From a brilliant field of cinematography Oscar nominees, a critic chooses his 'Favourite'

Best cinematography, quite a few directors of photography will tell you, is too often mistaken for prettiest cinematography.

Certainly the exquisite images in this year's five Oscar nominees - "Cold War," "The Favourite," "Never Look Away," "Roma" and "A Star Is Born" - might seem at first to bear out this prejudice, given that they could furnish five equally gorgeous coffee-table books. In the case of "Roma," shot in shimmering black-and-white by the director Alfonso Cuaron, such a book actually exists (and being in possession of a copy, I can tell you it weighs nearly as much as my coffee table).

The beauty of Cuaron's work lies not merely in the depth and sharpness of its widescreen images (achieved on the large-format Alexa