The ASC published a voted list of 100 milestone films

The image

The document is American Cinematographer's own feature, A Century of Inspiration, published 16 July 2019 as part of the ASC's centennial coverage. It reproduces a still from Lawrence of Arabia, photographed by Freddie Young, BSC, showing T.E. Lawrence walking the dunes with Sherif Ali, alongside a production photo of director David Lean at a 65mm Super Panavision 70 camera with Young beside him. Both images are archival production stills credited to the AC Archives, not new photography commissioned for the article.

What the documents show

The feature states that the list of 100 milestone films of the 20th century was organized by Steven Fierberg, ASC and voted on by the Society's active members, who each first submitted ten to twenty-five personally influential titles before a master list was compiled and narrowed by vote. Fierberg is quoted saying the Society does not presume one achievement is 'better' than another; the piece confirms a Top 10 ordered strictly by vote count, with the other ninety titles left unranked. As an example of what the list documents beyond a title, the article quotes cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth's own account, previously published in American Cinematographer, of the two-way-mirror rig used to create the glowing-eye effect for replicants in Blade Runner, placed second on the list. A companion piece, covering the August 2019 centennial issue, confirms the list's release date fell within the Society's 100th-anniversary year and situates it among other centennial features rather than as a stand-alone survey.

Production context

Editorially, the selection method, member nominations rounded into one master ballot, reads as a membership self-portrait: it records what working ASC cinematographers say shaped their own approach to the craft, not a critical or academic ranking compiled by outside historians. That distinction matters for how much weight the list can bear.

Reference versus imitation

The Cronenweth quotation shows the difference between documented technique and vague homage: a two-way mirror at forty-five degrees with a projected light source is a specific, attributed, repeatable method, credited to a named cinematographer in his own words, not a claim that later films merely resembling Blade Runner's eyes are copying it. Citing the list should mean citing what a title's own entry documents, not treating inclusion itself as proof of any specific technique.

• Does the list's own framing claim a ranking, or does it say the further 90 titles are unranked?
• Is a technique attributed to a named cinematographer's own published account, or inferred from the image alone?
• Was a film selected by member vote for personal influence, or for another stated reason?

Read this way, the 2019 list is best used as a dated record of what ASC members said moved them, anchored by specific, sourced craft detail like the Cronenweth account, rather than as an external verdict on cinematography's history.