Cinematography: Nathaniel Dorsky

The best movies, series, and documentaries with cinematography by Nathaniel Dorsky. Explore visually stunning titles that highlight an exceptional filmmaking.


Pastourelle (S)

2010 · Documentary · 17 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot A pastourelle and an aubade are two different forms of courtship songs from the Troubadour tradition. In this case, the film Pastourelle, a sister film to Aubade, is in the...

8.6

24 votes

8.6

24 votes

Threnody (S)

2004 · Documentary · 25 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Threnody is a somber but luminous progression through a delicate articulation of earthly phenomena… an offering to a friend who died. It is the second of two devotional songs, the...

8.3

28 votes

8.3

28 votes

Alaya

1987 · Documentary · 28 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot "Alaya manages a perfection of ‘musical’ light across a space of time greater in length than would seem possible... and with minimal means of line and tone. After about three...

8.3

35 votes

8.3

35 votes

Compline (S)

2009 · Documentary · 19 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Compline is a night devotion or prayer, the last of the canonical hours, the final act in a cycle. This film is also the last film I will be able...

8.3

27 votes

8.3

27 votes

Sarabande (S)

2008 · Documentary · 15 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Dark and stately is the warm, graceful tenderness of the Sarabande. (N.D.)

8.0

24 votes

8.0

24 votes

August and After (S)

2012 · Documentary · 19 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Nathaniel Dorsky's August and After is dedicated to two recently departed friends, legendary filmmaker George Kuchar and actress Carla Liss. The film shows them vibrantly, resiliently alive shortly before their...

7.9

48 votes

7.9

48 votes

Variations (S)

1998 · Documentary · 24 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Variations blossomed forth while shooting additional material for Triste. What tender chaos, what current of luminous rhymes might cinema reveal unbridled from the daytime word? During the Bronze Age a...

7.9

74 votes

7.9

74 votes

The Return

2011 · Documentary · 27 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Dorsky delves deep into multiple (under)worlds, sometimes uncanny and surreal, reflected and refracted through various natural and man-made obfuscations like grids, glass, water and brush.

7.7

41 votes

7.7

41 votes

Elohim

2017 · Documentary · 31 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Elohim was photographed in early spring, the week of the lunar new year, the very spirit of creation.

7.6

28 votes

7.6

28 votes

Aubade (S)

2010 · Documentary · 12 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot An aubade is a poem or morning song evoking the first rays of the sun at daybreak. Often, it includes the atmosphere of lovers parting. This film is my first...

7.6

60 votes

7.6

60 votes

Pneuma (S)

1983 · Documentary · 28 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot In Stoic philosophy “pneuma” is the “soul” or fiery wind permeating the body, and at death survives the body but as impersonal energy. Similarly, the “world pneuma” permeates the details...

7.2

23 votes

7.2

23 votes

Catch A Tiger (S)

1963 · Documentary · 23 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot "Catch A Tiger, which showed the activity in two nursery schools that experimented with allowing four year olds to improvise in music and visual constructions and assemblages. I was inspired...

Not rated

Not rated

Song (S)

2013 · Documentary · 16 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Not rated

Not rated

O Death (S)

2023 · Documentary · 6 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot In the spirit of the times and my own growing older, a brief tip of the hat… (Nathaniel Dorsky)

Not rated

Not rated

Ariel (S)

1983 · Documentary · 16 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Ariel is a highly energetic and colorful divertissement of abstract film achieved with improvised home color processing and a physical, almost sculptural manipulation of the film surface.

Not rated

Not rated

Terce (S)

2021 · Documentary · 12 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Terce is the sixth film made during the Covid crises… the yellow greens of spring at last… the beginning of a greater relaxation. (Nathaniel Dorsky)

Not rated

Not rated

Monody (S)

2017 · Documentary · 16 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Monody, shot in the fading autumnal glory is an energized declaration of the end.

Not rated

Not rated

Abaton (S)

2017 · Documentary · 19 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot Abaton was photographed a few weeks later in the full ripeness of spring, the very purity and intoxication of passion.

Not rated

Not rated

February (S)

2014 · Documentary · 17 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Plot "February was photographed during the first weeks of early spring in San Francisco. For me there is a haunted sense of restlessness in its form, some desire for a new...

Not rated

Not rated

Spring (S)

2013 · Documentary · 16 min. · United States

Direction Nathaniel Dorsky

Not rated

Not rated