike the right balance between silent melodrama and the modern method style that helps sell the illusion of the golden age of Hollywood.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Horror maestro George Romero created the living dead “zombie” subgenre with this low-budget feature that became a huge hit and a cult classic. Night of the Living Dead tells the tale of a ragtag group barricading themselves in a rural farmhouse when hordes of undead flesh-eating ghouls rise and ravage the Northeastern United States. It’s the rare horror film that still holds up with a racial commentary written during the civil rights protest of the 1960s.
The black and white cinematography fits the subject matter and gives Night of the Living Dead an atmosphere that recalls the classic monster features. Yet one reason they chose to film colorless was to help cover the low-budget makeup effects and gore, which shocked audiences at the time. The influence of the film still can be felt today, particularly in the long-running The Walking Dead TV series and its endless spin-offs.
Sin City (2005)
Comic’s Legend Frank Miller collaborated with director Robert Rodriguez for the film version of his groundbreaking graphic novel. Sin City features an all-star cast headlined by Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, and Clive Owen, bringing the comic’s nihilist tales of the seedy Basin City to celluloid life.
The highly stylized picture captures the hard-boiled style of the neo-noir comic through its unique cinematography and prosthetic make-up effects to help the actors resemble their comic book counterparts. Even though this is primarily a black-and-white film, there are flashes of color, particularly red, that highlight the violent nature of the story. Sin City even features an extended sequence directed by Quentin Tarantino, joining Rodriguez and Miller to make this a collaborative effort.
